CCS football playoffs: What do half of finalists share in common?

All of them belong to the Peninsula Athletic League.

One title is guaranteed since the Division IV final on Saturday at Sequoia High in Redwood City features No. 2 Burlingame (10-2), the outright PAL Ocean champion, against No. 5 Carlmont (10-2), the outright PAL Lake champion.

The rest of the bunch — Menlo-Atherton, Sacred Heart Prep and The King’s Academy — are spread across three different brackets.

Two of them even have a shot at CIF state titles, something that’s eluded the PAL in four tries during the past five years.

“That’s pretty cool,” said TKA coach Pete Lavorato, widely considered among the best at his profession in the state. “Obviously it’s a reflection of how good our league is, plus one of the things I find about the PAL is that for the most part the coaching staffs don’t change a lot. There’s a sense consistency with the coaches, and I can tell you that because I’ve been going to the meetings for 16 years and most of the guys are the same guys.”

Lavorato spent 14 years at SHP, where he guided the Gators to NorCal titles in 2013 and 2015, with a perfect season sandwiched in between as CCS Open Division champion.

After leaving Atherton for Sunnyvale due to personal reasons, Lavorato is on the cusp of delivering the first CCS football title at TKA, as the No. 3 Knights (10-2) take on No. 1 Carmel (12-0) on Saturday at Westmont High in Campbell.

“I can’t say enough about the fact that they bought in and what a great group of kids this is,” he said. “I enjoy every day. It’s a hoot. When I go to practice, I look forward to it. It’s just a really special group of guys. I kind of liken them to a little bit of the group (at SHP) when we went 13-0.”

Mark Grieb took over at SHP, which went 3-7 during the first year under the former Arena Football League quarterback for the San Jose SaberCats.

Twelve months later, the second-seeded Gators (11-1) can guarantee themselves a spot in a NorCal bowl game with a victory over No. 5 Aptos (10-2) in the CCS Open Division III final on Saturday at Westmont.

“I don’t look at it as that we’re playing for anything past this week, I think we’re looking at it as a chance to win a championship,” Grieb said. “We’ve had a great season and I think we’ve exceeded a lot of people’s expectations.”

The only team to beat SHP so far is also located in Atherton.

 

M-A, a state runner-up in 2016, is already bound for NorCals based on the points system employed by CCS for playoff seeding.

The No. 2 Bears (10-2), outright champs of the PAL Bay, seek to end an undefeated campaign by No. 1 Wilcox (12-0) on Friday night in the CCS Open Division I title game at Independence High in San Jose.

“Hopefully this weekend the PAL can bring a couple of titles home,” M-A coach Adhir Ravipati said. “And if you look over the course of the last five years, I think outside of the WCAL we’ve represented in NorCal games and state games more than probably any other league in the Bay Area.”

Ah, yes, the West Catholic Athletic League.

Serra and St. Francis were crowned state champions last year, the first CCS schools to accomplish the feat since Palo Alto in 2010.

Top-seeded St. Francis (11-1) can do it again, but first must deal with No. 2 Valley Christian in the CCS Open Division II final on Saturday at Independence.

Those are the only WCAL teams still alive, compared to the five for the PAL.

“There’s no argument the WCAL is definitely top-to-bottom the best league,” Lavorato said. “But you can argue that we’re pretty close.”

Why is that, exactly?

The consensus appears to be the men at the helm and a year-round commitment by the players.

“One thing about our league is we play physical football,” Ravipati said. “A lot of teams are lifting weights year-round and they have good summer programs. The coaches are working at how they can get better in the offseason and I think there’s definitely a strong commitment to have successful programs.

“And just knowing a lot the guys in the league after the last couple of years, a lot of them are in it for the right reason, too.”

“It’s a fun league to be a part of,” Grieb said. “I’m proud to be associated with the coaches in this league and how they love the game, how they treat their players and the type of sportsmanship that they have.”

Carlmont coach Jake Messina, in his third year at the helm, resuscitated a once-proud program that played for CCS titles in four straight years from 1988 to 1991, but hadn’t qualified for the postseason since.

He believes the situation in the PAL mirrors the way of life in the Bay Area.

“Living in the Bay Area, it’s very difficult, it’s very cutthroat, it’s very dog eat dog — and football is no different,” Messina said. “As a public school coach, if you don’t run a year-round weight program, if you don’t have everything dialed in, kids will hit the door so fast that you won’t even see them leave.

And I think all the guys that in the finals, they understand that we have to work really hard to maximize the guys we have because that’s just our reality.”

Among those in attendance over Thanksgiving weekend to watch Carlmont reach its first CCS final in 27 years were some of last year’s seniors who helped pave the way, including tight end Jason Lloyd, tackle Jackson Velschow and running back Demarii Blanks.

“When we talked to the big group after the game, one of the things that I mentioned is the fact that those guys were Scots when it wasn’t cool to be a Scot,” Messina said. “They worked out in that little old, dusty weight room that we had before we got the big, beautiful new one and they believed in what we were selling.”

Burlingame hasn’t returned to this stage since 2004, when a 78-yard hook-and-ladder in the final minute gave the Panthers their lone championship.

TKA is on the brink of adding some missing hardware, while M-A and SHP can continue a recent trend by the PAL of playing into December after Half Moon Bay finished as a state runner-up in 2017.

“I think the one thing — and I’m going to mess this up, but I’m going to give it a shot — the rising tide raises all boats, right?” Grieb said. “Playing Burlingame, playing M-A, playing Carlmont, these teams make us better. And knowing that there’s a team that can set the standard like a Half Moon Bay did last year, it kind of raises your expectation of what you need to do as a football to be successful in this league.”