larry legend33 said:

Regarding last sentence that is My understanding as well. Newman or MC aren't thrown anywhere. They will have earned the right to play at that level. And like I've said before, the best Newman and MC teams can compete with anybody in Norcal. This isn't even one of MC's better teams and they played St Mary's of Stockton very tough who also played DLS very tough. Matchups are everything. Pitt would be probably more problematic for Newman than DLS for example. Back when I played it was NCS 3A and we played DLS and PItt and were a d4 team really. That was a bigger lift than this.

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Does anyone remember when the CIF hosted the Large School Open Division as well as the Small School Open Division?

Does anyone remember why the CIF moved away from that model?

It was because Central Catholic was beating the crap out of every small school they were facing. As such, the whole CIF came to understand that this type of disparity shouldn't be allowed... all except the NCS, until now.

To see some NCS people still protest this makes me think that if they were to see a neighborhood bully pounding on some classmate, not only would they not intervene to stop it, they would cheer on and celebrate the bully.

Luke Issac at SRV will also be one to watch

olumann said:

24/25 Season my top10 players in alphabetical order to watch1

• Alec Blair- De La Salle
• Alvin Loving- Salesian
• Andrew Hilman- Riordan
• Anthony Moore- Lincoln
• Elias Obenyah – Salesian
• Elijah Perryman- Clayton
• Gavin Sykes- Modesto
• Jalen Stokes – DV
• Jasir Rencher – Riordan
• Semetri Carr – Redwood

Top 10 Teams to Watch

• De La Salle
• Riordan
• Salesian
• Modesto
• Dougherty Valley
• Lincoln Stockton
• Mitty
• San Ramon
• Oakland Tech
• Inderkum

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Your missing the reigning SF Chornicle player of the year/ State Champ - Ardarius Grayson Oakland Tech , Moreau should be a top-5 team with all returning plus UOP Signee Kellen Hampton

Bellarmine has tremendous facilties, resources, and on the train line. No they dont need to leave the WCAL! School has probably top 3 richest endowments in HS for all of NorCal. They can field a powerhouse! Maybe they need to recruit a coach outside of the Bells frat house. I am sure Serra or De La Salle top assistant or pluck a coordinator from one of the SoCal powers (Trinity League) could fix the program quickly.

WCAL88 said:

My picks in BOLD
10. Monterey Trail at Elk Grove
9. Corning at Orland
8. Sutter at Casa Roble
7. Cardinal Newman at Marin Catholic 35 - 21
6. Casa Grande at American Canyon
5. St. Francis at Valley Christian
4. Serra at Riordan
3. Oak Ridge at Rocklin
2. Soquel at Salinas 24 - 21
1. Oakmont at Wheatland

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Interesting place to put your pick'ems

My picks in BOLD
10. Monterey Trail at Elk Grove
9. Corning at Orland
8. Sutter at Casa Roble
7. Cardinal Newman at Marin Catholic 35 - 21
6. Casa Grande at American Canyon
5. St. Francis at Valley Christian
4. Serra at Riordan
3. Oak Ridge at Rocklin
2. Soquel at Salinas 24 - 21
1. Oakmont at Wheatland

MLW12 said:

It’s amazing how people say things they no nothing about. Dublin has issue just like Oakland. And to be honest things that go down in Oakland come from outside folks. When Mack, Tech or Oakland host events you never hear anything going down. It’s individuals like you that put out false narratives to keep so people won’t support Oakland.

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Dublin has issues. But in no way do they compare to Oakland when it comes to safety when just out in public. There is no false narrative. Oakland is Oakland and sure it is safe for some, but definitely not for all. My windows been busted in Oakland 3 times. Never once in Dublin. Sure nothing happens at tech but if you drive down Broadway a little and park your car. The windows might be gone on the way back.

LWinslow1973 said:

Interesting take on the topic. Do coaches not have the responsibility of being part of the process by which talent comes to the school. I do not know enough about Diaz-Infante's coaching ability to judge his X's and O's but the talent drain is at least a small part his responsibility.

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It's a group effort. The coach may be part of it but it's way bigger than him.

When Serra amped up the recruitment/enticement/encouragement (I know people get caught up in the specific language, it's ultimately getting better players on campus) it was a combination of admin being on board, street agents from pop warner coaches all the way down to referees encouraging the best kids to head over to Serra.

And there is money involved. Not direct payment to players but money flowing into the program in general to pay for all the extras and eye candy (unis, weight room upgrade, pig roasts, etc)

They copied the blueprint that others had used for decades and added the polynesian cultural appropriation piece for good measure. Now, Bellarmine and really anyone who wants to win in the WCAL, has to utilize some version of that process or get left in the dust.

