The fall season is over for high school sports teams. It was a season that featured many great teams and athletes, and a season with plenty of outstanding games and moments.
The team of the season was the Santa Margarita football team. The Eagles won the top division championships in the CIF Southern Section and the state. They won those two championships while dominating their opponents.
Just as impressive was the manner in which Santa Margarita won those games: with class and discipline.
Touchdown celebrations were free of antics and not the over-the-top, in-your-face gyrations that have become too common among some of Southern California’s championship teams of the last several years.
What was unacceptable years ago has become acceptable to some.
It was refreshing to see Santa Margarita prove that winning with dignity is still attainable. Eagles first-year coach Carson Palmer coaches the way he played.
NOTES
• Santa Margarita senior receiver Trent Mosley is Orange County’s best football player. Mission Viejo senior quarterback Luke Fahey had the best season, so Fahey is the Orange County offensive player of the year. Mosley missed 36 percent of his team’s games, but of course when Mosley did play he usually was the best player on the field. …
• Beckman and Woodbridge advanced to CIF State championship football games. Both teams lost, but just getting to a CIF State championship game is a huge achievement. If you’re a high school football team playing a game after Thanksgiving, you’ve had a great season. …
• The CIF-SS places football teams into playoff divisions according to the current season’s performance, as measured by computerized ratings. It is fine and yet, like every system before it or to come, it is imperfect. It would be great if league champions were guaranteed first-round home games. But if a 16-team division has nine league champions because that’s how the ratings set up a division – Division 7 had eight league champions this season – that’s going to be difficult to accomplish. …
• Mater Dei’s football team lost three games, an astonishing total to some. A closer look: one loss was to Corona Centennial by seven points in a nonleague game; the Monarchs lost to Santa Margarita by one point; and the final loss was to Centennial by one point in the Division 1 playoffs. …
• JSerra hired former NFL star linebacker Hardy Nickerson as its football coach this week, a few days after Nickerson coached Oakland’s Bishop O’Dowd to a state championship. Nickerson’s JSerra roster does not have the talent that Palmer inherited at Santa Margarita, so don’t expect the same sort of immediate success. The competition for high school football talent in south county is wild, with Santa Margarita certainly in a position to attract more great players, Mission Viejo and San Clemente will continue to be great destinations and the area’s other public and private schools are viable alternatives, too. …
• Orange County has set its football leagues for the 2026 and ‘27 seasons. The Alpha League, again the county’s top-ranked league — not counting the Trinity League — will be a six-team league, with holdovers Edison, Los Alamitos, Mission Viejo and San Clemente being joined by San Juan Hills and Yorba Linda. The next league, the Bravo League, will include Capistrano Valley, Corona del Mar, Crean Lutheran, La Habra, Tustin and Villa Park. …
• The lowest-ranked league is the Tango League. It will have nine teams: Bolsa Grande, Century, Godinez, La Quinta, Loara, Magnolia, Santa Ana Valley, Santiago and Savanna. The Zeta League is no more. …
• The CIF-SS office has figured out a way to discover whether or not a student-athlete who transfers actually has made the change of residence required for immediate athletic eligibility. The office folks won’t say what that method is, because they want to make sure the method remains effective. CIF-SS commissioner Mike West said it best when he told league representatives: “Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’ to a transfer.”
• Mater Dei’s girls volleyball team lost to Sierra Canyon in four sets in the CIF-SS Division 1 final. Sierra Canyon clearly was the superior team that day. Ten days later, Mater Dei clearly was the superior team as it defeated Sierra Canyon in four sets in the CIF Southern California Regional final. Mater Dei went on to beat Rocklin in four sets in the CIF State Open Division championship match. …
• Newport Harbor boys water polo has enjoyed some splendid seasons in its history. This season is up there with the best of them. The mega-talented Sailors, including Orange County player of the year Kai Kaneko, beat Cathedral Catholic 14-12 in the CIF Southern California Regional Division I final to cap a 33-1 season that included winning the CIF-SS Open Division championship. …
• JSerra’s flag football teams went 28-0, including a 25-20 win over Orange Lutheran in the CIF-SS Division 1 championship game. Orange Lutheran finished 24-3, with all three losses to JSerra: 21-20, 18-7 and 25-20. …
• Flag football is growing so rapidly it might be the next sport to have CIF State playoffs. …
• Irvine senior Summer Wilson won the CIF State Division II cross country championship with a course record of 16 minutes, 20 seconds at Woodward Park in Fresno. …
• JSerra’s girls cross country team won a CIF-SS championship for the fifth year in a row. The only other Orange County girls cross country program to do that was Corona del Mar, 2004-08. …
• Century senior Monserrat Santillan-Silva finished 56th in the Division 4 race at the CIF Southern Section Finals last year. She won the Division 4 title this year. …
• CIF-SS and CIF State divisions need to change for cross country. JSerra’s girls again were in Division IV, but in terms of competitive quality that is a top-division program. Divisions in cross country are set by enrollment, and now it’s time for the sport to seek a way to place teams in the correct divisions. …
• The girls golf teams at JSerra, Portola and Santa Margarita won CIF-SS championships. Santa Margarita also won the CIF State title. …
• Corona del Mar’s girls tennis team went undefeated through winning CIF-SS and CIF SoCal Regional championships before losing to Los Altos 4-3 in the state finals to finish 24-1.