Forty-five teams begin league play this week. Twenty-three more will commence next week, and 22 already have started down that road as the season reaches Week 7 and the final month of the regular season.
It seems that every team in the San Diego Section will make the playoffs. Although that is not the case it reminds of basketball in Indiana, where every town had a team and every team went to the state tournament. Except the Indiana model, since changed, honored just one champion. Here, and throughout the state, there will be six different champions, according to division play.
Winning a league championship is not as important as it used to be, but don’t tell that to the coaches, players, and students who work and support through the 10-game regular season.
On the flip side, of the 18 league champions in 2017, Steele Canyon, one of the 4 that advanced to a state championship game, did not win its league title and finished third in the Grossmont Hills with a 3-2 record.
The Cougars, who knocked off league titlists Hilltop, The Bishop’s, Granite Hills, and Ramona, in the playoffs, defeated Half Moon Bay of the Central Coast Section, 44-42, for the state Division III-A title.
2017 league champions:
| LEAGUE | TEAM | SEASON | LAST |
| Avocado | Mission Hills | 12-1 | ^19-26, Helix |
| Central | +San Diego | 12-1 | ^48-71, Monte Vista |
| City | +University City | 10-2 | ***20-30, Monte Vista |
| Citrus | Calvin Christian | 10-1 | ^21-26, Julian |
| Coastal | The Bishop’s | 9-1 | **52-61 Steele Canyon |
| Eastern | +Lincoln | 9-3 | **26-49, Otay Ranch |
| Grossmont Hills | Helix | 13-2 | ^^42-49, Folsom |
| Grossmont Valley | Granite Hills | 10-3 | ***27-28, Steele Canyon |
| Imperial | El Centro Southwest | 14-1 | ^^41-45, Milpitas |
| Manzanita | Calexico Vincent Memorial | 12-3 | ^^20-38, S.F. Galileo |
| Metro Mesa | Otay Ranch | 8-4 | ***14-42, Ramona |
| Metro Pacific | Montgomery | 7-4 | **14-52, Tri-City |
| Metro South Bay | Hilltop | 7-5 | **18-62, El Centro Southwest |
| Ocean | Julian | 7-2 | ^26-21 Calvin Christian |
| Pacific | Maranatha | 6-4 | **7-13, Classical |
| Palomar | Ramona | 12-1 | ^29-33, Steele Canyon |
| Valley | Valley Center | 9-2 | **30-49, Granite Hills |
| Western | St. Augustine | 7-4 | **21-41, San Marcos |
+San Diego now is in Central League, University City in Eastern, and Lincoln in Western.
**Quarterfinals & *** Semifinals playoffs.
^Section championship.
^^State championship.
IDLENESS BREEDS REST
Many teams took their bye weeks in preparation for the October stretch run, so there was little change in the Union-Tribune Top 10.
No. 1 Torrey Pines and No. 2 La Costa Canyon each made incremental moves up in the weekly Cal-Hi Sports rankings. Torrey now is 13th and La Costa 14th.Â
Cathedral advanced from 18th to 16th,                                                    according to the newsletter, which ranks teams throughout the state’s 10 sections. Eastlake dropped to 42nd from 41st and Helix to 46th from 44th. Madison and St. Augustine are on the bubble.
QUICK KICKS
The 6-0 Kearny Komets are bringing back memnories of the Birt Slater days…the Slater-coached team won its first 10 in a10-1 season in 1975…Union-Tribune correspondent Don Norcross was on that team and was the starting quarterback on Slater’s 11-2, final team in 1976…last week the Komets won, 42-0, over Pomona, which hadn’t been seen in these part since 1976…San Diego teams are 8-9-1 against the Pomona Red Devils, dating to a 5-0 shutout of San Diego High in 1899…the Hilltoppers measured Pomona, 14-6, in the Southern Section semifinal playoffs in 1947 and La Jolla dropped a 27-21, semifinal battle to the Red Devils in 1951….
