Cif
Avalon Cabrillo Compton Jordan Lakewood Long Beach Poly Millikan St. Anthony Wilson

What Division Will Your Team Be In This Fall?

A few years ago, the CIF Southern Section drastically reshaped the way its playoffs were structured (and thus the way its championships are decided) with the introduction of the competitive equity format. For most team sports, divisions are no longer decided by enrollment size but rather by complex formulas designed to calculate how competitive a team is.

The idea is to match teams of similar competitive quality up against each other based on how they’ve performed on the field, regardless of how much money a school has or how many students. For local programs this format has been an unqualified success, with teams making deep playoff runs who had previously been early outs in higher divisions.

The CIF-SS re-divisions its sports every year based on the previous two years of data. The Fall divisions were released recently for football, girls’ volleyball, girls’ tennis, and boys’ water polo. Boys’ and girls’ cross country and girls’ golf aren’t affected by the new divisional format.

Long Beach sports fans will have four teams competing in the highest divisions: Long Beach Poly’s football and girls’ volleyball teams, Lakewood’s girls’ volleyball team, and Wilson’s boys’ water polo team. Both volleyball and water polo will have a combined Division 1-2 that will be separated into two divisions prior to the start of the playoffs.

Below is the full list of where the local teams will compete in this Fall’s playoffs:

Football

Division 1

Long Beach Poly

Division 6

Wilson

Division 7

Millikan

St. Anthony

Division 8

Lakewood

Division 10

Cabrillo

Compton

Division 11

Jordan

 

Girls’ Volleyball

Division 1-2

Lakewood

Long Beach Poly

Division 3

Millikan

Wilson

Division 4

Cabrillo

Compton

Jordan

Division 5

St. Anthony

Division 8

CAMS

Division 9

Avalon

 

Girls’ Tennis

Division 2

Long Beach Poly

Division 3

Wilson

Division 4

CAMS

Jordan

Lakewood

Millikan

Division 5

Cabrillo

Compton

 

Boys’ Water Polo

Division 1-2

Wilson

Division 4

Millikan

Division 5

Long Beach Poly

Division 6

Lakewood

Division 7

Cabrillo

Jordan

Mike Guardabascio
An LBC native, Mike Guardabascio has been covering Long Beach sports professionally for 13 years, with his work published in dozens of Southern California magazines and newspapers. He's won numerous awards for his writing as well as the CIF Southern Section’s Champion For Character Award, and is the author of three books about Long Beach history.
http://The562.org