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Now that I've predicted the games, I'll start finishing up these playoff scenario. After three pretty easy ones, the DSL is making my head spin a bit.

1. Ridgecrest Burroughs (6-3, 3-0): Burroughs is the only team to have clinched a playoff spot already and would clinch a league title and its No. 1 seed in the Eastern Division playoffs with a win Friday against Victor Valley. It would get the No. 2 seed in a loss by virtue of losing the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Jackrabbits.

2. Victor Valley (7-2, 2-1): The Jackrabbits would clinch a playoff spot, the league title and the No. 1 seed out of the DSL in the playoffs with a victory over Burroughs. It would also clinch with a loss and a Barstow win over Silverado, getting the No. 2 seed over Granite Hills by virtue of owning the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Cougars. However, a loss and a Silverado win would cause a three-way coin flip for two spots between Victor Valley, Granite Hills and Silverado by virtue of each team going 1-1 against the other two. Due to its record though, Victor Valley has a good shot at the at-large even if it loses the coin flip.

3. Granite Hills (4-5, 2-2): The Cougars are done with their league season and clinch a playoff spot with a Silverado loss or a Victor Valley win. If Silverado loses, Granite Hills is the No. 3 no matter what Victor Valley does, as the Cougars lose the head-to-head tiebreaker with Victor Valley. If Victor Valley wins, Granite Hills is the No. 3 no matter what Silverado does as the Cougars own the head-to-head over the Hawks. A Silverado win and a Victor Valley loss would bring about the three-way coin flip for two spots. Unlike Victor Valley, Granite Hills wouldn't have much of a shot at an at-large.

4. Silverado (4-4-1, 1-2): There is no way for Silverado to make the playoffs without winning a coin flip, but they must beat Barstow and have Victor Valley lose to get to that scenario. A win and a Victor Valley win would put the Hawks in a tie with Granite Hills for third, with the Cougars getting the nod due to the head-to-head tiebreaker. If Silverado finishes fourth in the above scenarios, it has a shot at the at-large playoff berth. A loss to Barstow would eliminate Silverado from consideration.

5. Barstow (1-8, 0-3): Eliminated from playoff consideration.

Victor Valley College hosted the cross country finals for both the Mojave River League and the Desert Sky League on Wednesday.
Granite Hills, as expected, dominated the DSL. The boys' 23 points, led by winner senior Cody Jordan (16:01) easily defeated runner-up Ridgecrest Burroughs (49).
In a race that had only 23 runners and three scoring teams, the Granite Hills girls (ranked No. 1 in the county) scored a perfect 15 with the first five finishers and seven of the top nine. Granite Hills sophomore Chelsea Bennis won in 19:15. Burroughs was second with 54.

As opposed to the four-team DSL, the five-team MRL had close finishes for both team titles. For the boys, Apple Valley, with five finishers in the top 12, edged out Serrano, 31-38. Serrano's Ben Minick won in 16:23, while Apple Valley's Nick Reynolds was runner-up in 16:38.

The MRL girls has two of the top teams in CIF. Sultana entered the week ranked No. 7 in CIF-SS Division 2, while Serrano is right behind them at No. 8.
And that's how it played out Wednesday. Sultana won with 29 points, to edge out Serrano, with 34. Again Serrano had the individual winner (Melissa Fairchild, 18:01), but not the team winner. Sultana's Hannah Munyan was second in 18:04.

Results were received by The Sun late on Wednesday and will not appear in Thursday's paper. Hope is they will run in Friday's paper.

For the first time in the 11-year history of Granite Hills High School, the Cougars had a winning record. Granite Hills' 6-4 record bested the school's previous high-water mark by two games, seemingly leaving a building block for the future. But the Cougars lost up-and-coming coach Justin Price to Yucaipa, leaving the job open in June for Joel Hurtt to accept.

"It's a bit of a bittersweet thing because Justin was a really good coach and really had the kids believing," Hurtt said. "It's a tough thing to lose a coach as late as we did and have to get refocused in the middle. Getting a new coach in June is a tough thing. The kids were a little in the dark at first but seem to have bought in."

