By Ed Piper
It's either feast or famine in boys basketball in the Western League, where La Jolla holds a 4-7 record with one game left, looking up with the other humble teams in the league at the three giants way above them: Cathedral Catholic, St. Augustine, and Mission Bay, all of whom are ranked in the top five of the CIF Division I power rankings.
There is no middle ground in the final season of a traditional Western League alignment. The lower teams have less than half the number of wins of the elite three: While Cathedral is the likely league champ, owning a 10-1 record and facing Lincoln at home in the finale Fri., Feb. 19, the Saints and Bucs are each 9-2.
From the upper echelon and the winning percentages they own, at .909, .818, and .818 respectively, it is quite a drop to the .364 of the Vikings and Scripps Ranch (also 4-7). Lincoln, which is likely to finish the season below La Jolla, is 3-8. Poor University City finishes 0-12.
Long-time watchers of the Vikings have to relish their standing above the Hornets, who have made life difficult for many years for the La Jollans.
Scripps Ranch used to carry on a great rivalry with the Vikings, with large student crowds attending away games at Scripps. But that ended when the Falcons' long-time coach stepped down to serve as Athletic Director only, and the program suffered a big drop in quality.
Next season the three leagues in the City Conference--the Eastern and Central, as well as the Western--will be realigned according to power rankings. School enrollment, the traditional method of determining leagues that has endured for decades, will go by the wayside.
Not all coaches are happy with parity. Terry Stonebraker, UC's coach, laments the change. "I wish we'd keep the traditional alignments," he said recently to this reporter before a La Jolla game at UC. He ticked off the names of the schools that the Centurions have played for years.
Gary Frank, baseball coach at La Jolla, feels the same way. Different sport, but power rankings will determine who plays whom. "I don't want to lose the traditional rivalries," Frank told me at a recent LJHS basketball game. He doesn't want those to get lost in the numbers.
It makes me think of in the major leagues, when the Houston Astros were moved from the National League to the American League. How can that happen, in the traditional view? The Milwaukee Brewers, years before, were switched the opposite direction, American to National. It breaks down the traditional alignments that are such a part of baseball heritage.
For long-time San Diegans, traditional rivalries between local schools hold a lot of meaning.
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