Catholic Schools Voted Out of Public Leagues

The Southern Section Council this week voted to remove several Catholic schools from public athletic leagues in Orange County and the San Gabriel Valley and to place them in All-Catholic school leagues beginning with the 1999-2000 school year.

Santa Ana Mater Dei, Santa Margarita, Anaheim Servite, Fullerton Rosary, La Verne Damien and Glendora St. Lucy’s are the schools affected by the vote.

Santa Margarita Principal Merritt Hemenway, who had strongly opposed all attempts to remove his school from the public leagues, said he planned to appeal the decision to the California Interscholastic Federation state office in San Raphael, but backtracked from earlier statements that he would take his school’s case to court.

“I don’t know if it should go that far,” Hemenway said. “But we should keep all our options open.”

Hemenway said the council’s action could cause some students to forego athletics completely because of the time needed to travel to Los Angeles County schools.

“Some kids now travel 20 miles to come here to school,” he said. “I’m not sure they would want to go another 40 or more miles to a sporting event.”

The council also voted to end the two-year experiment of regionalizing the playoffs and will return to matching playoff opponents based on league finishes rather than geography.

It also rejected a rule change that would have allowed high school coaches to coach athletes from their school on club teams outside the season of sport.

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Ryan Moore of Anaheim Servite defeated Jose Lieberman of Beverly Hills, 6-4, 6-1, to win the boys’ California Interscholastic Federation singles competition at the 98th Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament last weekend.

Bernadette Bayani of Simi Valley defeated Shervin Siadenea of Woodland Hills, 6-4, 6-4, to win the girls’ 18-and-under division.

Beverly Hills won the boys’ team competition, its first outright championship of the tournament since 1956. There was no team competition for girls.