High school football gets its turn on center stage

With college football temporarily out of the spotlight, California high schools get their turn.

During the next two weekends, FSN Prime Ticket’s prep coverage will include Saturday night’s Pac-5 championship game between Orange Lutheran and Huntington Beach Edison and a one-hour selection show on Sunday that will reveal the six teams that will play in the three title games on Dec. 16.

The coverage will culminate with 12 hours of nonstop coverage that day when games in three divisions will be held at the Home Depot Center in Carson.

“I would guess that no other network has ever devoted as much manpower, equipment and effort to high school football as we will over the next two weekends,” said Tom Feuer, executive producer of FSN Prime Ticket, as well as FSN West.

Sunday’s selection show, which begins at 3 p.m., will feature thumbnail sketches of the 47 state section champions and more in-depth profiles of the teams selected. There will also be a live remote involving a few players from the winner of the Northern Division title game between Canyon Country Canyon and Moorpark, which will be played Saturday at 4 p.m. at the Home Depot Center.

But the highlight of the selection show will be the naming of the six teams.

Doing the honors will be Marie Ishida, the state CIF executive director.

Ishida was an all-around athlete at Strathmore High in the Central San Joaquin Valley in the 1960s, and coincidentally the president-elect of the state CIF, Mike Henson, is currently the principal at Strathmore. Ishida first became involved with the CIF in 1979 and has been executive director since 2001.

Ishida, with degrees from Long Beach State and San Jose State, has also been a teacher and coach at Lakewood Artesia High, assistant principal at Santa Cruz High and principal at Carmel High. “It’s exciting,” Ishida said, “but my role is a small one.”

She said Ken Gunn, the coordinator for the title games, will address questions about how the teams were selected.

Lindsay Soto will serve as the host of the show. The expert commentators will be Eric Sondheimer of The Times, to discuss Southern California teams, and Mitch Stephens of the San Francisco Chronicle, representing Northern California.

Coverage Saturday from the Home Depot Center will include a “High School Spotlight” half-hour pregame show at 7:30 offering highlights from other games and a postgame show with more highlights and analysis.

The announcers for the Orange Lutheran-Edison game will be Chris McGee and John Jackson, with Soto and Christine Nubla reporting from the sidelines.

FSN Prime Ticket’s coverage on Dec. 16, besides the three title games, will include the state cheerleading championships and Nike SPARQ Camp assessments of high school football players from throughout the state. SPARQ stands for speed, power, agility, reaction and quickness.

The announcers for the Division III game at 11 a.m. and Division II game at 3:30 p.m. will be McGee and Jackson, with Nubla and Dwight Stones, a longtime broadcaster who three times held the world high jump record.

Calling the nightcap Division I game will be Jim Watson and Petros Papadakis, with McGee and Jackson serving as sideline reporters.

Announcers for the cheerleading competition will be former gymnast Amanda Borden, Amy Bender, the daughter of broadcaster Gary Bender, and former long jumper Carol Lewis.

Announcers for the SPARQ assessments will be Sean Farnham and high school football expert Garry Paskwietz of Scout.com and WeARESC.com.

Delayed coverage of tonight’s Northwest Division title game between host Westlake Village Oaks Christian and Oak Park will be on Channel 56 at midnight, with Tom Kelly and Paskwietz announcing.

Video-streamed coverage will be available on vootage.com beginning Saturday.

Tonight’s City championship game at the Coliseum between top-seeded Birmingham and San Pedro will be rebroadcast several times over the weekend. It can be seen throughout Southern California on Ch. 58 Saturday at 9 a.m.

Channel 36, which has limited reach, will show it tonight at 11 and Saturday at 3:30 and 8 p.m.

Randy Rosenbloom and former USC quarterback John Mazur call the action.

larry.stewart@latimes.com