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Nobody turns themselves in to the IRS when taxes are underpaid. Drivers don’t hail a cop to say they ran a stop sign.

That is, though, sort of what happens when an Orange County high school team forfeits a game. The CIF-Southern Section is a self-policing organization. Schools report their own violations.

Whittier Christian’s football team started the season 2-0. It had to forfeit the wins because the Heralds used an ineligible player in those games.

Mater Dei’s girls volleyball team forfeited three wins in the Dave Mohs tournament for using an ineligible player in the matches. The forfeitures removed the Monarchs from the tournament championship match. Santa Margarita, which had lost to Mater Dei in the semifinals, took the Monarchs’ spot in the final.

We found out about these violations because the schools reported kind of snitched on themselves.

Whittier Christian and Mater Dei concluded that the athletes were ineligible through internal investigation. Both reported their findings to the CIF-Southern Section which confirmed the findings and accepted the forfeitures.

Whether the ineligible athlete is a star or is a part-time player, the penalty is the same: forfeitures of all competitions in which the athlete participated.

It might seem unfair that 99 percent of a team’s athletes are penalized because 1 percent of the team either fudged transfer details or an adult administrator erred when processing transfer paperwork. But there is no other way to do it.

Usually the way schools wind up forfeiting games is because they turned themselves in. It’s an honor system. It’s good to see it honored.

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:

• Fox Prime Ticket’s high school football telecast today is Long Beach Poly at Centennial of Corona at 7:30 p.m. FoxSportsWest.com’s Prep Zone will feature live streaming of three games involving county teams: St. Bonaventure of Ventura at JSerra; Mission Viejo at Norco; and Corona del Mar at Newport Harbor.

• An adjustment of statistics has made T.J. Williams of Kennedy the leading rusher in the county. Williams has rushed for 619 yards on a county-leading 93 carries. He is averaging 7 yards a carry and 206 yards a game.

• Buena Park’s standout receiver, Jaylinn Hawkins, is expected to play today in the Coyotes’ nonleague game against Esperanza at Yorba Linda High. Hawkins missed last week’s game against Warren of Downey because of a bruised kneecap.

• It was a basketball news story when Noah and Kaden Rasheed transferred from Mission Viejo to Santa Margarita. Noah Rasheed, a junior, is third on the Santa Margarita football team in receptions. He has eight catches for 62 yards.

• The St. Margaret’s girls volleyball team won back-to-back tournament championships for the first time. The Tartans won the Segerstrom Tournament last week. They won Division 2 of the Mohs tournament this week.

• There is a county boys volleyball beach league that plays on the courts at West Newport and Irvine Valley College. The North Division has eight teams, and the South has seven. There are not enough schools participating to make beach volleyball a sport with official CIF-sanctioned championships.

• For there to be CIF-SS sanctioned playoffs in a sport, 20 percent of the section’s member schools must field teams in that sport. There are 575 member schools in the CIF-Southern Section.

• The next-largest of the CIF State’s 10 sections is the Sac-Joaquin Section, with 198 schools. The Oakland and San Francisco sections have 20 and 15 schools, respectively.

• Former El Modena football coach Bob Lester will be among the inductees to the CIF-SS Hall of Fame at the section’s awards luncheon Oct. 23 at The Grand in Long Beach. For information on attending the event call the CIF-SS office at 562-493-9500.

• Many disagree with the belief here that placing public and private schools in separate playoff divisions should be given ample consideration. It is true that a large number of private schools do not have the consistent athletic excellence as the Trinity League schools. But the large ones seem to be casting growing shadows over CIF competition.

• The Commissioner’s Cup is a CIF-SS awards program that recognizes schools of high achievement across the board in athletics. For the 2013-14 school year, six of the top 11 schools, and the top three schools, in the boys competition for the Commissioner’s Cup were private schools. In the girls competition, the top four finishers were private schools and four of the top 10 schools were private schools.

Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com