‘First and 10’ list for the start of week 9 – Orange County Register

Beginning of Orange County high school football week with notes, comments and observations…

1. Down the track they come. From here we can see the playoffs. Brackets will be released on October 30th.

A few things to remember…

The top two finishers in four-team leagues—Big 4, Crestview, North Hills, Pac 4, Pacific Hills, Pacific Valley, Sea View, and South Coast—are guaranteed spots in the CIF Southern Section playoffs. The county’s other leagues get three guaranteed playoff spots.

A team finishing with an overall record of .500 or better may advance to the playoffs as an at-large team if spots are available in their group. After that, if a division still hasn’t filled the 16 berths, the team with the next highest rating below .500 is selected.

No team below .500 will be preferred over a team that is .500 or better; So don’t think that a Trinity League team under .500 will be picked ahead of a team from a smaller league with .500 or better.

Teams will be placed into a playoff division based solely on ratings provided by CalPreps.com. The top eight teams that meet playoff qualifying standards will be in Division 1 if it remains an eight-team division like last year. After that, the next 16 teams in the CalPreps rankings that meet the qualifying standards are placed in Division 2, and so on.

2nd Division 1 I think Division 1 will be an eight-team group. As of this week, the top eight CIF-SS teams in the CalPreps standings are, in this order: 1. Mater Dei; 2. St. John Bosco; 3. 100th anniversary of Corona; 4.Long Beach Poly; 5. Mission Viejo; 6. Los Alamitos; 7. chaminade; 8. Edison.

3. Battle of the Bay. Some years, the annual soccer game between Corona del Mar and Newport Harbor means nothing for league standings or playoff competition. This year it does.

Corona del Mar is 2-1 in Sunset League standings and Newport Harbor is 1-2. A win for Corona del Mar bolsters the Sea Kings’ candidacy for a guaranteed playoff berth in the Sunset League, where the top three finishers are automatically qualified. A win for Newport Harbor puts the Sailors in an excellent position to be the league’s third and final playoff representative

4. Battle for fifth place. JSerra and Servite are tied 3-0 in the Trinity League ahead of Friday’s matchup at JSerra. The result may or may not be relevant to the winner’s playoff bid. What is certain, however, is that nobody wants to be 0-5 in the league.

5. Six. That’s how many teams are undefeated in Orange County football. The 8-0 teams are Crean Lutheran, Cypress, El Modena, Mater Dei, Westminster and Yorba Linda. The two teams most likely to pick up their first loss are El Modena, who play 7-1 against Canyon on Thursday, and Crean, who play Tustin, a 2-6 team that has those two wins in the scored in the last two weeks.

6. Excitement of the week. Perhaps a surprise of the year was La Quinta’s 12-10 win over Rancho Alamitos last week in the Garden Grove League. La Quinta went into the game 6-1 and Rancho Alamitos 7-0.

7. Mother Nature vs. Soccer. Mother Nature continued on her unbeaten path with a thunderstorm that canceled Saturday’s Orange League game between Savanna and Western. Western is 2-0 in the league and plays 3-0 Santa Ana Valley at Western High on Friday.

8. That’s what we expected. San Juan Hills was 0-7 after playing all of its games outside of the league. It’s a team considered Orange County’s top 10 team this season. The Stallions defeated El Toro 47-3 last week and now they have a chance to win the Sea View League Championship. They play Trabuco Hills (6-2 agg, 1-0 league) at Trabuco Hills High on Friday.