Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
• A study published by the National Federation of State High School Associations, of which the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) is a member, showed that only 2 percent of the nation’s high school athletes get college athletic scholarships. The average athletic scholarship is just less than $11,000.
• The study adds that 0.08 percent of all high school football players will be selected in the NFL draft, 0.45 percent of high school baseball players will play Major League Baseball, and 0.03 percent of high school boys basketball players will be taken in the NBA draft.
• The aforementioned does not mean that most of you high school sports parents are delusional. OK, actually it does. Keep in mind, too, that the statistics might mean your child’s club coach or personal trainer is exaggerating the kid’s potential.
• The CIF-Southern Section has tentatively scheduled a June 10 Council meeting that nobody wants. That meeting, which would be an unprecedented fourth Council session of the school year, would be to finalize playoff groupings for the next two upcoming school years. The section would prefer that it be settled May 28 when the Playoff Groupings Committee would hear and rule on any appeals from disgruntled leagues.
• CIF-SS commissioner Rob Wigod addresses all of that in an open letter at cifss.org. Wigod wrote: “I can say in my 14 years working for the CIF-Southern Section, I cannot remember a league that has requested to move up to a more competitive division. Even when a particular league has been dominant in a division they prefer to remain in the same division going forward.”
• Bravo, Mr. Commissioner.
• San Clemente quarterback Sam Darnold, a 6-foot-5 junior, got scholarship offers this week from San Diego State, Tennessee and Wake Forest. He already had offers from Nevada and Utah.
• More football recruiting news: Orange Lutheran junior defensive end Keisean Lucier-South received an offer this week from Florida State and has an offer from Nebraska; Servite junior cornerback Maurice Davison has offers from Eastern Washington and Idaho (don’t be turned off by his size, Pac-12); Cypress multi-purpose Quentin Pounds has one from Washington State; and Buena Park juniors Jayline Hawkins, a quick receiver/defensive back, and offensive lineman Kevin Dixon have offers from Colorado State.
• Dana Hills’ baseball team will try again today to clinch sole possession of the Sea View League championship with a home game against San Clemente. Dana Hills is 9-2 in league and today’s game is its final league game of the season. San Clemente, which beat Dana Hills on Wednesday, and Aliso Niguel are tied for second at 6-3.
• Dana Hills is 22-6 overall. The Dolphins last year were 14-17 overall and last in the five-team Sea View League at 3-9.
• CIF-SS softball playoff brackets will be released May 17. The playoffs begin with wild-card round games May 19 and continue with first-round games May 20. Championship games are played May 30 and 31 at Bill Barber Park in Irvine.
• That was a tough one for the Newport Harbor boys volleyball team Wednesday, a five-game loss to Edison in a match that decided the Sunset League’s third and final playoff representative. Harbor’s season ends today with the Battle of the Bay match against county No. 2-ranked Corona del Mar.
• CIF-SS boys volleyball playoff brackets will be released today at 2 p.m. Teams that think they will play in the wild-card round better be ready to go; wild-card round matches are Saturday.
• The boys volleyball playoffs continue with first-round matches Tuesday and second-round matches Thursday. The finals are May 24 at Cerritos College.
• Admission to volleyball playoff games, from wild-card round through the semifinals, is $5 for students with valid student identification and for children 13 and younger, and $7 for adults and for students who think their Disneyland annual pass is a legitimate student I.D.
• Boys tennis playoff brackets are released Monday at 11 a.m. The individual tournament is May 29 at five locations, including Corona del Mar High and The Tennis Club in Newport Beach. Site assignments and starting times will be announced May 20 at cifss.org.
• With the Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento unavailable next year, the 2015 CIF State Basketball Championships will be at the Haas Pavilion on the Cal campus. The 2016 state finals will be at Sleep Train, but if Haas is a winner of a venue in ’15 then it might get subsequent state basketball finals.
• Two of the four CIF-SS track and field divisional prelims May 17 are at county schools — Division 1 at Trabuco Hills, Division 3 at Estancia. The prelims begin with field events at 11 a.m., running events at noon.
• Each league has one guaranteed entry for each event of the track prelims. Leagues’ second- and third-place finishers in league championships competition must meet or surpass minimum standards that can be found at the track and field playoff bulletin at cifss.org. Prelim entries will be posted at prepcaltrack.com Saturday after 3 p.m.
• CIF-SS track and field championships are May 24 at Cerritos College. The event begins with the girls pole vault at 10 a.m. Records will be set.
• Qualifying for the CIF-SS divisional preliminaries to the CIF-SS finals works this way: The nine athletes with the best marks in each field event qualify for the CIF-SS championships. In running events, each prelims heat winner plus the athlete with the next fastest time are the nine athletes who advance to the finals.
• The CIF-SS Masters Meet, the qualifying meet for the state championships, is May 30 at Cerritos College. The top nine finishers in events at the CIF-SS championships, regardless of division, advance to the Masters.
• The state meet is June 6 and 7 at Buchanan High of Clovis. The top six finishers in each CIF-SS finals event advance to the state meet.
• The new rule is labeled “Practice Time Allowance” but it’s really a “Participation Time Allowance” rule. Games and matches are included in the limitation of 18 hours a week, and four hours a day, that California student-athletes are allowed to practice and play beginning next school year. The mislabeling has confused some.
• A game is not a practice unless it’s Mater Dei playing an early-round game of the Orange Holiday Classic boys basketball tournament.
• In the final of a series of all-star games for him, Mater Dei basketball senior Stanley Johnson scored 43 points in the BallisLife All-American Game. From the looks of some game video, nobody played defense. Not that it would matter when Johnson gets it going.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
