Marmonte League football teams gain extra playoff spot

JANN HENDRY/Acorn Newspapers MAKIN’ ROOM FOR MARMONTE—Jim Benkert and his Westlake Warriors are as happy as any team to hear about CIF’s decision to give the league an additional automatic playoff berth. In a move several Marmonte League football coaches called “long overdue,” the CIF-Southern Section decided in May to give the league an additional automatic berth into the Division IV playoffs.

Now the top four finishers in the eight-team league will receive an invite into the postseason, whereas in years past only the top three were assured a spot, leaving the fourth-place squad to hope for a Div. IV wild card berth that didn’t always come the league’s way.

According to Simi Valley High School athletic director Matt La Belle, who brought the case before CIF and its voters (representatives from individual leagues), the decision clearly made sense when one took the time to look at the statistics.

“When a five-team league is getting three teams into the playoffs, and sometimes even four, that means between 60 and 80 percent make it,” La Belle said. “Then you look at Marmonte and sometimes we were only getting three teams in—that’s just 37 percent. When you look at this issue strictly on the numbers, it was hard to argue with the fact that the system wasn’t working out fairly.”

The apparent inequity came to light at the end of the past several seasons when a tie for third place in the division’s five-team leagues often resulted in the wild card going to a team with a losing record, while the fourth-place finisher in Marmonte with a winning or .500 record was left out in the cold.

This would happen despite the fact that Marmonte is the only eight-team league competing in Div. IV.

“For years we’ve felt that Marmonte League was a strong, eight-team league, and that we should get the wild card,” said Westlake head coach Jim Benkert, whose team missed the playoffs in 2004 despite having defeated both the Marmonte League champion (Royal) and the runner-up (Agoura) during the regular season. “It just didn’t seem fair that a five-team league gets three teams in and an eight-team league got the same.”

In 2003, Simi Valley was denied its first visit to the playoffs in over 20 years despite finishing with a 64 overall record and a 4-3 record in Marmonte. Instead, the wild card went to San Marcos of the six-team Channel League, despite the fact it lost its final two games and went just 2-3 in conference.

First-year Simi head coach Todd Borowski said the decision will go far in helping to keep the Marmonte League together. In the past, the system made teams more willing to join smaller leagues because of a greater opportunity for a postseason berth.

“It an absolutely great thing for our league because I think our league has proven from top to bottom that we’re as solid as anybody, especially in our division,” Borowski said. “We could have split into two four-team leagues so six would have made it (to the playoffs). But having an eightteam league is easier for travel and everything else. So, by CIF (giving us the fourth playoff spot), more leagues now will become larger leagues because of that (decision).”

Newbury Park head coach George Hurley said the CIF’s decision is in the best interest of everyone, “whether other leagues feel like it or not.”

“The point is to get the best teams and the best players into the playoffs, and sometimes, that wasn’t happening,” said Hurley, about to begin his 18th season at the helm of the Panthers. “We just felt that the fourth-place team in an eight-team league was going to be better than the fourth place team in a five-team league.”