Montclair Prep Girls’ Team Aligns With Westside League : Basketball: Grouping also includes Highland Hall, Wise Community and West Valley Christian.

The Montclair Prep girls’ basketball team has become the fourth school sport program to join a league since the Mounties were ousted from the Alpha League in 1992.

The girls have been added to the Westside League, joining Highland Hall, Wise Community and West Valley Christian.

The golf and boys’ tennis teams are members of the Prep League, and the wrestling team has joined the newly formed Mission League with Alemany, Chaminade and Harvard-Westlake.

The seven programs at Montclair Prep that remain independent and compete on a free-lance basis are football, baseball, boys’ basketball, boys’ soccer, softball and boys’ and girls’ volleyball.

“We are very happy to have Montclair Prep,” said Westside League President Humberto Ramirez, the athletic director at Highland Hall. “The main emphasis for us was to find a school to complete our league.”

Leagues must field four teams to be officially recognized by the Southern Section and receive automatic playoff berths.

“I think it helps both sides,” Montclair Prep Athletic Director Greg Reece said. “We needed a league and, with us in, it helps the other teams get into the playoffs.”

Two Westside teams are guaranteed berths in the girls’ basketball playoffs, a Southern Section spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Montclair Prep was voted out of the Alpha League after the Southern Section placed the school on three years’ probation and banned the Mounties from the playoffs in all sports during the 1991-92 school year. The ban followed an investigation into allegations of illegal recruiting in the football program as well as grade-tampering.

Since then, the school has scrambled for league affiliation.

“I don’t care if I have to cross-league every team,” Reece said of his efforts. “That means 22 league meetings for me, but it gives our athletes the opportunity to be named to all-league teams.”

And make the playoffs.

Last season, the boys’ basketball team posted a 15-6 record but failed to receive a bid to the 20-team IV-A Division bracket. Montclair Prep had a better record than seven of the teams competing in the divisional playoffs, but bids were awarded to teams with guaranteed spots based on league play.

Montclair Prep, with an enrollment of 350 students, has a larger student base than the three other Westside League schools combined.

Highland Hall, West Valley Christian and Wise Community have a composite enrollment of 339.