Hurtt's familiarity with the program will help, as he was the Cougars' head coach in 2006 and 2007 and stayed around the program in Price's two seasons, coaching the freshman team to an 8-2 record in 2008. He certainly knows enough about what's going on to know that senior running back Antawaun Jones is a guy he can depend on.

In 16 years as an assistant coach - 14 at La Quinta and the last two seasons under Leland Eudy at Victor Valley - Eric Perry had always had his eye on being a head coach. With Eudy's retirement last season, Perry finally got his wish. And so far, it's as fun as he thought it would be.

"We are having a great time out here," Perry said. "There are definitely more demands when it comes to off-the-field stuff like parents and especially fundraising, but it's great to build a program and work with these kids and see where we can take this thing."

Eudy's last two years at Victor Valley saw the Jackrabbits make considerable process. Victor Valley had a 20-game winless streak coming into the 2008 season but mustered a 3-6-1 record in 2008 and a 7-3 record a year ago. The next step in Perry's mind is a playoff berth, something he thinks is possible despite having a relatively inexperienced team.

If you blinked last year, you probably missed a Silverado scoring drive. With explosive dual-threat quarterback Jemeryn Jenkins throwing to big-play wide receiver Fred Rosser to go along with the shifty running of running back Ayele Forde, the Hawks put up points in a rapid-fire fashion. But with the above three players having graduated, Silverado coach Carl Posey is looking to slow his team's pace a bit.

"It seemed like no matter what we did, we were off the field in two minutes," Posey said. "We'd either break a long touchdown with those guys or we'd go three and out and punt. Either way, our defense was on the field a lot. We did pretty well defensively but we lost almost everyone from that side of the ball last year and I don't want to put that much on that."

Protecting a defense that has lost a bulk of its starters isn't the only reason for Silverado's change in approach. Quite frankly, losing the combined skill of Jenkins, Rosser and Forde is almost impossible to replace and the players set to do that bring different things to the table.

After a hiatus for vacations and things of the like over the past few weeks, we are getting back to business on the blog with team-by-team high school previews. Over the next month, we'll be showcasing every county school east of the 15 and south of Barstow, where we'll start off today.

The first two years of the Jose Rubio era in Barstow have been fruitful, as the Aztecs have a combined 17-8 record and made a run to the Eastern Division championship game in 2008. But the bulk of the contributors from the last two years have moved on, as 27 seniors depart from last year's 7-4 team.

"I guess you could say we are rebuilding," Rubio said. "On offense we return our quarterback and center basically, while on defense we lost our linebackers and defensive tackles. We'll be young but we are excited to see what some of these guys can do."

There are new CIF divisions in all sports, as has been posted here by TJ Berka, but I thought I'd mention wrestling. By the way, there is still an appeals process that takes place in April, so it's not all a done deal.

In Dual meet wrestling, Bloomington won the D6 title this year and I don't know if that weighed into it, but it's probably only appropriate that the Sunkist League moves up to D5.
The San Andreas League moves up from D4 to D3, and I don't know if that's entirely warranted, while the Citrus Belt remains in D4? Most of the other county leagues stay in the same dual meet divisions: Mojave River (D1), Baseline (D2), Mt. Baldy (D3), CBL and Desert Sky (D4). The Sierra is an exception, moving up from D3 to D1, which will not be easy. Of course many of the leagues have new alignments, too.

According to the CIF, the individual divisions (I'm assuming it's only the individual divisions and not the dual divisions) are comprised based on how many masters meet qualifiers a league gets over a 4-year period.
The four San Bernardino County leagues that had been in the Northern Division the last couple of years, having to go to Oxnard Pacifica (of the Pacific View) to wrestle, are being sent in different directions.
Only the Desert Sky among county leagues remains with the Pacific View. The Mojave River goes into a division in which Sultana should be a favorite. The Sunkist joins the San Andreas in another division, while the fourth league, the Mt. Baldy joins the Baseline in yet another division. The Citrus Belt League is once again alone among Inland Valley leagues in another division. It's too bad more of the local leagues can't be in the same division and wrestle locally.

