After meeting Tuesday with administrators from San Clemente and Trabuco Hills, CIF-SS officials approved the Tritons’ on-campus field as a suitable location for the Southwest Division championship game on Friday night.
Trabuco Hills raised concerns over stadium capacity, parking and the shared restrooms and snack bars for both sets of fans, according to school principal Craig Collins, and San Clemente agreed to address those issues.
San Clemente said it will add separate temporary bathrooms and a temporary snack bar for the visiting Trabuco Hills fans and will add extra seating and parking options for both groups of fans.
“We met with school administrators from both schools this morning at San Clemente,” CIF-SS spokesman Thom Simmons said. “Trabuco Hills expressed their concerns and San Clemente addressed every concern they had.”
Trabuco Hills, according to Simmons, also expressed interest in having the game played at Orange Coast College, but the CIF-SS had concerns with OCC’s hard cap on its 7,600 maximum capacity. San Clemente, with expanded seating, will have a seating capacity of 7,000 but will also have standing room to ensure no fans will be turned away. That would not be possible at OCC if the number of fans seeking entry exceeded 7,600. OCC also has a shared snack bar area and a shared bathrooms.
“The problem with OCC is, why would you take teams from (Mission Viejo) and San Clemente and bring them to Costa Mesa to play the game?” Simmons said.
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Related: Fryer: How to end the fights over game locations
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Neutral fields for championship football games are not mandated by the section and schools’ home sites are often used to host championship games. Last season, nine of the 13 championship games took place at home sites and six of 13 will be at home-campus locations this year.
San Clemente coach Jaime Ortiz views the game as a reward for the school’s fans, but also acknowledged he wouldn’t want to play on Trabuco Hills’ home field if the Mustangs were awarded a home game. The Tritons won the Sea View League game between the two teams, 42-35, at San Clemente on Oct. 30.
“If the game was at Trabuco, I’d probably try the same thing,” Ortiz said of the request to move the game. “At the end of the day, we’re the designated home team and we have the option to keep it here. This community has surrounded this football team with love and support and to have the game here is pretty special.”
Staff writer Kenny Connolly contributed to this report.
Contact the writer: jbalan@ocregister.com
