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Did You Know? County football postseason facts

By Scott Campbell
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 at 10:47 pm in General.

With the Central Coast Section and North Coast Section football playoffs set to start this weekend, here are some San Mateo County postseason facts:

Every County program currently enrolled in the CCS has played in the playoffs at least once.

Terra Nova, which plays at Riordan on Saturday, has an all-time postseason record of 13-17. The Tigers lead the County in wins, losses and games played.

Aragon, which hosts Piedmont Hills on Saturday, sits at 12-16, leaving the Dons second in all three categories.

Woodside, which is sitting out the postseason after qualifying three straight years, is 11-13-1.

San Mateo, the only County team to win three championships, has the best overall record at 9-6.

Hillsdale (8-6) is the only other team with a winning record, aided by titles in 1981 and 1991.

Serra (6-6), which plays Bellarmine on Saturday, has the next best overall record. (The now defunct Oceana program bowed out at .500 with a 2-2 record).

Burlingame (7-8), Carlmont (7-10) and South San Francisco (7-10) are all in the seven-win club.

Five programs besides San Mateo and Hillsdale have won multiple CCS championships: Aragon (’92, ‘94), South San Francisco (’80, ‘89), Terra Nova (’82, ‘88), Jefferson (’83, ‘84), and Woodside (’99, ‘04).

Current Terra Nova coach Bill Gray led Oceana to the 1987 title … over Terra Nova.

El Camino (0-2), which plays at Palo Alto on Saturday, is one of three County programs to never win a CCS playoff game (0-4 Menlo and 0-3 Mills are the others). The Colts also have yet to score a point in the playoffs, having lost 20-0 to St. Francis and 49-0 to Aragon in their previous trips.

At least one County team won a CCS title every year between 1980 and 1992, and the County totaled 16 championships in that span (the majority coming via the Division II-N bracket that pitted County teams).

County teams have won just seven titles since 1992.

… and some more postseason facts, focusing on this year’s participants:

Since the inception of the CCS Open Division in 2004, no County team has advanced to the championship game. But with Serra qualifying as the No. 5 seed this season, at least one County team has played in the elite bracket each year.

Serra, heading into its Bellarmine game, has a 1-2 record in two previous appearances in the Open Division.

Bellarmine is 0-2 in the Open Division, having lost its opener the last two years. The Bells (31-22 overall) haven’t won a playoff game since advancing to the Division I semifinals in 2002.

Bellarmine ranks fifth in CCS victories, trailing St. Francis (69), Los Gatos (44), Oak Grove (42) and Palma (36).

Aragon, the lone public-school program to qualify for the Open Division in the bracket’s first three years (the only other program is Palma), has a 1-3 Open record. The Dons’ lone win was against Serra in 2004, which also stands as Aragon’s last CCS victory.

Aragon did not qualify for the Open Division for the first time this year, and is instead slotted in the Large Schools Division bracket.

Piedmont Hills, Aragon’s opening-round opponent, was the Large Schools runner-up as the No. 8 seed in 2006. The Pirates, who shocked No. 1 seed and then-defending champion San Benito last year, own a 6-13 CCS mark.

Menlo-Atherton, the No. 1 seed in the Large Schools bracket, hasn’t won a playoff game since its 2002 championship. The Bears, 5-9 all-time in CCS, lost their openers in 2003 and 2006.

El Camino faces Palo Alto, the defending Open Division champ, in its Large Schools opener. The Vikings (12-10 all-time) also played in the inaugural CIF Bowl Championship Series in 2006.

Terra Nova, which missed the playoffs for just the second time in Gray’s tenure last year, seeks its first postseason victory since an appearance in the Medium Schools quarterfinals in 2005.

Riordan, the No. 1 seed in the Medium Schools bracket and Terra Nova’s opening-round opponent, is making its first CCS appearance since 2000. The Crusaders have a 4-5 overall playoff record.

For the first time since 1993, the first year CCS instituted a four-division format based on enrollment size, the County has no representative in the postseason’s lowest-enrollment bracket (now called the Small Schools Division). The County produced the Small Schools champion in 2004 and 2005 (Burlingame and Half Moon Bay) and had a finalist in three of the last five years.

Sacred Heart Prep, which plays at Ferndale on Saturday, is making its inaugural appearance in the NCS playoffs.

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