The division shifts in football got most of the attention by the CIF-Southern Section on Monday, but several other powerful local teams in other sports were impacted by the changes.

One of the teams most impacted was the Redlands East Valley girls volleyball team. The three-time defending CIF-SS champions are being bumped up a class from Division 2-AA to 1-A. The Baseline and Citrus Belt leagues were bumped up in softball from Division 2 to Division 1 and the Citrus Belt was bumped up from Division 2 to Division 1 in girls soccer.

The High Desert also saw its soccer prowess recognized as two-time defending Division 4 girls champion Sultana moves into Division 3, along with CIF-State Southern California Division II regional champion Granite Hills. The boys soccer teams got a bump too, with the Mojave River League moving up to Division 4 and the Desert Sky League going to Division 5.

A quick cheat sheet of what it will look like the next two years.

Football playoff divisions for 2010 and 2011

CENTRAL DIVISION (one at-large)
Mt. Baldy (4 teams)
San Andreas (4 teams)
Desert Valley (3 teams)
Inland Valley (4 teams)

EASTERN DIVISION (one at-large)
Desert Sky (3 teams)
Mojave River (3 teams)
Sunkist (3 teams)
Mountain Pass (3 teams)
Sunbelt (3 teams)

EAST VALLEY DIVISION (four at-large)
Ambassador (2 teams)
De Anza (2 teams)
Mountain Valley (2 teams)
Academy (2 teams)
Alpha (2 teams)
Frontier (2 teams)

INLAND DIVISION (zero at-large)
Baseline (3 teams)
Citrus Belt (3 teams)
Sierra (3 teams)
Big 8 (4 teams)
Southwestern (3 teams)

An expansion of what I blogged about last night in reference to the new football realignments. Got a hold of some coaches on the topic. This will also run in the Sun and Bulletin tomorrow.

The playoff alignments for various sports, including football, for the 2010-2012 seasons were released by the CIF-SS offices Monday, with some interesting changes in football.

The Baseline and Sierra Leagues, which were in the Central Division the last two years, will swap back into the Inland Division to play against the Citrus Belt League, the Big 8 and the Southwestern Leagues. The Inland Valley League will swap out, moving back to the Central Division with the expanded San Andreas and Mt. Baldy Leagues and the Desert Valley League, which moves up from the Eastern Division. The Sunbelt League switches places with the Desert Valley, moving into the Eastern Division.

These changes will make life tough on the Baseline League, which ripped up the Central Division in both seasons in it. Three of the four semifinalists during the last two years were Baseline teams, with the Central Division title game being an all-Baseline affair (Rancho Cucamonga over Upland in 2008 and Upland over Los Osos in 2009) both seasons.

Another change that will impact the Baseline is the zero at-large entries in the Inland Division. Considering that the Central champion this past year, Upland, was an at-large entry from the Baseline, a brutal league will become even more cutthroat.

Or at least, it seems that way.
Five different leagues (De Anza, Desert Sky, Mojave River, Mt. Baldy and Sunkist) with San Bernardino County schools will be sending wrestlers to Oxnard Pacifica High for the CIF-SS Northern Division individual championships on Friday and Saturday.

Four of those leagues: Desert Sky, Mojave River, Mt. Baldy and Sunkist all have wrestlers who are seeded among the top five in their weight class. The top five in each weight class advance to the CIF-SS Masters Meet next week.

Of the 70 wrestlers in the division seeded in the top five, 37 are from San Bernardino County.
Montclair leads county schools with top five seeds, (seven), followed by Bloomington and Colony (five), Sultana (four), Barstow, Victor Valley and Hesperia (three), Kaiser (two), Ontario (two), and one each for Granite Hills, Apple Valley and Rim of the World.

