CHECK OUT FRYER ON TVOCVarsity.com's Steve Fryer will be on KTTV/Fox 11 on Wednesday morning (around 8:20 and then again at 9) to preview the Mater Dei-Carson game, and then he'll be back on Thursday morning to talk about the OCVarsity.com preseason Top 10. Be sure to check out his appearances. LATEST FROM THE OCVARSITY.COM BLOG |
O.C. undefeated in football so far
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Fryer checks in on the start of the season, CIF changes and more.
Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
•County football is off to a great start – three games have been played, and no county team has lost. Edison and Mission Viejo won their games in Hawaii, and Fountain Valley won its game in Nevada.
•That football preview tabloid we published for many years is no more. We did not publish it last year, and will not this year, but everything that used to be in it, and much more, can be found at ocvarsity.com. My line of work is changing fast.
•Plenty of coverage still will be part of the newspaper, including statistics, standings, schedules and stories on every football game involving a county team, and notebooks on the various sports during the fall, winter and spring seasons. Fryer columns will still be here Wednesdays and Fridays to inform (maybe), entertain (hopefully) and anger (hopefully not) you.
•Two county football players made Superprep's preseason All-America team: quarterbacks Matt Barkley of Mater Dei and Allan Bridgford of Mission Viejo. Barkley is the top-rated quarterback in the nation according to Superprep, a magazine that is published in Laguna Beach.
•Construction of a parking structure at Trabuco Hills has limited available parking and affected access to the school's on-campus stadium. Thus, El Toro, one of two teams that uses Trabuco for home football games, will play home games at Laguna Hills this season. Trabuco Hills still plans on playing its home football games at Trabuco.
•Significant changes are in effect for CIF-Southern Section football playoff groupings. The Freeway League, which produced Southeast Division champion La Habra last year, now is part of the Southwest Division with the Century, Empire, Orange and Sea View leagues. The Empire and Orange leagues were in the Southern Division, which now is composed of the Garden Grove, Golden West, Orange Coast, Pacific Coast and Suburban leagues. The Academy League, with its member St. Margaret's having won the past two Northeast Division titles, has moved to the East Valley Division.
•St. Margaret's, coming off of back-to-back undefeated football seasons, is ranked No. 1 in the East Valley Division. Saddleback Valley Christian is No. 1 in the Northeast, Laguna Hills is No. 1 in the Southern, and two-time defending champion El Dorado is No. 1 in the Southwest. The only other 11-man football division with county teams in it, the Pac-5, has Long Beach Poly at No. 1 with Orange Lutheran at No. 2.
•One of the items you can find at ocvarsity.com among the blogs is a debate among me, colleague Dan Albano and readers about whether St. Margaret's should have been included in my county football preseason top 25. I did not include St. Margaret's there, because St. Margaret's would not beat any team in that top 25, but I have been wrong before and will be wrong again. And no disrespect toward St. Margaret's, which has a 28-game winning streak and very well could pass the county record of 41 consecutive football victories set by Mission Viejo from 2001-03.
•Former Trabuco Hills basketball coach and athletic director Rainer Wulf became a CIF-SS assistant commissioner late this past spring. That means three of the section's four assistant commissioners have an Orange County background: Wulf; Kristine Palle was an A.D. at Mission Viejo; and Rob Wigod was baseball coach and A.D. at Los Alamitos. Section commissioner Jim Staunton was principal at Huntington Beach.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
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