Semifinal sites should provide snug fits

Semifinals sites

The Southwest Division semifinal games will be played at cozy on-campus stadiums. Trabuco Hills at Tustin (capacity, 3,700) on Friday, Cypress at La Habra (capacity, 5,000) on Saturday. Sometimes, a semifinal game site is not considered large enough to accommodate an anticipated number of spectators, so the game is moved. Sometimes the visiting team requests a change of venue and asks the CIF-Southern Section office to intervene, and sometimes the section office acts on its own when it knows right away that a scheduled site will not suffice. That happened in the Division I semifinals in 2005, when Esperanza played host to Servite. Esperanza wanted the game at its home field, Bradford Stadium at Valencia High where capacity was 5,280 before recent improvements there. Servite informed the CIF-SS it would have 5,000 supporters for the game, so the CIF-SS office informed Esperanza to find a different venue. So Esperanza picked Santa Ana Stadium, which for years had been a house of horrors for Servite during its long winless streak against Mater Dei. And it again was a tough place for Servite, which lost to Esperanza in that semifinal game.

Classless

That's the only word to describe a few Long Beach Poly supporters who yelled and cursed during Servite's "Hut Drill" after Servite's 21-18 victory in a Pac-5 semifinal Friday at Veterans Stadium. Both teams' players met at midfield before the game to shake hands, a great idea conceived by Long Beach Poly coaches and athletic administrators. Too bad some of the school's fans did not understand what that was all about.

Getting the breaks

Poly missed an extra-point kick, twice failed on two-point conversion attempts, lost a fumble, botched a fake field-goal and punt efforts, and had a potential game-tying field goal attempt blocked. Servite won't get that kind of help against Mission Viejo in their Pac-5 semifinal Friday at Cerritos College.

Another Highlander highlight

La Habra running back Joshua Quezada is the team's offensive leader, of course. He rushed for 224 yards and two touchdowns in the Highlanders' 27-7 victory over El Dorado in a Southwest second-round game Friday. But here is another top offensive contributor for the Clan – sophomore receiver Brett Bartolone, who totaled 138 yards on 11 touches for an average of 13 yards a touch. The quarterback, Cody Clements, is a good one, too.

Hot Hawks

Laguna Hills has outscored its opponents, 75-20, over the first two rounds of the Southern Division playoffs. The Hawks have won six playoff games in a row, including the four they won to win the Southern Division championship last year.

Most surprising team?

That might be Whittier Christian. The Heralds, now 9-3, went into the Mid-Valley Division playoffs as the No. 3 team from the Olympic League, and had to play fourth-seeded Arroyo of El Monte in the first round. They won that game, 27-24, then beat Baldwin Park, an 8-2 team at the time, 27-17, to get to Saturday's semifinal at top-seeded Monrovia.

It's not exactly San Juan Capistrano

St. Margaret's plays its East Valley Division semifinal Saturday, at 7 p.m., at Bishop. That's 304 miles from St. Margaret's campus in San Juan Capistrano. Bishop's elevation is 4,147 feet, and it's in the Owens Valley, on the east side of the Sierra Nevada. It's a nice town, a familiar pit stop for anybody heading up to the high country of Yosemite or nearby trout-fishing environs. The overnight low Saturday is forecast to be 24 degrees. Oh, and it's also known as The Mule Capital of the World.