The process to create Orange County high school sports leagues for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 school years will have to start over.
Back in May 2025, new league structures for those school years in all sports except for football were approved by Orange County principals. Crean Lutheran, Laguna Beach and St. Margaret’s appealed those results to the CIF Southern Section Executive Committee.
Laguna Beach and St. Margaret’s won their appeals on Thursday, so the releaguing process begins anew.
The results of May’s releaguing meeting placed Laguna Beach into a north Orange County conference with schools in Anaheim, La Habra, Garden Grove, Fullerton, Yorba Linda, Brea, Placentia and Orange. Crean Lutheran and St. Margaret’s were among the schools added to an expanded Trinity Conference that would have grown from its current six schools to 11.
All of the leagues created in that May meeting, and leagues created in coming releaguing meetings, were for non-football sports.
Crean Lutheran and St. Margaret’s appealed that placement to the CIF-SS Executive Committee. Crean’s appeal was not approved by the Executive Committee, but St. Margaret’s appeal was approved.
Laguna Beach’s appeal of its placement was approved, 18-0. St. Margaret’s appeal was approved 10-8. Crean’s appeal was defeated.
A timeline for restarting the releaguing process had not been established Thursday. Given the urgency of completing the process, and having it approved by the CIF Southern Section Council at its Sept. 25 meeting, the releaguing process is likely to get started in early September.