Whether or not Live Oak High girls’ soccer coach Tony Vasquez
objected, what the Central Coast Section seeding committee did to
his Acorns was flat-out wrong.
Whether or not Live Oak High girls’ soccer coach Tony Vasquez objected, what the Central Coast Section seeding committee did to his Acorns was flat-out wrong.
After defending CCS Division I co-champion Live Oak won its latest in a long string of league titles (including a 3-for-3 run of Tri-County Athletic League championships), the CCS scoring system rated the perennially contending Acorns so low that they ended up with a No. 10 seed out of just 12 teams in the Division I playoffs.
To make matters worse, the second-place Gilroy girls’ soccer team was given a No. 9 seed.
Ever the master motivator, Vasquez put the best face on the obvious snub, claiming that he liked the bracket his team ended up in.
But there’s simply no way a league champion should be seeded lower than a runner-up, and the CCS should alter its scoring system to avoid such an unfair seeding result.
As it turned out, Live Oak ended up showing what it was made of by whipping its first-round opponent – No. 7 Menlo Atherton – and then taking No. 2 Santa Teresa to the brink (four overtimes and penalty kicks) before being eliminated on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Gilroy, which was ostensibly the blameless beneficiary of a higher seed, actually ended up worse off. The Mustangs were placed in the same bracket as top seed Carlmont, but lost to an experienced Leland team (coached by Vasquez’s brother John) in their first-round match-up.
(Sometimes looking a gift horse in the mouth ain’t such a bad idea. Especially if it’s a proverbial [Alisal] Trojan horse … more on this later.)
Even worse was the CCS boys’ soccer playoff seeding process. After initially setting up the seeds on the Saturday before the playoffs, CCS officials had to call all the league reps back to a special meeting the next day when it was discovered that Alisal had miscounted its power points.
While the Trojans ended up dropping from a No. 2 seed to a No. 7, the TCAL’s Live Oak and Gilroy boys’ teams got shuffled around, too.
While both the No. 6 Acorns, who won the TCAL title, and the No. 9 Mustangs, who were league runners-up, ended up with higher seeds, it was Gilroy which suffered a worse playoff match-up. The ‘Stangs were faced with the exact same situation as the GHS girls, playing No. 8 Leland on the road in the same bracket as No. 1 (and nationally ranked) Watsonville.
Unfortunately, the GHS boys didn’t get their shot at the top seed either, losing to the Chargers in a disappointing opening-round loss.
And, the eventual winner in the seeding debacle?
That same Alisal team, the one that screwed up the original seedings, has advanced to the semifinals where the Trojans will take on Live Oak Wednesday at Piedmont Hills High in a 4:30pm match-up.
The winner makes the CCS finals on Friday, where odds are the top-seeded and defending section champion Watsonville Wildcatz will await.
Speaking of the CCS playoffs, it’s another bumper crop of postseason teams for the TCAL in basketball. No. 5 North Salinas, No. 6 Hollister, No. 13 Gilroy, No. 14 Salinas and No. 16 Live Oak all made the boys’ Division I playoffs.
In fact, the local teams are so ubiquitous that four of the teams – the Haybalers and Cowboys in one bracket and the Vikings and Mustangs in another – could end up playing each other in the quarterfinals if they can manage to win their openers.
Jim Johnson is the Morgan Hill Times Sports Editor. He can be reached by phone at (408) 779-4106 (ext. 203) or by email at jj******@*************es.com
