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