Ugly or not, your rivals decided it was worth it long ago. So you either get hustling or get into the BVAL. My two cents.

Streak One said:

We have a realy good schedule for this week. Picks are due at 7:00 PM on Friday.

Soquel at Salinas
St. Francis at Valley Christian
Serra at Riordan
Corning at Orland
Monterey Trail at Elk Grove
Sutter at Casa Roble
Oakmont at Wheatland
Oak Ridge at Rocklin
Cardinal Newman at Marin Catholic
Casa Grande at American Canyon

Game of the Week Poll - https://norcalpreps.forums.rivals.com/threads/week-11-game-of-the-week-poll.30887/

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10 Elk Grove
9 Rocklin
8 St Francis
7 Riordan
6 Sutter
5 Soquel
4cardinal Newman
3 casa grande
2 wheatland
1 orland

TheGoldenShower said:

This simply has nothing to do with coaching, rather not having the talent to compete. Maybe a move to the BVAL Mount Hamilton is on the horizon.

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I don't know about that situation. But I watch a team that 90% of the teams they play have better athletes. Yet they've in the playoffs every year.

ayalar09 said:

Dublin is like Hawaii when compared to Oakland or SF…..drive down International Blvd or the Loin in sf, and you’ll take back all you said about Dublin!

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It’s amazing how people say things they no nothing about. Dublin has issue just like Oakland. And to be honest things that go down in Oakland come from outside folks. When Mack, Tech or Oakland host events you never hear anything going down. It’s individuals like you that put out false narratives to keep so people won’t support Oakland.

6-Soquel at Salinas 33-31
8-St. Francis at Valley Christian
5-Serra at Riordan
Corning at Orland-3
10-Monterey Trail at Elk Grove
4-Sutter at Casa Roble
Oakmont at Wheatland-2
Oak Ridge at Rocklin-9
1-Cardinal Newman at Marin Catholic
7-Casa Grande at American Canyon

FBAddict said:

This comment reminds me that Open is called open for a reason. Its not another class of DI but intrinsically is Open to all levels. The Open division concept has been used in CCS for a long time in varying degrees. But it became vogue when CIF created an open division in 2008 to address this very question of what do do about schools that way better than its section-sanctioned division. In that year, Grant was chosen to represent the north even though they were SJS's D2 champ.

Fast forward to 2012, the CIF voted to start the regional games. An Open division was used to grab the theorical two best teams for North and South to play in regionals. It was later eliminated in 2014 by the CIF (ie the Folsom Rule) 10-0 to send one theorical best team straight to the SBG Open division. That year, a very good Folsom team was self-crowned by Richardson and crew as the best team in the CIF even though they were able to avoid the best team in both NorCal and SoCal.

Using the same Open division concept, the NCS created an open division in 2016. The probable intent was to get another top team into the RBG playoffs besides the ulta-perennial DLS team. And possibly the unintended consequence of an Open division would be to include a very strong lower level teams into Open. It seems the NCS strengthened this possibility for this year by this bylaw augmentation found in the NCS Sports and General Ruling Handbook. " Each NCS member school shall be classified for postseason competition by competitive equity. See Bylaw 507H. (Board of Managers 4/14/23)" Theoretically a NCS D7 team could be put into Open division if their competitive equity warranted to seeding.

The CCS section got the bright idea to follow NCS' action by forming their own Open/D1 version for playoffs. The CCS already used competitive equity to help seed their playoff teams. This practice is so deeply integrated in the CCS system that the section doesn't identify regular season divisions. However, CCS does group leagues by multi-year strength into A, B or C levels. And the CCS modified its playoff system by restricting only C level teams into division 5 for playoff purposes.

As I understand it, NCS is not throwing D6 schools into the Open. Instead independent teams are earning their way into Open by their quality season of play. If a team is bad enough to stay in D6, they will never make it to Open.

Click to expand...

Regarding last sentence that is My understanding as well. Newman or MC aren't thrown anywhere. They will have earned the right to play at that level. And like I've said before, the best Newman and MC teams can compete with anybody in Norcal. This isn't even one of MC's better teams and they played St Mary's of Stockton very tough who also played DLS very tough. Matchups are everything. Pitt would be probably more problematic for Newman than DLS for example. Back when I played it was NCS 3A and we played DLS and PItt and were a d4 team really. That was a bigger lift than this.

1tunz1 said:

Now the NCS is throwing D6 schools into the Open. Good thing Folsom isn’t in the NCS.

Click to expand...

This comment reminds me that Open is called open for a reason. Its not another class of DI but intrinsically is open to all levels. The Open division concept has been used in CCS for a long time in varying degrees. But it became vogue when CIF created an open division in 2008 to address this very question of what do do about schools that are way better than its section-sanctioned division. In that year, Grant was chosen to represent the north even though they were SJS's D2 champ.

