Why Oak Ridge will play host and Elk Grove has to travel in CIF NorCal football finals
Fourteen weeks in, the season still has legs and life.
Two regional powerhouse programs in Oak Ridge and Elk Grove will compete in upper-division CIF Northern California Regional Championship games Friday night for a shot to extend the high school campaign to the season’s final week in Cerritos College in Los Angeles County on Dec. 13-14.
And two small-school heavies from Sutter County – East Nicolaus and Sutter – will also compete Friday.
There are seven divisions for the NorCal finals, broken down from Division I-AA to D-IA right on down to DVII-A
Fresh off a Sac-Joaquin Section D-I title win over Monterey Trail, Oak Ridge (11-2) will host Central Section top-ranked Central High of Fresno, which rolls in at 13-0.
There is no set criteria on which teams host NorCal games with the sense that no team is entitled to anything. It comes down, basically, to a coin flip, or balancing out the sections to make it fair. And the CIF will factor in previous seasons.
Central played at Folsom in 2017 for the DI-AA title game and last year hosted Folsom in the same game in Fresno, losing both times.
That’s why Central travels this time.
Section D-II champion Elk Grove (10-4) will play at North Coast Section power Clayton Valley Charter (8-5) of Concord. The location was not based on any criteria, nor was it any sort of CIF punishment from the Sac-Joaquin Section office tied to Elk Grove’s role in an in-game fight against Oakmont in a section playoff opener, per wild speculation on social media.
Elk Grove and Clayton Valley Charter both put in bids to the CIF to host. The tiebreaker/coin-flip here went down to balance. Sac-Joaquin has seven teams in a NorCal final, as does the North Coast Section which includes Clayton Valley Charter, and schools from both are hosting an equal amount of games.
“It could have been held at Elk Grove, or Clayton Valley Charter, and we looked at both, but with this section having a bunch of teams in it, we wanted to get some spacing in there,” said CIF Associate Executive Director Brian Seymour, who oversees the football championships.
There was also discussion of Oak Ridge playing Memorial of Fresno, which will instead play at Serra of San Mateo in a DI-A game.
Serra had been ranked higher than Oak Ridge all season in Northern California, including third by MaxPreps entering the weekend, but the 10 section commissioners who meet to break this all down don’t have to go with rankings.
Sometimes, there’s a feel to it, Seymour said.
“We went back and forth with Oak Ridge and Serra,” Seymour said. “The committee felt that the teams were pretty even, so the committee decided to go with past history. Folsom of the Sac-Joaquin Section played Central the past two seasons and that’s where Oak Ridge is. We could’ve flipped a coin there, too.”
Oak Ridge coach Eric Cavaliere was ecstatic to win the section title Saturday night and just as much so to learn of the opponent and location of the next game.
“Let’s see, a home game or drive down to Fresno?” Cavaliere said with a laugh. “Oh my gosh, we’re excited and thankful to have a home game.”
Sutter (12-1) has won six Northern Section D-III championships in eight years under coach Ryan Reynolds after beating Paradise on Saturday. The Huskies will play at Ripon, which just beat Center for the Sac-Joaquin D-V title.
East Nicolaus (12-1) won its fifth consecutive Northern Section championship last week under coach Travis Barker and will play St. Bernard’s of Eureka (10-3) at River Valley in the DVI-AA title game.
NorCal No. 1 De La Salle of Concord (12-1) advances straight to the elite CIF State Open Division final on Dec. 14 at Cerittos College. Because the Spartans have not lost to a NorCal team north of Fresno since 1991 and have won 28 consecutive North Coast Section crowns, the CIF committee agreed to move DLS to the state finals in the highest classification until someone in NorCal beats the Spartans.
CIF State Northern California Regional bowl games
All AA games Friday at 7:30 p.m. and A games Saturday at 6 p.m., unless noted
Division I-AA
Central-Fresno (13-0) at Oak Ridge (11-2)
Division II-AA
Elk Grove (10-4) at Clayton Valley Charter-Concord (8-5)
Division III-AA
Los Gatos (12-1) at Cardinal Newman-Santa Rosa (12-1)
Division IV-AA
Sutter (12-1) at Ripon (12-1)
Division V-AA
Del Norte-Crescent City (12-2) at Kings Academy-Sunnyvale (10-3)
Division VI-AA
St. Bernard’s-Eureka (10-3) vs. East Nicolaus (12-1) at River Valley HS
Division VII-A
Lincoln-San Francisco (10-1) vs. Mariposa (8-4) at Golden Valley HS
Division I-A
Memorial-Fresno (12-1) at Serra-San Mateo (12-1), noon Saturday
Division II-A
Manteca (11-2) at McClymonds-Oakland (10-0)
Division III-A
Rancho Cotate-Santa Rosa (10-3) at Sierra-Manteca (11-3)
Division IV-A
Escalon (12-1) at Pleasant Valley-Chico (7-5)
Division V-A
Milpitas (7-6) at Caruthers (13-1)
Division VI-A
Salesian-Richmond (11-2) at Santa Cruz (10-3)
CIF State Open Division Final
8 p.m. Dec. 14 at Cerritos College
De La Salle-Concord (12-1) vs. Bosco-Bellflower (12-1)