Fryer: Trinity League makes right call for volleyball playoffs

Some schools got their priorities straight.

Trinity League schools did the right thing Friday when they voted to have Santa Margarita be one of the league's representatives in the CIF-Southern Section boys volleyball playoffs. Santa Margarita forfeited 28 victories for using an ineligible player.

A paperwork mistake with the player's transfer from the East Coast was discovered by Santa Margarita, which the school reported to the CIF-SS office, which granted the player eligibility immediately. But the 28 victories in which the player participated were ruled forfeitures, thus taking Santa Margarita out of playoff contention.

Leagues select their playoff representatives. Trinity League principals understood that the paperwork mistake was an adult error. They decided against punishing the Santa Margarita kids for that error, and voted to include Santa Margarita as one of its boys volleyball playoff representatives.

"Lots of times in these situations," Santa Margarita principal Ray Dunne told the Register, "(for) leagues this is blood in the water for sharks."

It sure is. At the end of this past girls basketball season, it was discovered that a player's transfer to La Quinta was accompanied by a similar paperwork error. This player was a non-factor in La Quinta winning enough to qualify for the playoffs; in league play, the player had more personal fouls than points scored.

The Garden Grove League principals decided to keep La Quinta out of the playoffs, thus punishing a lot of kids who did nothing wrong, kids who worked hard to earn that playoff berth, because of an adult error.

Which league did the right thing?

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:

•Los Alamitos is No. 1 in calhisports.com's state baseball rankings - but is No. 2 in the county rankings. Orange Lutheran is No. 4 in the state, No. 1 in the county media poll (Los Alamitos trails Lutheran by only three points, 87-84, in the county poll). Mater Dei, at No. 7, is the only other county team in the state baseball rankings.

•We have some excellent freshman baseball players in the county. Among them: Tustin third baseman-pitcher Travis Harrison, who hit a grand slam last week and was the Register's player of the week; and Edison outfielder Eric Snyder, whose county-leading 31 hits already is a school single-season record.

•Those CIF-SS coaches' polls will have plenty of influence on seedings for the baseball and softball playoff brackets that come out Monday. But playoffs are not seeded strictly by rankings, because rules that the CIF-SS office must follow include placing teams from the same league as far apart in the brackets as possible.

•Coaches are e-mailing that yours truly has taken the wrong position in stating it was a bad idea to eliminate the association rule, which restricts how much time high school coaches can work with their athletes outside of the season of sport. Hey, I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again, and as facts change so should one's mind. It often takes more courage to change one's opinion than to stick to it, some smart person once said.

•If you are in a position to remind athletic directors or coaches to turn in their all-league teams to us, please do so. We want to publish every all-league team, in the paper and at ocvarsity.com, and all-league teams are important to the selection of All-Orange County teams. We encounter plenty of challenges trying to get those all-league teams.

•County athletic directors will meet Tuesday to select their boys and girls athletes of the year. Their selections will be seniors. The Register annually selects boys and girls athletes of the year, but they do not have to be seniors.

•You can vote on boys and girls athletes of the year, and for boys and girls teams of the year and boys and girls sports programs of the year, at ocvarsity.com. And on the message boards you can vote on whether or not I should resign. (I am not allowed to log on there, but if I could I would vote "yes.")

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Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com