Fast forward to 2012, the CIF voted to start the regional games. An Open division was used to grab the theorical two best teams for North and South to play in regionals. It was later eliminated in 2014 by the CIF (ie the Folsom Rule) 10-0 to send one theorical best team straight to the SBG Open division. That year, a very good Folsom team was self-crowned by Richardson and crew as the best team in the CIF even though they were able to avoid the best team in both NorCal and SoCal.

Using the same Open division concept, the NCS created an open division in 2016. The probable intent was to get another top team into the RBG playoffs besides the ulta-perennial DLS team. And possibly the unintended consequence of an Open division would be to include a very strong lower level teams into Open. It seems the NCS strengthened this possibility for this year by this bylaw augmentation found in the NCS Sports and General Ruling Handbook. " Each NCS member school shall be classified for postseason competition by competitive equity. See Bylaw 507H. (Board of Managers 4/14/23)" Theoretically a NCS D7 team could be put into Open division if their competitive equity warranted to seeding.

The CCS section got the bright idea to follow NCS' action by forming their own Open/D1 version for playoffs. The CCS already used competitive equity to help seed their playoff teams. This practice is so deeply integrated in the CCS system that the section doesn't identify regular season divisions. However, CCS does group leagues by multi-year strength into A, B or C levels. And the CCS modified its playoff system this year by restricting only C level teams into division 5 for playoff purposes.

As I understand it, NCS is not throwing D6 schools into the Open. Instead independent teams are earning their way into Open by their quality season of play. If a team is bad enough to stay in D6, they will never make it to Open.

10) Monterey Trail
9) Sutter
8) Serra
7) Rocklin
6) Salinas
5) St Francis
4) Casa Grande
3) Marin Catholic
2) Wheatland
1) Orland

1tunz1 said:

Now the NCS is throwing D6 schools into the Open. Good thing Folsom isn’t in the NCS.

Click to expand...

Honestly, MC and Newman would compete fine in the SFL this year. Behind Folsom, Both would be competing for 2-3 in that league if they played this year.

Streak One said:

Good note on the Riordan Alumni now at Serra. That is the most intriguing WCAL of the week for me. Can Serra's offense keep up with Riordan's offense OR will it be that Riordan's offense can't outpace their defense?

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Defense and who has the most discipline minimizing turnovers and penalties will be the keys to the game. Special teams will also be a factor.

rwccaptain42 said:

Langridge family are All Serra ,

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True. Langridge brothers coached at Riordan during Darius Bell's HS playing days. Bell was the Riordan OC with HC Fordon (former DLS) during that 2015 campaign. Peralta is an SH alum, but coached at Riordan that included its 2000 WCAL title (Before VC entered the league)

10 SF
9. CN
8. Rocklin
7. Sutter
6. Serra
5. MT
4. Orland
3. Casa Grande
2. Soquel (26-22)
1. Wheatland

Now the NCS is throwing D6 schools into the Open. Good thing Folsom isn’t in the NCS.

in the MD/Bosco era, since 2016, when bosco thumped DLS.... is playing in the open even worth it? we all know one of those 2 teams will be good enough to win the 3C2A (Cali juco) state championship... I feel like I'd rather be in the 1-aa game with a chance to win.. which means you beat a good norcal team, and then have to beat a good socal team. That's a fun way to end a season... rather than have a bye week, and then not have a chance to win.

Now, I'm not one to promote the 'participation' pathway.. I think 13 is way too many 'state champions'. I would rather my team lose in the first round of the open basketball championship, then be a 'D1 state champion', which really needs to be renamed 'division champion'. But there is such a disparity in talent, which the different transfer rules help facilitate... MD and bosco are playing on a different level with different rules... I'd just rather not.

So I guess for now and the foreseeable future, I'm just fine with the 'folsom rule'... if it means one more good team gets to be in the state game. And I'd be fine if my team missed out on the open state game and got into D1AA.

Agreed @Prepwisdom I got that backwards, I thought they would of won more. They had high hopes coming into the season and high turn out of players. Then hey started 2-0 including beating the fabled Pirates of RLS. They have not won since. Most of the games have been close, but I thought they would be able to beat one of the combination of PG, Soledad or King City. They close with Rancho and they will be a heavy favorite.

As far as tonight, their defense is tough so they may have a chance to slow down Carmel, but I just don't think they have the speed in the secondary to keep up with the offensive fire power of Carmel. (Very few teams do)

10. Monterey Trail
9. Sutter
8. St. Francis
7. Casa Grande
6. Soquel
5. Cardinal Newman
4. Serra
3. Rocklin
2. Oakmont
1. Orland