SAN JOSE - The Central Coast Section football seeding meeting took place Sunday morning at the section office and went smoothly, which is not to say there wasn't some confusion and disappointment in recent days.
Yes, various media outlets had the process down and their prognostications mostly fell into place. But there was a wrinkle or two.
Case in point was Menlo missing the playoffs because it did not get a championship point from its game against Mission-San Francisco. Mission finished first in the AAA regular season, but the San Francisco league/section doesn't crown a champion until after its league playoff title game on Thanksgiving. Menlo, of course, is crestfallen, but more about that later.
Here is a breakdown of the brackets:
Open Division
No. 1 Sacred Heart Prep vs. No. 8 Oak Grove
No. 4 Serra vs. No. 5 Los Gatos
No. 3 Palma vs. No. 6 Valley Christian
No. 2 Milpitas vs. No. 7 Bellarmine College Prep
Full bracket (PDF): please click here
Defending Open champion Serra could have fallen to Division II had it lost to visiting Bellarmine on Saturday as the teams vied for a piece of the WCAL title. The Bells took a 14-0 lead, but Serra stormed back with 28 consecutive points before halftime to win 28-14 and share the league title with Valley Christian.
Now Serra hosts Los Gatos at 1 p.m. Saturday -- a meeting of teams that have been ranked by Prep2Prep among the Top 5 in CCS all season.
"We're excited about the matchup with Serra," Los Gatos coach Mark Krail said. "They're a great program and we're going to have our hands full. But we're going to show up and see what we can do."
With the way the CCS rules work, Valley Christian was forced to drop all the way to No. 6 despite owning the highest point total among all CCS teams. That is because the top 4 seeds must come from the five “A” league champions and Valley Christian lost the tiebreaker for the WCAL top seed by virtue of its loss to Serra.
By points, the Warriors would have been No. 5, but because league rivals cannot play in the first round, they were forced to drop a spot along with Bellarmine, leaving the No. 5 spot for Los Gatos.
"It is what it is," Valley Christian coach Mike Machado said of the playoff system. "There's a system in place and we abide by it.
"We've had a good season and we were able to pull out some close games and that was good for us character-wise."
Top seed Sacred Heart Prep has an interesting first-round game with No. 8 seed Oak Grove, which Friday night defeated Pioneer 14-6 for the BVAL-Mt. Hamilton title. It will be not only a contrast of different styles of play (SHP's fly vs. Oak Grove's Power-I), but schools vastly different from each other in student body make-up.
Tiny SHP, with a student body of just over 600, made it to the CIF-State playoff bowl title game last year and is led by running back Ben Burr-Kirven and quarterback Mason Randall.
By virtue of its loss to Serra, Bellarmine must travel to face the team many are saying is the best in the Open Division, unbeaten Milpitas. The Trojans are No. 1 in the Prep2Prep CCS rankings. The Trojans have faced two WCAL opponents -- Riordan and Valley Christian -- and won both of the games by double digits.
Division I
No. 1 Salinas vs. No. 8 Menlo-Atherton
No. 4 Piedmont Hills vs. No. 5 Fremont
No. 3 San Benito vs. No. 6 Silver Creek
No. 2 Alvarez vs. No. 7 Santa Teresa
Full bracket (PDF): please click here
The CCS committee ruled that Mission-San Francisco could not be considered a league champion from the Academic Athletic League (San Francisco), which meant Menlo-Atherton nabbed the final automatic bid from the PAL-Bay Division over Menlo, who lost a full power point due to the ruling.
"We had some kids with tears in their eyes and some confused kids," said Menlo coach Mark Newton, who thought along with most at his school that Mission's regular-season first-place finish would be enough for the Knights to claim the spot that went to M-A. "There's some sadness. We thought we'd definitely be in the playoffs and now it's a difficult situation."
Newton said Menlo received an email from CCS last Friday explaining the glitch. The AAA -- which is synonymous with the San Francisco Section -- has a four-team playoff system that culminates with the Turkey Bowl title game on Thanksgiving. The Turkey Bowl winner is declared the champion according to the AAA, not the winner of the regular season, which is bad news for the Knights.
Aragon coach Steve Sell of the CCS football committee has been in contact with Newton in recent days and spoke about the situation.
