Interesting detail about Los Osos playing against Colfax at the D3 level.
Source: The Sacramento Bee Sports section, dated Thursday, 3/9/2023.
"This includes Colfax. The Falcons will play Southern California Regional champion Los Osos of Rancho Cucamonga of San Bernardino County at 2 p.m. Friday at Golden 1 Center. The Grizzlies (28-5) come from a campus of nearly 3,000 (2,954) students. Colfax has 660 students but has shown it can compete with anyone. The striking difference in enrollment is tied to the CIF’s “competitive-equity” state-playoff model in which enrollment does not outweigh the strength of a program, based on scheduling and championship success. Before competitive equity came into play in 2018, regional playoff games were often lopsided. They have since mostly been games to the wire. Colfax lives for that sort of thing."
Thus, using Sac-Joaquin Section enrollment figures, Los Osos would be placed in D1. But due to competitive equity, is placed in D3 for the playoffs, while Colfax is playing up one level, from D4 to D3 using enrollment figures. The largest enrollment of any Sac-Joaquin Section school is Lincoln-Stockton with 2,970 students. Southern Section high schools commonly have over 3,500 students, such as Etiwanda (3,636), Santiago (3,589), Poly-Long Beach (4,002), and Granada Hills (5,462).
I understand why a small private school (e.g. Mitty, Pinewood, Carondelet, Salesian) would play one, two or three divisions up for the playoffs using competitive equity, but public school vs. public school in the above example doesn't appear to be equitable. Which makes it even more astonishing how good "public school" Colfax is competing against Los Osos--also a public school more than 4 1/2 times larger.