Baseline, Sierra head back to Inland Division

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.

Here are the divisions with county ties. Automatic entries are three unless otherwise noted.

CENTRAL (15 entries with one at-large)
Desert Valley
Inland Valley (4 entries)
Mt. Baldy (4 entries)
San Andreas (4 entries)

EASTERN (15 entries with one at-large)
Desert Sky
Mojave River
Mountain Pass
Sunbelt
Sunkist

EAST VALLEY (12 entries plus 4 at-larges) *2 automatic bids per league
Academy
Alpha
Ambassador League (former Christian League)
De Anza
Frontier
Mountain Valley

INLAND (16 entries)
Baseline
Big 8 (4 entries)
Citrus Belt
Sierra
Southwestern

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