SD Prep Sports

SD Prep Sports: Roller Hockey

2004-05 CIF/Metro Conference Preview

Breakthrough season to roll forward

By Phillip Brents
Revised Nov. 9, 2004

While club sports can offer the lure of elite competition, they also have their drawbacks, especially where high school roller hockey is concerned. Programs seem to rise and fall as core groups of committed parents “graduate” along with their children.

Don Cerone is one of the few exceptions to that rule. He has invested 10 years in nurturing the growth of high school roller hockey in San Diego County. His persistence and dedication lobbying for a place for the sport in the regular high school curriculum has helped the ground-breaking CIF/Metro Conference gain credibility as the state’s lone sanctioned CIF-sanctioned high school roller hockey conference.

He would now like to take that mission to a statewide level.

“Our objective has always been to get the sport into the schools. We’re not about travel teams and the really elite players who can play for teams like the Bulldogs but about providing a place for good players to play the sport they love while also opening the door to other kids who might never otherwise get the chance to play. By getting the sport in the high schools, you’re making it available to everyone and not just those in the elite programs. You also have a new continuity factor in that the schools are now supporting it whereas in the past the success of a team depended on the support a few dedicated parents. Every major sport seems to have a high school presence. That’s the element we want to fill,” Cerone said.

Entering its fifth season, the CIF/Metro Conference will break new and exciting ground with the inclusion of five teams from the club ranks of the San Diego County High School Roller Hockey Conference, from which the original driving force began for roller hockey’s inclusion among high school sports.

The 2004-05 CIF/Metro Conference will feature 18 teams — up from 12 last season — and for the first time in its five-year history will outnumber teams still participating in the 10-year-old San Diego County High School Roller Hockey Conference. Cerone said the club league is expected to field around 10 teams this season.

“This is really a breakthrough year for us in a number of ways. For the first time, the strongest teams in the county and the strongest parent groups have now moved into CIF,” said Cerone, who has also assumed the official title this season as an athletic coordinator within the Sweetwater Union High School District, the home base of the Metro Conference.

The newcomers include Westview, Rancho Bernardo, Poway and Vista high schools as well as the San Diego Jewish Academy. Three former club teams — Scripps Ranch, La Jolla and La Jolla Country Day — had previously gained entry into the CIF/Metro Conference. This will be the fourth year that both Scripps Ranch and La Jolla Country Day have competed in an officially recognized high school sports league.

Because of the new arrivals that also includes new Otay Ranch High School from the Sweetwater district, the CIF/Metro Conference will feature a three league format this season. The 10 Sweetwater district schools will compete in the existing Mesa and South Bay leagues that will play out of Skate San Diego in National City and the district rink at Castle Park High School while the eight former club teams will compete in the newly formed North County League that will play out of the Escondido Sports Center.

There will be three league championship banners awarded this season. Teams within each league will play one another twice and league titles will be based solely on the results of those games. Mesa and South Bay League teams will each play a total of eight league games while North County League teams will play 14 league games.

The season will include 20 games overall. Mesa and South Bay league teams will each play 12 cross-league games, with six games coming against North County League teams. Overall records will be considered only for postseason playoffs.

The CIF/Metro Conference will also feature a true championship playoff tournament after the Metro Conference Board of Managers voted to make the Kiwanis Cup tournament the conference’s official playoff tournament. “For the first time, we had extensive discussions at the managers and directors meetings on what we have done and where we wanted to go. The board of managers of the Metro Conference blessed this for the first time. This should remove any ambiguity the Kiwanis Cup might have had in the past about who was the real conference champion,” Cerone said.

A senior All-Star Game is also planned at the end of the season, with a tentative Mesa/South Bay versus North County split.

The alignment for this season is as follows:

Mesa League: Bonita Vista, Chula Vista, Eastlake, Montgomery and Sweetwater.

South Bay League: Castle Park, Hilltop, Mar Vista, Otay Ranch and Southwest.

North County League: La Jolla, La Jolla Country Day, Poway, Rancho Bernardo, San Diego Jewish Academy, Scripps Ranch, Vista and Westview.

For postseason playoffs, each league champion will gain automatic entry into the 12-team tournament. The three league champions, plus the highest-rated non-league champion, will receive byes in the first round. The remaining eight playoff teams will be chosen based on overall records.

“Any team that is respectable will make the playoffs,” Cerone said.

The first date of regular season competition is Nov. 29. Regular season play will conclude on Feb. 17. Playoff competition begins Feb. 21 and concludes with the Kiwanis Cup championship game on March 2.

The chase for the 2005 Kiwanis Cup looks to be its most competitive ever. Scripps Ranch defeated Eastlake, 8-4, to win last year’s Kiwanis Cup tournament championship title while Escondido defeated Poway, 2-0, to win last year’s San Diego County High School Roller Hockey Conference championship title.

Scripps Ranch finished 22-0-0 last season while Poway topped the club league with a conference best +62 goal-differential (71 goals scored and nine goals allowed) en route to a 9-0-1 regular season finish. Westivew, playing its first varsity season, finished with an equally prolific 8-0-2 regular season record and semifinal playoff appearance.

Rancho Bernardo won club league titles in 2002 and 2003. Vista finished runner-up in 2003.

Though five non-Sweetwater district teams were allowed into the CIF/Metro Conference this year, Cerone said several more had applied but could not get the necessary clearance from their respective school districts to participate. “Getting that approval can be difficult. Every one of those groups worked hard to get in and all got in with the exception of one, Torrey Pines. There are indications that Torrey Pines might be allowed in next year,” said Cerone, who added that the organization of the San Diego County High School Roller Hockey Conference has attempted to mimic the rules and regulations contained in the CIF Green Book.

The next step, Cerone said, would be to have roller hockey placed on the statewide list of CIF approved sports in order to get it opened up to other interscholastic athletic conferences in California. In that regard, he is looking for input from other regions of the state to get the puck rolling, so to speak.

“This was a big step to get the North County League this year. The next step is to go to the state level and get the sport on the state approved list,” he said.

For more information, contact Don Cerone at (760) 525-6036 or email Dacerone@aol.com.