Saddleback has to be disappointed. Saddleback has to be optimistic.
That’s how it goes for some teams on the final night of the high school football regular season.
The Roadrunners went into Friday with a 4-0 record in the Orange Coast League. They played Estancia, which also was 4-0 in the Orange Coast. Saddleback was gunning for its first league championship since 1986, long before this year’s Roadrunners were born.
Estancia, the home team, won easily, 44-13. The Eagles won the league championship and finished 5-0 in league.
Estancia will have a first-round home game in the CIF-Southern Section’s Southern Division playoffs. As the league’s No. 1 playoff representative, the Eagles will get a first-round home game next week. CIF-SS football playoff brackets will be released Sunday and will be available at ocvarsity.com upon release.
Saddleback would like to be in Estancia’s situation but the Roadrunners have to be pleased with being the league’s No. 2 team, which means either an away game or a home game in the first round.
They must put the loss behind them and be positive about their chances in the playoffs. That’s where the optimism comes in. Saddleback has not been in the playoffs since 2007. It’s already a special season for the Roadrunners, and in few days comes a chance to make it even more so.
There was another for-all-the-marbles, league-championship game Friday. Westminster and Ocean View went into their Golden West League game with identical 4-0 league records. Westminster won to win the league championship.
Newport Harbor got the Sunset League’s third and final guaranteed playoff berth by scoring a touchdown on the game’s final play to beat Fountain Valley, 34-33. It is a rare season in the Sunset League – no coin flips to decide who finishes where. Los Alamitos beat Edison on Thursday to win the league title and the No. 1 playoff designation, sending Edison to the playoffs as the league’s No. 2.
Sunday’s CIF-SS football playoffs day starts at 8 a.m. with the announcement of which teams received wild-card berths, or as CIF-SS calls them, “at-large” berths. Teams that don’t finish high enough in their leagues’ final standings to receive guaranteed playoff berths can qualify for at-large berths.
Santa Margarita and Servite did not finish high enough in the Trinity League standings to get any of the league’s three guaranteed playoffs berths. But both look like they are going to the Pac-5 Division playoffs.
The At-Large Selection Committee today will look at the teams that petitioned for at-large berth consideration. The committee follows a points formula that is the criteria for the selection process.
The formula for selecting the teams under consideration within a division: four points goes to the team that comes out on top in head-to-competition; one point for the overall strength of the league of the team; one point for overall win-loss record; one point for strength against common opponents; and two points for strength of schedule, which is the overall win-loss record of the at-large candidate’s opponents.
Teams do not need to have overall records of .500 or better to be eligible for at-large berth consideration.
The Trinity League, with all six of its teams in the CalHiSports.com’s state top 25, is going to be evaluated as the best league of the Pac-5 Division’s five leagues. So that gives Santa Margarita, the No. 4 team from the Trinity League, and No. 5 Servite one point each there.
Santa Margarita finished 6-4 overall. Servite went 4-6. So any other Pac-5 Division at-large candidate with a better overall record, like Mission League No. 4 Alemany of Mission Hills that finished 7-3, gets one point that Santa Margarita and Servite do not get.
In the common opponents category, Santa Margarita beat Bishop Amat of La Puente, which beat Alemany. Santa Margarita gets one point there.
Here is the difference-maker that gives the Pac-5 at-large berths to Santa Margarita and Servite: Alemany’s opponents went 54-36; Santa Margarita’s opponents went 62-31; Servite’s opponents went 68-25.
Add two points to Santa Margarita and two to Servite. That gives Santa Margarita four at-large criteria points and Servite three points to the one point for Alemany, and more points than any other at-large candidate in the Pac-5 Division.
Last year, Crespi of Encino finished 4-6. JSerra finished 7-3. But because the overall record of Crespi’s opponents was superior to the overall record of JSerra’s, Crespi got the two at-large criteria points that gave Crespi the at-large berth over JSerra.
One league can get both of a division’s at-large berths. The Sunset League got both of the Southwest Division’s at-large berths, with Los Alamitos getting one and Huntington Beach getting the other.
Huntington Beach, last year’s No. 5 playoff representative from the Sunset League, went on to win the Southwest Division title.
That gives No. 5 Servite hope. It should give No. 2 Saddleback some optimism, too.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
