South Coast playoff appeal had too much to overcome
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Steve Fryer column: Notes about the CIF State football championship games, and the AD changes at JSerra and Orange Lutheran.
Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
• The South Coast League's appeal of its continued placement in the Pac-5 Division for football playoffs was rejected for two reasons: geography, as there is no comparable league in the area that fits into the Pac-5's high level of quality and there is no league in which the South Coast would be a competitive fit; and the South Coast's small number — three — of guaranteed playoff entries. If that new eight-team Inland Empire League, with its four guaranteed playoff entries, replaced the South Coast in the Pac-5, there would be no at-large berth available for a fourth-place team in the Trinity League. That No. 4 Trinity team often is going to be a team in the Pac-5 top 10 in the coaches' poll, and usually that No. 4 Trinity team is as good as or better than the Nos. 2 or 3 teams in the Moore or Sunset leagues.
• Don't expect the CIF State Football Championship Bowl Games to be at The Home Depot Center in December. The Carson site and the Coliseum are the only Southern California venues to submit bids for this year's games. But the most acceptable bid likely will come from Bakersfield College, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, San Jose State, Stanford or UC Davis.
• CIF State attorney Diane Marshall-Freeman informed the CIF-Southern Section office of the precarious legal position the proposal to split private/parochial and public schools into separate playoff divisions would take, and that should convince CIF-SS Council voters that the proposal is unworkable. The proposal, in principle, has merit. But the Century League administrators who created it didn't take into account the awful timing of bringing it forward in the midst of the CIF-SS's scheduled playoff groupings reworking period, and they didn't see counsel to determine if the proposal could withstand legal scrutiny.
• JSerra principal Tom Waszak won't say why Pete Manarino is no longer the school's athletic director. It seems unusual that Manarino's departure has occurred two-thirds of the way through his second year as JSerra's athletic director. JSerra football coach Jim Hartigan is the interim AD. (Click here to read story)
• Conspiracy nuts might think the upcoming departure of Orange Lutheran athletic director T.J. Ragan is connected to the wrath Lutheran incurred after a half-dozen football players transferred to the school almost simultaneously. But all Ragan is doing is taking a strength and conditioning job, his passion, at the conclusion of this school year at Valor Christian in Highland Rancho, Colo., where friend Rod Sherman is the athletic director. Lutheran principal Gregg Pinick said Lancers football coach Jim Kunau will not resume the AD duties he held for a while, as running Lutheran's football program is enough responsibility.
• Memorial services for Kathy Lappin, the grand dame of Loara athletics, drew 250 on Friday. She was the mother of Loara baseball coach Dave Lappin and Loara football coach Dean Lappin, grandmother of former county athlete of the year Lauren Lappin and former Loara quarterback Archie Lappin, and a friend and supporter of Saxons athletics for decades.
• Mike Rangel does a great job creating and managing all-star basketball events, but he might want to review having eighth-grade all-star games, for boys and girls, as part of the event as they were for the Roundball Extravaganza this past weekend. That might have been too much. Listing the high school destinations of the eighth-graders, as part of pregame publicity, was too much.
• Rangel's next project is the Orange County All-Star Games, April 26 at Ocean View High. Rangel, who runs the PlyoCity training program that is used by top pro athletes and many of the county's better high school teams, joined forces a couple of years ago with the Costa Mesa Kiwanis Club that ran the charity event for decades. The event was running out of gas when Rangel entered the scene and jump-started it, and his decision of creating boys and girls small-schools all-star games as part of the event was a great idea.
• Although they are not allowed to, promoters of the Collision Scholastic Hoops Jam, an all-star basketball event Saturday at Ocean View, are still referring to the teams as City and Southern Section teams. Look for that practice to end by tipoff.
• JSerra's baseball players were happy about beating Mater Dei for the first time Friday when the Lions got a 2-0 victory as pitchers Grahamm Wiest and Roarke Anderson combined on a two-hitter. Just as pleased must have been JSerra coach Brett Kay, who was an All-County catcher at Mater Dei. Last year, JSerra's first varsity baseball season, the Lions were swept in three games against Mater Dei.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
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