Section Approves Title-Game Tiebreaker

Mater Dei’s football program experienced something on Thursday it couldn’t in last December’s championship game: The thrill of victory.

The Monarchs, who tied Long Beach Poly, 21-21, on Dec. 11 for the Division I title, will no longer have to worry about the “empty feeling” accompanying a shared title after the Southern Section Council approved Mater Dei Principal Patrick Murphy’s proposal to institute a tiebreaker system in all section championship games.

“There was just kind of an empty feeling after that tie,” Murphy said. “When a team goes into a game, they don’t go in prepared to tie, they go in prepared to win.”

The first part of Murphy’s proposal, the use of tiebreakers in championship contests, was approved by a vote of 38-26 in Buena Park. The second part of the proposal, to use the 25-yard tiebreaker system already in place for all playoff games except championships, was approved overwhelmingly. “I think it’s great for the kids, the coaches and the fans,” Murphy said. “I know Coach [Bruce] Rollinson is pleased.”

One person who wasn’t particularly pleased was Los Alamitos Vice Principal Jerry Halpin, who related to the council the story of the Griffins’ 14-14 tie with Esperanza in the 1992 Division II championship game.

“On the field, there was a lot of disappointment,” Halpin said. “You don’t really celebrate and you don’t really cry. But when we had an assembly on Monday, with the whole school in the gym, and we walked in as CIF champions, and the players carried the [plaque] over their head and we showed a highlight of the season, they’re CIF champions.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with that. When you’re a champion, you’re a champion.”

The council approved Halpin’s proposal from the Sunset League to eliminate move-ups in enrollment-based playoff divisions, to be enacted beginning with the winter playoffs of 2001. Sports with enrollment-based playoffs include baseball, basketball, cross-country, soccer, softball, tennis and volleyball.

The proposal will keep teams such as Lakewood Artesia, which this month won the Division II-A boys’ basketball championship, from moving up to Division I-AA, where the Pioneers had won championships the previous two years.

“My big thing is, [the old rule] was unfair to large schools,” Halpin said. “A large school, like Los Alamitos, had no choice where it could play in the playoffs.

“A school like Corona del Mar, I didn’t see their [boys’] basketball team move up to Division I, and they had a great season and got to the Division III playoffs. But now their tennis team could say, ‘We want to be Division I because we can compete at the Division I level.’ My school didn’t get that choice.”

The Sunset League’s other proposal, allowing qualifiers for the CIF track and field league preliminaries to advance to their division prelims based on their school’s enrollment rather than the total enrollment of the schools in their league, was approved on a one-year trial basis beginning in 2001.

Also, the swimming and diving playoff brackets were expanded from three to four divisions. The extra division will be comprised of teams from Divisions II and III.

The section council decided to recommend to the state council that 14-year-olds be allowed to participate in City Section varsity football under certain conditions. Fourteen-year-olds already are allowed to compete in Southern Section varsity football contests, provided they have approval from their doctor, coach, parents and principal.

At its next meeting, April 13, the council will vote on whether to allow practices and competitions on Christmas, provided it does not fall on a Sunday.