"The City (Section) bylaws clearly state that they declare their league champion after Thanksgiving and that as of now whoever is listed in first place is just that -- they're in first place," Sell said. "It's their section -- they're an autonomous section and they have the freedom to say who their league champion is and who their section champion is. I realize other (CCS) teams in the past have claimed a point for beating a (AAA) regular-season first place team (a point Newton also made). It's always tricky in all sports when you play teams out of section because then you have to go through the process of verifying how other leagues crown champions."
The Knights needed that point to win a tie-breaker for the league's fourth automatic bid for the playoffs. Adding M-A affected all four enrollment divisions as Menlo was ticketed for the D-IV bracket and M-A is a DI school.
Now No. 8 seed M-A will have to travel to No. seed Salinas in the first round.
Salinas started the season 1-3, but finished with a flourish to win a share of the MBL-Gabilan title.
"We played a tough schedule," Cowboys coach Steve Goodbody said. "We believed we were ready for the Gabilan and I think we'll be strong moving forward."
Santa Teresa (19.5 CCS points) was the last at-large team entered into the field. Fremont (9-1) lost its chance for a first-round home game by losing to Homestead in the season finale.
Division II
No. 1 St. Francis vs. No. 8 Mt. Pleasant
No. 4 Westmont vs. No. 5 Leland
No. 3 Christopher vs. No. 6 Wilcox
No. 2 Archbishop Mitty vs. No. 7 Willow Glen
Full bracket (PDF): please click here
The top two seeds come from the WCAL and will be favorites to meet for the championship. The matchup of BVAL rivals Westmont and Leland should be a good one as should Christopher-Wilcox.
"We're just glad to be one of (the playoff teams)," Leland coach Jake Shaughnessy said. "I think (Westmont) is very big and that Jakob Good should change his name to Jakob Great. They're damned good and you expect that -- they're 9-1 for a reason.
"We know St. Francis and Mitty are tough and Christopher is a league champ and we did not beat Willow Glen. Wilcox is always talented and Mt. Pleasant was one win away from winning its league. Something like 58 percent of the teams are turning in their gear at the point in the season and I don't think our kids were looking at who is in our division -- they're just happy to be going to practice on Monday."
Division III
No. 1 Pioneer vs. No. 8 Saratoga
No. 4 St. Ignatius vs. No. 5 Monterey
No. 3 Burlingame vs. No. 6 Aragon
No. 2 Aptos vs. No. 7 Branham
Full bracket (PDF): please click here
Pioneer was one of the teams affected by the decision involving Menlo/Menlo-Atherton and as a result, the Mustangs are the No. 1 seed in Division III rather than projected No. 2 in a loaded Division II. Despite being a No. 4 seed, St. Ignatius would have to be considered one of the favorites to capture the title.
Aragon coach Sell said his players were bummed at not being able to play Burlingame in divisional play, but now the Peninsula foes get to meet in the playoffs after the Panthers lost their de facto title game two weeks to Sacred Heart Prep.
"The kids were disappointed (before the season) when Burlingame went to a different division," Sell said. "I told them that, who knows, maybe we'll meet them in the first round of the playoffs and now we are. I got a chance to watch them in their great rivalry game against San Mateo and there's always a ton of people at that. (Burlingame) is a good team."
Another intriguing match-up is unbeaten No. 7 seed Branham at No. 2 seed Aptos.
Division IV
No. 1 The King's Academy vs. No. 8 Terra Nova
No. 4 Carmel vs. No. 5 Half Moon Bay
No. 3 Monte Vista Christian vs. No. 6 Live Oak
No. 2 Pacific Grove vs. No. 7 San Lorenzo Valley
Full bracket (PDF): please click here
The Carmel-Half Moon Bay game will be played at Pacific Grove. The TKA-Terra Nova game should be fascinating, pitting the PAL-Lake "C" league champion Knights against the experienced Tigers from the PAL-Bay "A" league. TN is led by the prolific pass-catch combo of Anthony Gordon to Jordan Genato. The Tigers will be anxious to get back on the field after blowing a 16-point lead to rival Half Moon Bay in the Skull Game and losing.
HMB, after the emotional lift of that comeback win against TN, now visits wide-open Carmel -- another interesting match-up that could blow out a few scoreboard fuses.
