PAL-SCVAL merger the latest in CCS

The West Catholic Athletic League is the only remaining standalone league in CCS.

The SCVAL first proposed a combination of the two leagues in 2017, but was mostly met with apathy. But even five years ago, SCVAL administrators realized the issues between the haves and have-nots was only being exacerbated. After behind-the-scenes talks over the next several years, the merger really gained steam in 2021, culminating with the official decision last December.

“I was never a fan of the power league. I like the geographic setup. That’s what I grew up with,” said Frank Moro, who is returning to coach the South City program after stepping away following the 2013 season.

“Now they got it right.”

The SCVAL’s biggest issue was it did not have enough teams to form three divisions of six teams. A half dozen teams is the minimum number a league can have and still qualify for a CCS playoff berth. With only 14 teams, the league could only manage two divisions of seven.

Further causing issues was the fact that the seventh-place team in the De Anza Division, the equivalent of the PAL’s Bay, was consistently head and shoulders behind the six teams above it. In the El Camino Division, which was akin to a Ocean-Lake division mix, the gap was even bigger. The top of the El Camino Division had stable programs, but the bottom four teams struggled to keep football alive.

The viability of the SCVAL hinged on expansion or contraction. It could not sustain as the status quo.

That’s where the PAL comes in. The merger, initially, is not to mess with the teams in the Bay or De Anza divisions, or the Ocean and El Camino. The biggest reason was to save those remaining eight programs from the Lake and El Camino division from folding football altogether.

There was one hiccup in the merger and that was Milpitas balking at the move. The Trojans are located in the East Bay, across State Route 237. Milpitas has always had to battle Bay Area traffic traveling to schools on the other side of the Bay and if there was to be a league realignment, it decided to try to and stay in the Southeast Bay.

Milpitas petitioned to join the Blossom Valley Athletic League, but was denied, moving the Trojans back in line with the PAL-SCVAL coupling.

The other interesting change was moving Sequoia from the Ocean Division into the El Camino Division. Because the SCVAL did not have enough teams to fill out a six-team El Camino Division, two teams that traditionally played in the PAL had to move into a the SCVAL-centric El Camino.

Sunnyvale-based King’s Academy was an obvious choice. Sequoia became the second team because of the school’s proximity to the Santa Clara County schools.

Other than that, it’s pretty much business as usual. The only real changes with the league combining is at the administration level. The expanded league will play under the bylaws of the PAL, which are slightly different than the rules previously employed by the SCVAL. Shorter practice time, for instance, for SCVAL schools, but movement between JV and varsity is a lot more fluid under PAL rules.

As for playoff berths, nothing changes. The Bay and De Anza divisions get four automatic berths, four from the Ocean and El Camino automatically qualify, as does the Lake Division champion.

There are, however, two fewer at-large berths because the Blossom Valley Athletic League expanded by two teams, thus earning two more automatic playoff spots.

While there will not be an official overall PAL champion, league organizers came up with a system of cross-over games between the Bay and De Anza divisions, as well as the Ocean and El Camino divisions. For example, Menlo-Atherton and Los Gatos, the top teams in the Bay and De Anza divisions, respectively, will meet in a non-league, cross-over game.

With so many teams in the CCS grouping together to form these massive, multiple-division leagues, it was becoming harder and harder to find non-league games in the section, which was forcing some teams to consider longer road trips and games outside of the Peninsula and South Bay to help fill out schedules.

And for those worried about the traditional rivalry games? Fret not, because those games are still on the schedule.

And for one coach, he’d like to see the league take the next step and create a true power league. Burlingame coach John Philipopoulos would like to see the six best teams between the PAL and SCVAL teams placed in one division and so on down the line.

“What I would like to see is the geography portion (of the realignment) go away,” Philipopoulos said. “Let’s get the right teams in the right leagues.”