Westchester Upset Over Seating Plans

Westchester High, the No. 2-seeded football team in the City Section 4-A playoffs, will play host to defending-champion and No. 6-seeded San Pedro in a semifinal on Friday night. But the Comets and their fans don’t expect to feel at home.

Because of the large contingent San Pedro is expected to bring, Westchester fans will be forced to sit on the visiting side of the stadium, with additional bleachers brought in to accommodate the crowd. San Pedro fans will occupy the larger home side.

“Our responsibility as a district is to ensure that everyone who wants to see that game has a ticket to get in,” City Section Director Barbara Fiege said. “Consequently, Westchester either needed to make an adjustment in seating by changing sides and bringing in additional bleachers or finding another site that would hold the crowd. They ultimately decided to make the adjustment by switching sides.”

The decision angered many of Westchester’s supporters.

“We don’t agree with it at all,” said April Clark, president of Westchester’s football booster club. “We don’t feel like the athletic department is behind us.”

Clark said the booster club was planning a protest at the school Wednesday to try to change the decision.

“They’re not thinking about the fans that we anticipate will come,” Clark said. “They’re saying San Pedro can have thousands of people, but we are limited. Our kids need as much support as San Pedro needs.

“This should have been arranged by our athletic department as well as the [district’s] athletic board. Every team that makes the semifinals is going to have a large crowd. They should have arranged it in advance so that the semifinals would be played at neutral sites.”

The other 4-A semifinal between top-seeded Woodland Hills Taft and fourth-seeded Sylmar will be played Friday at 7 p.m. at Taft.

Also on Friday, Chatsworth plays Carson at Gardena High and Jefferson plays El Camino Real at Canoga Park in 3-A Division semifinals.

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Second-round singles and doubles matches in the girls’ individual tennis championships will be played Monday at the Racquet Centre in Studio City. Quarterfinals will be played Dec. 10 at MountainGate Country Club, with semifinals scheduled for Dec. 12 and finals Dec. 15 at the same site.