Top County Teams Get Playoff Assignments

The county’s three unbeaten football teams got what they expected Sunday as the Southern Section released its playoff pairings.

Mater Dei goes into the Division I playoffs as the favorite, and so does Aliso Niguel in Division V. The other unbeaten team, Rancho Alamitos, is also in Division V and is seeded second.

They aren’t the only first- and second-seeded teams from Orange County. Servite (9-1) is No. 1 in the all-Orange County Division V and Santa Margarita (9-1) is No. 2. In Division X: Orange Lutheran (9-1) is seeded second behind Frontier League champion Ojai Nordhoff (9-0-1).

The playoffs are scheduled to begin Friday.

Mater Dei Coach Bruce Rollinson said he was mostly “interested in seeing what [being named the] top seed would get you,” and it got the Monarchs a pretty reasonable draw. They open the playoffs at Santa Ana Stadium against Long Beach Jordan (5-5), a team Mater Dei beat, 37-0, in the second week of the season.

Said Rollinson: “I didn’t particularly want to see [Santa Fe Springs] St. Paul.”

St. Paul (6-4) was the at-large team, getting the nod ahead of San Clemente (5-5) and Edison (6-4).

In the Sunset League, where there was a three-way tie for first place, Fountain Valley went as the No. 1 team by virtue of a coin flip, Esperanza No. 2 and Los Alamitos No. 3.

Fountain Valley (7-3) plays host to defending champion La Puente Bishop Amat (7-3), Esperanza (8-2) plays at the University of Redlands against Redlands (8-2) and Los Alamitos (9-1) plays Moore League champion Long Beach Poly (7-3) at Long Beach Wilson High in the division’s best first-round matchup.

Mater Dei could play Esperanza in the second round, and Los Alamitos in the semifinals. Los Alamitos could play fourth-seeded Bellflower St. John Bosco (8-1-1), the second-place team in the Del Rey League, in the second round.

Aliso Niguel, in its third full varsity season, finds itself in a similar position to Mater Dei, which Rollinson called “the undefeated syndrome,” the idea of going into the playoffs without having lost and suddenly having no margin for error.

And like Mater Dei’s hard-fought 20-15 victory over Capistrano Valley to win the South Coast League title, Aliso Niguel is coming off an emotionally-charged 28-21 victory over previously unbeaten Laguna Hills for the Pacific Coast League crown.

Laguna Hills is seeded third in Division VIII and opens against at-large Pacifica (7-3). Aliso Niguel (10-0) plays host to Pomona Ganesha (5-5) and Rancho Alamitos (10-0) plays Bellflower (5-5) at Bolsa Grande.

Top-seeded Servite, which lost to El Toro in last year’s Division V championship, opens against Western (5-5) at Cal State Fullerton. El Toro (5-5), the at-large team after a fourth-place finish in the Sea View League, plays El Dorado (5-5) and could meet Servite in a second-round rematch.

Second-seeded Santa Margarita hosts El Modena (4-6), which it defeated, 32-3, earlier this season. Tustin (9-1), second to Servite in the Golden West League, is seeded third and plays Canyon (7-3). Newport Harbor (9-1) opens against Anaheim (5-5).

Orange Lutheran, which reached the Division X finals last year, plays Moorpark (4-6) at Brea Olinda High.

* COMPLETE PAIRINGS: C18