Six of the 14 top-seeded wrestlers in the division are also from the county: Barstow's Sean Silva (112), Hesperia's Ivan Pinto (125), Bloomington's Phillip Hendrix (130), Montclair's Joseph Martinez (135), Hesperia's Chris Sloat (160) and Sultana's Manuel Mazariegos (heavyweight).

This is the only league where everyone has clinched or controls their own destiny. That makes for a simple theme to the DSL - win and you are in, lose and you go home. So for all intents and purposes, the playoffs have already begun.

1) Silverado (8-2, 4-0): Has clinched the league championship and the No. 1 seed out of the league.

2) Victor Valley (7-2, 1-2): To be honest, 2-5 are virtually interchangeble. If the Jackrabbits defeat Burroughs Friday, they are in the playoffs. If they lose, they are out, as there is no at-large berth available in the Eastern Division. Victor Valley will be the No. 2 seed if it wins and Barstow beats Granite Hills, as the Jackrabbits hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Aztecs. If Granite Hills wins along with Victor Valley, the Jackrabbits get the No. 3 seed, as Granite Hills owns the tiebreaker over Victor Valley.

3) Barstow (6-3, 1-2): The Aztecs, last year's Eastern Division runner-up, has to beat Granite Hills to earn a playoff spot. As I explained before, the Aztecs will get the No. 3 seed with a win and a Victor Valley win, as the Jackrabbits own the tiebreaker. However, if Burroughs and Barstow win, Barstow gets the No. 2 seed, as it owns the tiebreaker with the Burros.

4) Granite Hills (6-3, 1-2): The Cougars already have the best win total in school history and a win over Barstow would give them a playoff berth as well. They own the head-to-head tiebreaker with Victor Valley, so they would get the No. 2 seed with a win and a Jackrabbit win. If Burroughs wins, Granite Hills drops down to the No. 3 seed, as the Burros own the head-to-head tiebreaker over Granite Hills.

5) Ridgecrest Burroughs (4-5, 1-2): With a win, the Burros make the playoffs for the third straight year. A win and a Granite Hills win puts Burros in the No. 2 seed by virtue of head-to-head tiebreaker, while a win and a Barstow win has them in the No. 3 slot for the very same reason.

Do you like complications? Well, if you do, the DSL is the place for you. Just playoff possibilites abound on the way to Vegas.

1. Silverado (3-7, 3-1): The Hawks have already clinched a playoff spot and now are sitting back with their bye to see what seed they'll get. If Barstow wins and Ridgecrest Burroughs loses to Victor Valley, then Silverado will get the No. 1 seed by virtue of a victory over Barstow. If Barstow and Burroughs both lose, Silverado gets the No. 1 seed. If Barstow loses and Burroughs wins, then Silverado is the No. 2 seed by virtue of losing to Burroughs head-to-head. If Barstow and Burroughs both win, then all three teams will be in a dead heat for first and the head-to-head tiebreakers will cancel out, necessitating a three-way flip for seedind.

2. Barstow (6-3, 2-1): The Aztecs have clinched a playoff berth by virtue of tiebreaker advantages over Burroughs and Victor Valley. The only way they get a No. 1 seed is if they win and Burroughs wins, causing a three-way tie and flip for seeding. Barstow gets the No. 2 seed with a Burroughs loss and gets the No. 3 seed if it loses to Granite Hills and Burroughs wins.

3. Ridgecrest Burroughs (5-4, 2-1): The Burros have the most amount of play, as they could get the No. 1 seed or be shut out of the playoffs entirely. They'll get the No. 1 seed with a win and a Barstow loss by virtue of their head-to-head victory over Silverado. They'll also get the No. 1 seed if they win a three-way coin flip that would be caused by a win and a Barstow win. However, a loss to Victor Valley knocks Burroughs out of the playoffs in every scenario.

4. Victor Valley (3-5-1, 1-2): It's pretty simple for the Jackrabbits - win and they are in, lose and they are out. They'd qualify over Burroughs by virtue of winning the head-to-head tiebreaker but could not get anything higher than a No. 3 seed.

5. Granite Hills (2-7, 0-3): Eliminated from playoff consideration.