NCS D2: Clayton Valley over Rancho Cotate. The Ranch is good this year but the Eagles will dominate the LOS.

CCS D1: Milpitas over San Benito. Milpitas is too big and too fast for the Haybalers, who were only 4-5 going into the playoffs.

CCS D2: St. Francis over Los Gatos. The Wildcats are not the team they had been just a few years ago. St. Francis was 4-3 in the tough WCAL, finishing with a 24-0 road win over Serra.

SJS D3: Oakdale over Vista del Lago. Should be close, but Mustangs line play will dominate in the end. Winner should play NCS D2 winner in North D2 Regional next week.
South Region

SS D3(Northern): Palos Verdes over West Torrance. PV already beat West 47-14 in Bay League play. Also Sea Kings had to get past Hart and Valencia in round 2 and semis respectively; a tougher playoffs route than for West. This division was bumped down from Cal Bowl D1 by SS for this year.

SS D4(Western): Chaminade vs. Serra(Gardena). A very tough one to call. Although Nade beat the Cavaliers 28-20 in Mission League play, Serra is more familiar now with the Eagles 1st rate passing attack. Also, Serra’s speed (and size) should win out in the end. Serra with a close win.

SS D5(Central): Kaiser over Rancho Verde. Kaiser beat Riverside Poly 40-20 Sept. 14. The Mustangs lost to Poly 14-21 in Inland Valley League play.

SS D6(Southwest): Edison(Huntington Beach) over Villa Park. Villa Park has had a banner year, their only loss was to the Chargers 7-27 Sept. 8. Edison should repeat.
Edison and the Sunset League were bumped from the Pac 5 to this division by SS last spring.

SS D7(Southeast): La Serna over Downey. The Lancers beat Downey 28-27 in an OT win Aug. 31 at Downey. La Serna’s well balanced offense will be too much for the Vikings.

SS D8(Eastern): Serrano over Citrus Hill. Both teams are undefeated, but Serrano shows a stronger defense and o-line.

LACS D2: San Fernando over Canoga Park. These teams were seeded 5 and 6 respectively. San Fernando is on a roll.

SDS D2: Poway vs. Oceanside: Poway’s on a roll. Titans beat powerful Helix 21-7 in the semis at Helix. Pirates struggled with a 31-28 win against Valhalla in the semis. Poway should avenge their 13-23 loss to Oceanside on Sept. 21 with an upset win over the Pirates. Poway was SDS D1 last year.

SDS D3: Ramona over Lincoln. This should be a close one. Cathedral Catholic, arguably the best team in this division, was disqualified from the playoffs for using an inelgible player.

CS D2: Garces over Sanger. Garces is a much more balanced than Sanger.

CS D3: Ridgeview over Dinuba. The Empirors don’t have
quite the athletes to stay with the Wolfpack.

It has got to be hard to schedule games in the 2nd half of the season when most teams everywhere are playing league games. I don’t know if that is Livermore’s bye week, but just speculating for sake of discussion.

With DLS now no longer counting as a league game, EBAL teams now just need to go 3-3 in league rather than 4-3 (with an inevitable loss to DLS) to be playoff eligible, or else do very well in their preseason games. That change alone should enable EBAL teams to upgrade their schedules without doing so at the peril of not making the playoffs like what happened to Foothill last season.

Foothill played 3 preseason games last season (Pitt, Novato & Logan), and lost 2 of them to Pitt & Logan. They then went 3-4 in the EBAL with the inevitable loss to loss to DLS, and losses to Cal, SRV & MV and finished 4-6 overall and did not make the playoffs for the first time in 20 years. Had that exact same schedule been played this year, they would have made the playoffs at .500 (3-3) in league play.

One could say that in losing 6 games they shouldn’t make the playoffs, but those were 6 pretty good teams that they lost to and Foothill would have beaten a lot of the teams that did make the playoffs, including the #3 seed SL had they been eligible. There are a lot of things to consider when teams make out schedules. Hopefully the EBAL teams will upgrade now that DLS is no longer in the league, even if they still choose to play each other.

Somehow I doubt that Logan would keep teams like Irvington and MSJ on their schedule but we’ll see how determined they are to make sure they are getting enough competition. If all they did was replace Del Oro with DLS, then while being an upgrade it would not make it a monstrous schedule.

I would think they would want to put in a couple of EBAL and BVAL teams, as well as some OOS action. Heritage (3-7) and SRV (6-6) was a start this year, but adding Pitt or Freedom and Cal or MV would be nice. I hope next year’s team is up for the battle if they significantly upgrade it and make it a Spartanlike schedule.