At-Large Teams At Risk In City

Attention, City Section football teams: You better win league titles.

The realignment last May that changed six conferences into eight smaller leagues was a good thing. If you win.

All eight league champions are guaranteed berths in the 16-team City Championship playoffs.

But only eight at-large spots remain, two fewer than last year, when only six champions earned automatic bids.

The mandatory eight-count for champions could knock out some quality at-large candidates.

Most second-place teams will qualify for the City Championship playoffs, but a third-place team will likely find itself in the lower-level City Invitational playoffs, as it is now called.

Are you listening, Valley Mission League teams?

Four teams from the league--San Fernando, Sylmar, Kennedy and Reseda--could finish 7-3 or better, but after the champion gets the automatic bid, the other three will be fighting for at-large spots.

Maybe two of the runners-up will get lucky. But the fourth-place finisher most likely will compete in the 16-team City Invitational playoffs, comparable to college basketball’s National Invitation Tournament.

Compounding the problem is that the mediocre Sunset Six League automatically gets to send a team--probably the winner of the game Friday night between North Hollywood (4-4) and Poly (5-3)--to the City Championship playoffs, although neither team is considered upper-level quality.

North Hollywood lost to Kennedy by 21 points and edged winless Hollywood two weeks ago, 29-27.

Poly lost to Kennedy by 29 and was pounded by Chatsworth, 38-6. Chatsworth later lost to Cleveland, 61-0.

The situation could continue in basketball and baseball.

Four teams in the Coliseum League--Manual Arts, Fremont, Crenshaw and Jefferson--might all deserve trips to the City Championship playoffs in basketball. The champion automatically qualifies, leaving each of the other three teams scrambling for one of the at-large spots.

One of them likely will get squeezed out by the champion from the weaker Northern Conference.

In baseball, where the Valley reigns supreme, some teams from the region might strike out.

In the West Valley League, Chatsworth, El Camino Real, Granada Hills and Birmingham are all expected to have solid seasons.

Come playoff time, one of them might be aced out of a playoff spot by the champion of the weaker Coliseum League.

In the new format, the winners are . . . the winners. And the City Invitational.

The lower-level playoffs, once compared to a “JV tournament” by Taft football Coach Troy Starr, benefits greatly.

Two fewer at-large teams in the City Championship means two stronger entries in the City Invitational.

And while we’re on the subject, can someone please find a permanent name for the lower-level playoffs, which was called the 3-A Division two years ago and the Division Championship last year before earning its current title, which is a nice name for a golf tournament, but little else.

Change is usually good, especially when talking about the City Section, which, at times, has shown all the evolutionary skills of a brontosaurus.

City Section Commissioner Barbara Fiege said the new playoff format could be reviewed at the end of the school year.

Just the same, the seeding meetings, never a time for ice cream and candy, could be especially emotional, irrational, and, of course, lengthy, which is why I don’t want to attend any this year.

Journalists, after all, have nightly deadlines.