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SoCal Prep & High School News

CIF: Channel League Shrinks--(October 29, 1997)

We've recently reported on the "releaguing" process that the CIF Southern Section and LA City Section IAC have been considering lately. Well, we don't want to leave Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties out of this, so here's the latest news on high school releaguing there.

It seems that a week ago Tuesday, October 21, 1997, the CIF-Southern Section council voted 40-25 to uphold a last-ditch appeal by Moorpark which would place it in the Marmonte League rather than the Channel League for the four-year releaguing cycle which begins next fall (1998). The original plan had been to place Moorpark into the Channel League (which would make both Channel and Marmonte each "six team" leagues), but Moorpark objected to travelling through--but not playing in--two more geographically close leagues, i.e., the current Marmonte League, and the new Oxnard League. The original proposal for releaguing would have required Moorpark to travel to Santa Barbara to play some of its games, and Moorpark thought that would be too costly and inconvenient.

As a result of the vote, the Channel League (which now includes Buena, Dos Pueblos, Hueneme, Oxnard, Rio Mesa, Santa Barbara and Ventura) will drop from its current size to only five schools. Rio Mesa, Oxnard and Hueneme will be out (and will now be in the new Oxnard League). Also, the Marmonte League will shrink from eight to seven schools. The Oxnard League will have five teams until Pacifico High is opened in the year 2000.

Thus, there will now be two leagues with "odd-numbers" in Ventura/Santa Barbara, which will make scheduling (especially in football, not so much in basketball where each team plays the other at least twice) very difficult. A "bye", which is usually necessary in an odd-numbered league, usually means that a school will lose money on that weekend, or will have to resort to trying to find a non-league contest with another school. Such scheduling usually requires traveling out of the area, and thus is further costly.

According to published reports in the Santa Barbara News-Press, most coaches and athletic directors from Ventura were disappointed with the vote, even though it means that a Channel League team can qualify for the CIF playoffs by winning a smaller number of games (especially in football, where some teams may only have to win two games to qualify).

Moorpark was originally outvoted by principals representing the various schools in the CIF's Southern Section's Northern Region, which runs from Malibu to Atascadero. However, the principals were overruled by the vote last week, permitting Moorpark to remain in the Marmonte League.

With only five teams, most sports will have only eight league contests (home and away) instead of the current total of 14. Non-league games will have to substituted to fill the allotment of contests allowed by the CIF.

``This will de-emphasize the league season,'' Buena basketball coach Glen Hannah was reported to have said in the News-Press. ``That's where you want to emphasize things."

Ah, turf wars. . . aren't they fun. Glen Hannah knows all about those, and so does Ian Boys' now.

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