Win or lose Saturday evening, coach Chris Hauser’s Mission Hills Grizzlies are an almost unanimous choice as the No. 1 football team in the San Diego Section.
The final Top 10 poll of the season was voted on after conclusion of the  five San Diego Section championships.
The Grizzlies will host the Central Section champion Bakersfield Drillers in a State Bowl Series Southern California Regional playoff.
If Mission Hills wins, the San Marcos squad will play for a Division I state championship against either San Mateo Serra or Loomis Del Oro at the Home Depot Center in Carson the following week.
Two Eastern League teams, Cathedral and St. Augustine, finished third and fourth, respectively. Â The Saints also received a first-place vote.
| # | Team (1st place votes) | W-L | Points* | Previous |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mission Hills (30) | 12-1 | 308 | 1T |
| 2 | Oceanside | 10-3 | 244 | 1T |
| 3 | Cathedral | 11-2 | 232 | 9 |
| 4 | St. Augustine (1) | 11-2 | 204 | 7 |
| 5 | San Pasqual | 11-2 | 204 | 5 |
| 6 | Eastlake | 10-2 | 149 | 3 |
| 7 | Helix | 9-3 | 121 | 5 |
| 8 | Ramona | 10-2 | 72 | 8 |
| 9 | Mission Bay | 12-2 | 47 | NR |
| 10 | Madison | 9-2 | 29 | 6 |
*Points awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis. NR: previously unranked.
Others receiving votes: Christian, 22; Carlsbad, 20; Rancho Buena Vista, 8; Sweetwater, San Marcos, 5 each; Holtville, El Capitan, Imperial, 1 each.
Thirty-one sportswriters, sportscasters and CIF representatives from throughout San Diego County voted in the weekly poll:
John Maffei, Craig Malveaux, Dennis Lin, Lisa Lane, Andrew Burer,
and Don Norcross (U-T San Diego);
Terry Monahan, Tom Saxe, and Rick Hoff (U-T San Diego stringer);
Bill Dickens (eastcountysports.com);
Steve Brand (San Diego Hall of Champions);
John Kentera, Jack Cronin, Ted Mendenhall, Bob Petinak, Jordan Carruth, Bobby Wooldridge, Craig Elsten, and Mark Chiebowski (The Mighty 1090);
Jerry Schniepp and John Labeta (CIF San Diego Section office);
Rick Willis, Brandon Stone, and Jake Fadden (KUSI-TV);
Bruce Ward (San Diego City Schools);
Rick Smith (Partletonsports.com);
Steve (Biff) Dolan and Rick (Red) Hill (107.9 FM The Mountain);
Jeff Kurtz (NFHSnetwork.com; Ernie Martinez (XTRA Sports 1360); Â and
Nick Pellegrino.
Please explain how Cathedral Catholic managed to be ranked ahead of St. Augustine in the U-T’s final high school football poll.
By any sensible measure, there is no way this could happen.
When two teams have identical records, most common tie-breakers employed in sports worldwide are first: head-to-head; second: intradivisional records.
Saints soundly beat the Dons, 19-7, at Cathedral, where the visitors were allotted 1,700 tickets compared to approximately 3,500 howling home partisans. Saints also won the Eastern League with that victory. Scoreboard: Saints 2, Cathedral Catholic 0.
On the season, both teams finished 11-2, with Saints losing to Oceanside (No. 2) and Eastlake (No.6) while the Dons were falling to Saints (No.4) and Helix (No. 7). It seems the Saints’ losses occurred to better teams than beat Cathedral, if the poll has an ounce of validity. Both of Cathedral Catholic’s losses were inflicted by teams ranked behind the Dons.
After losing to Eastlake in their fifth game of the season, the Saints rolled to eight straight wins, culminated by a 49-0 thrashing of Mission Bay in the Division II finals. In the semifinals the Bucs had defeated Rancho Buena Vista, 56-49. The Longhorns had dispatched San Pasqual earlier in the year, toppling the Eagles from their No.1 perch. These results dispel any claim that Cathedral’s 37-31 win over San Pasqual in triple overtime, although ending with a most unlikely and thrilling result, was anything special.
Can’t discount the fact that the Saints were ranked two spots ahead of Cathedral before the CIF-San Diego Section finals (No. 7 vs, No. 9).
How Cathedral could leapfrog St. Augustine is beyond description.
My vote was 1, Mission Hills; 2, St. Augustine; 3, Cathedral; 4, Oceanside; 5, San Pasqual; 6, Eastlake; 7, Helix; 8, Madison; 9, tie, Christian & Mission Bay. I really think Oceanside is the second best team, but they lost 3 games. They struggled against Eastlake in the playoffs. They were handily beaten by Mission Hills twice, and their coach, one of the greatest in County history, was ailing. St. Augustine was a totally different team from the one that lost to Oceanside in the first game. The Saints represented, as they say. Cathedral definitely should not have been listed ahead of the Saints. Cathedral also is an Eastern League team and sits in Del Mar, which is part of the city of San Diego. I think some of the “North County bias” you referred to is from voters who consider Cathedral “North County.”