JUNIOR COLLEGES : Restructured WSC Gets Mixed Reviews : Football: Annual game between Valley and Pierce is lost in realignment.

Reshuffled and reshaped, the Western State Conference will have a new look this football season, but not everyone likes what they see.

“I don’t think (the realignment) was done fairly,” said Jim Fenwick, Valley College coach. “There was supposed to be some balance (in the two divisions) but I don’t think there is.”

Other coaches, including Bill Norton at Pierce and John Cicuto at Glendale, are pleased with the changes that among other things, creates unbalanced divisions in a 13-team conference and temporarily halts the longtime Pierce-Valley rivalry.

Cicuto, in particular, rebuffs Fenwick’s contention that there is no parity.

“If you look at the first four teams on each side, their records are pretty equal over the last two or three years,” said Cicuto, in his sixth season with the Vaqueros. “We thought all the schools were happy (with the realignment).”

The realignment was prompted by Hancock College’s return to the WSC after leaving for the Coast Conference six years ago. Hancock’s return sent chills down the spines of cost-conscious athletic directors in the WSC--especially those at the southernmost campuses--who did not cherish the idea of traveling to Santa Maria to play Hancock.

Under a restructuring plan drawn primarily from one presented by Cicuto at the realignment meeting, Hancock was placed in the North Division with two-time defending division champion Moorpark and Glendale, Pierce, Santa Barbara City and Ventura.

Perennial-power Bakersfield was placed in the South with Valley, Compton, Harbor, L.A. Southwest, Santa Monica and West L.A. In the new format, Pierce moved to the North, and Harbor and Compton switched to the South.

The odd number of teams in the South left most of the division’s teams with only one nonconference matchup in a 10-game season. Or none, as in Valley’s case. The Monarchs open with an interdivisional game at Santa Barbara on Saturday at 7 p.m. and won’t face anyone outside the WSC unless it is in a bowl game.

To reach one of those bowl games, a team must win its division or have an overall record that elicits an invitation from bowl organizers. With fewer nonconference games, that means that WSC games are more important than ever.

Cicuto said the primary considerations in the realignment were parity, travel costs and natural rivalries. For instance, he said Harbor wanted to be in the South to save money by playing teams closer to home and to be guaranteed games against neighboring Compton and L.A. Southwest.

Despite those intentions, the Pierce-Valley rivalry will take the year off. The teams’ interdivisional schedules, drawn from a hat, did not include each other. For now, the Victory Bell that goes to the winner of the annual clash will remain at Valley, which won last year’s game, 27-23, but trails in the series, 16-11.

Pierce which happily filled the vacancy left in the North by Harbor’s switch, will try its luck in a new division because Norton said he wanted to escape Bakersfield’s stronghold--five division titles in the past six seasons--in the South.

“To win in that division (South), you have to beat Bakersfield, and beating them, especially at their place, is a near impossibility,” said Norton, in his fourth season at Pierce.

Because Moorpark (35-8-1) and Bakersfield (34-8-1) have the best overall records the past four seasons, geographical considerations were disregarded in their cases so the two schools would be in different divisions. In the preseason ratings by the California Community College Football Coaches’ Assn., Bakersfield is ranked No. 1, Moorpark 13th.

In the South, Bakersfield, Valley (22-18-1), Santa Monica (24-17-1) and L.A. Southwest (19-20-2) have a combined overall record of 99-63-5 the past four seasons. In the North, Moorpark, Glendale (26-15-1), Santa Barbara (23-18) and Pierce (15-26) are 99-67-2.

“I don’t pay any attention (to the realignment issue), to tell you the truth,” said Moorpark Coach Jim Bittner, who is in his 17th season. “I remember sitting in meetings and one minute it went one way and the next it went another way. There’s supposed to be some logic to it but I don’t know. Every year we just line up and try to win as many games as we can. This is a tough conference no matter how you look at it.”