diAApairings

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SoCalHoops High School News

CIF Southern Section Boys'
Division I-AA Pairings--(Feb. 14, 1999)

We spent the entire morning down at Gahr High School as the CIF Southern Section playoff pairings and brackets were announced this morning. The first bracket to be announced was Division I-AA, and as you can imagine, the place was packed with coaches, administrators, coaches, and more coaches, all wondering what their first matchup would be.

Here are the pairings. All of the first games will take place on Friday, February 19, 1999. The Second Round will take place on February 23; the Semifinals will take place on March 2, 1999, while the finals is at the Pond at Anaheim.

We don't have time to actually put up the bracketing right now, but we'll do it later. In the meantime, if you use your imagination, you'll be able to picture it. The top seeds in the Division are Artesia (No. 1), Long Beach Poly (#2), Long Beach Jordan (#3), and Fontana (#4). Here are the first round pairings:

Division I-AA

Artesia v. Winner Wild Card "A"
San Gabriel (Almont #1) v. Redlands (Citrus Belt #3)
Quartz Hill (Golden #1) v. Lynwood (San Gabriel Valley #3)
Eisenhower (Citrus Belt #2) v.Murrieta Valley (Sunbelt #2)
Upland (Baseline #2) v. Etiwanda (Mt. Baldy #2)
Valencia/V (Foothill #1) v. Ayala (Sierra #2)
Santa Maria (Northern #1) v. Santa monica (Bay #3)
Jordan (Moore #2) v. Channel Islands (Pacific View #2)

Fontana (Citrus Belt #1) v. Montclair (Mt. Baldy #3)
Centennial/Corona v. Litterock (Golden #2)
Valley View (Sunbelt #1) v. Schurr (Almont #3)
Capistrano Valley (South Coast #2) v. Yucaipa (San Andreas #2)
Ontario (Mt. Baldy #1) v. Diamond Bar (Sierra #3)
Los Alamitos (Sunset #1) v. Warren (San Gabriel Valley #2)
Oxnard (Pacific View #1) v. Irvine (Sea View #3)
Long Beach Poly (Moore #1) v. Esperanza (Sunset #3)

Wild Card--"A"-- Palmdale (Golden #3) v. Leuzinger (Ocean #4)

The home team is the first team listed.

Of course the big controversy in Division I-AA was the fact that Rialto, a team which finished 20-6 overall, finished third in league and ended up playing a tie-breaker on Friday, lost by one point, and finished out of the last automatic bid for a playoff spot. And amazingly, the CIF stuck to it's guns, and where there were enough qualified teams, in this case 33 teams, they didn't feel the need to add yet another two and another wild-card, so Rialto gets to watch the playoffs from the expensive seats, i.e., they'll have to buy a ticket.

In any event, all games are at 7:30 p.m. at the home school. We'll have the actual bracketing up later.