Final night shakes up playoff positions

Click here for a breakdown of the playoff picture for Orange County teams.

Click here for all of Friday's game stories and slide shows.

Click here for a slide show of some of Friday's top action shots.

Newport Harbor felt great after beating Esperanza. Then Harbor did not feel so good after losing a coin flip that took away its chance for a guaranteed playoff berth and sent it into the pool of teams vying for the Pac-5 Division's at-large berth.

Newport Harbor, 6-4 overall, then found out it could very well be floating at the top of that Pac-5 at-large pool. Loyola of Los Angeles' victory over Crespi made Loyola the No. 3 team and Crespi the No. 4 team in the four-team Serra League, in which only the top two finishers are guaranteed playoff entry.

Loyola, at 4-6 overall, does not have the .500-or-better overall record required for at-large consideration. Crespi (5-5) can petition for at-large consideration, but the CIF-Southern Section playoff committee is not going to take a No. 4 team from a four-team league over a No. 4 from a six-team league.

Also, when looking at the points criteria in place to select at-large teams, among the criteria is strength against a common opponent. Newport Harbor beat Loyola, which beat Crespi. Newport Harbor also will have advantages over other Pac-5 at-large candidates like Tesoro (5-5) and St. John Bosco of Bellflower (5-5).

We will not know for sure until the CIF-Southern Section announces which teams qualified for at-large berths for the playoffs that cover 13 divisions. The section makes that announcement at Sunday at 10 a.m., and we will post that announcement right away at ocvarsity.com.

When the section begins releasing its playoff brackets Sunday at 11 a.m., ocvarsity.com will post them as soon as possible, too.

The identity of one at-large team is obvious. Kennedy, if it applies for the at-large berth in the Southwest Division, will get it. Kennedy is the only No. 4 team among the Southwest Division's five leagues that finished .500 or better, with a 5-5 record.

Plenty of league championships were settled Friday.

Mission Viejo beat Dana Hills to win the South Coast League championship, a championship won by Tesoro the past two years. Mission, ranked No. 2 in the county, beat Dana by 32 points. No. 1 Edison beat Dana by 17. Does that mean Mission Viejo should be the No. 1 team in the county. We will find out what the 10 media members who vote on the county top 10 think of that when the final regular-season county rankings of the 2009 season are out Monday.

La Habra defeated Fullerton to win the Freeway League championship, Laguna Beach beat Costa Mesa to win the Orange Coast League title, and St. Margaret's beat Sage Hill, 70-0, to win another Academy League championship.

One of the great stories all season has been the way Garden Grove rebounded from the death of teammate Kevin Telles to keep winning. The Argonauts took the Garden Grove League championship Friday by beating Santiago, 35-7, and will take a 10-0 record in the Southern Division playoffs. As the No. 1 team in the latest Southern Division rankings, the Argos probably will be the division's top-seeded team.

The Orange League had three teams finish at 4-1 – Anaheim, Santa Ana Valley and Savanna. The coaches assembled at a Santa Ana restaurant late Friday night for a coin-flip ceremony that separated the group and placed Anaheim at No. 1, Valley at No. 2 and Savanna at No. 3.

Those designations are important. No. 1 teams get a playoff first-round home game against another league's No. 3 or No. 4 team, a No. 2 opens at home or on the road and probably against another No. 2, and a No. 3 team hits the road for a first-round game against another league's No. 1.

Who plays who? We will find out Sunday.