On the Way to the Top : SANTA MARGARITA, SERVITE/ROSARY LEAD TIMES ORANGE COUNTY ALL-SPORTS AWARD STANDINGS

Mater Dei and Aliso Niguel’s football teams earned the glory this fall, going undefeated to win Southern Section championships.

Oh, by the way, Santa Margarita went 13-1 and won a title.

But the Eagles, who always seemed to be an afterthought--they weren’t even in the preseason top 10--got their championship, and the school might get the last laugh. Again.

All things being equal in The Times Orange County’s 1996-97 All-Sports Award--the county’s only comprehensive competition involving 21 boys’ and girls’ sports that have a sanctioned Southern Section championship--Santa Margarita finds itself in familiar territory.

The Eagles won last year’s large-school division title by virtue of the combined accomplishments of its varsity athletic programs. Through the first third of this school year, Santa Margarita is in first place again.

That’s good news if you’re an Eagle fan, bad news if you’re not.

Why? A year ago at this time, Santa Margarita was in third place with 120.9 points, trailing Villa Park by about eight points. That’s no big deal. Eight points is a drop in the bucket. But Santa Margarita isn’t anywhere close to 121 points. The Eagles have 160.9, and second-place Esperanza has 121.3. A runaway?

Did Billy Newman score touchdowns?

Santa Margarita is only 65.8 points from where its scoring total was last year after two sports seasons; if the Eagles average 13.2 points for the five winter sports, they’re there. Good thing--Athletic Director Rich Schaaf said they would be hard-pressed to match last year’s winter output of 105.8, but should again be good in the spring.

But eighth-place Mater Dei (95.9), which has four winter programs ranked in the county’s top 10, is bound to make a charge, as it did last year to take the lead after the winter grading period. Foothill (117) is third, 4.3 points behind second-place Esperanza.

Joining Santa Margarita as a leader through the first scoring period is the small-schools combination of Servite, the all-boys’ school, and Rosary, the all-girls’ school. Servite/Rosary was in second place at this time last year, about 11 points out of first; the tandem finished fourth, about 70 points behind Brea Olinda.

And, Servite/Rosary doesn’t have any teams ranked in the county’s top 10.

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The fourth annual Times All-Sports Award is a report card, really. It recognizes schools that have shown a capacity to be successful across the board--in wins and losses and playoff performance, regardless of gender or perceived importance. In other words, Garden Grove’s badminton team counts just as much as its football team.

Los Alamitos won the first large-school title in 1993-94 and John Barnes, now the athletic director, said it was as important an athletic award as any school could win, “a real special award.�

Mater Dei followed with a victory in 1994-95, and Santa Margarita won last year. If Santa Margarita can duplicate last year’s success as the season wears on, the Eagles could become the first two-time winners.

Corona del Mar won the first small-schools title, followed by Laguna Hills and Brea.

The highest-placing team among those former winners is Brea, which is in fourth place with 113.7 points. In addition to Servite/Rosary (144.5), Brea trails Newport Harbor (123) and Orange Lutheran (116).

Brea is in pretty good shape too. Among winter sports programs, it has a girls’ basketball team ranked No. 1 in the state and a boys’ team in the county’s top 10, and good Orange League teams in boys’ and girls’ soccer (the boys are ranked).

Boys’ Athletic Director Ron Hampton says the wrestling team is as good as ever, but so is the competition. And the spring offers quite a bit of hope with track and field, swimming, golf and softball.

“As far as winning the all-sports trophy, the position we’re at right now is good, and I don’t think we’ll do anything but go up,� Hampton said. “And if we should win the trophy, that will be outstanding. But we’re going to do better each season. The winter season is going to be extremely strong for us.�

Brea was the only school that scored at least 10 points in every sport last year. Although it won’t repeat that success (football scored only four), it has almost 17 points more than it did after the fall season last year. It trailed by 28.6 last year, and 30.8 this year.

The combination of Servite and Rosary, second after the fall sports season last year, was helped quite a bit by Rosary. It earned 82 of the combined 144.5 points (56.7%) for the parochial schools.

Rosary scored a perfect 40 points in tennis, 24 in volleyball and 18 in cross-country. Servite scored 30.5 in football, 30 in water polo and two in cross-country.

The Times ranked the county’s 77 public and private high schools using a formula developed by Times editors and prep sports staff. The rankings are based on a formula that considers record (overall through Southern Section finals or league only, depending on whether it’s a team or individual sport), league finish (points for first, second, third and at-large playoff teams) and section playoff performances. The boys’ and girls’ scores are combined to determine the overall winners. Performances in state playoffs are not counted toward the award.

A school received no points for a team that went winless, did not compete in that sport or did not report its result. Every effort was made, through correspondence and phone calls with the school and the section office, to obtain a point total for every team fielded by every school. However, records were unavailable or not received in some cases.

Each division champion at the conclusion of the spring sports season will be awarded a traveling trophy, a trophy to keep and a banner to display in its gymnasium. Second- and third-place teams in each division will receive trophies.

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Here’s a look at how Santa Margarita earned its large-school division-leading 160.9 points this fall. (Point totals are rounded to 0.1. The computer program used to determine the rankings carried calculations out to .001.) Forty points are possible for each sport.

* Football: Santa Margarita went 13-1 (a .928 winning percentage) for 9.28 points, earned 10 points for winning its first outright league title (the Sea View League), and 20 points for winning the section title. Total: 39.3.

* Boys’ cross-country: The Eagles had a perfect record (10 points) to win the Sea View League title (10 points), and finished second in the section finals (16 points). Total: 36.

* Girls’ cross-country: A 3-2 finish in league gave Santa Margarita six points, a second-place standing gave them seven more, and a fourth-place finish in the section added another eight. Total: 21.

* Girls’ tennis: The team went 4-6 (four points), made the playoffs as an at-large team (three points) and took third in the section (12). Total: 19.

* Girls’ volleyball: The Eagles were 14-5 overall (7.4). Though they took second in league (seven), they won the section title (20). Total: 34.4.

* Water polo: Santa Margarita went 17-10-1 (6.3), took third in the league standings (five), but failed to reach the quarterfinals to score some performance points. Total: 11.3.

Santa Margarita earned at least 19 points in five of the six fall sports--20 points in indicative of a pretty good season--and at least 34.4 in three of them.

The difference between Santa Margarita, one of the smallest large schools, and second-place Esperanza, one of the largest, is elementary.

Santa Margarita scored 57 points from the combined cross-country teams, and Esperanza scored 58. Though Esperanza doubled Santa Margarita’s scoring in water polo (24.9 to 11.3), it was mostly negated by the Eagles’ 10-point edge in tennis.

That meant Santa Margarita’s 22.1 advantage in football and 22.3 advantage in volleyball gave the Eagles their lead. The volleyball team finished second in league but won the section title.

“They were a lot like the football team--we knew there were some good kids, but they were young,� Schaaf said. “We thought [both] were a year away. We knew we would be pretty strong in boys’ and girls’ cross-country, but volleyball and football were pretty big question marks because of the experience. Both those groups matured as the season went on and peaked at the right time.�

Schaaf said last year’s All-Sports victory even had an impact on the football team: “I think a lot of the kids, especially in football, said ‘We didn’t have a lot to do with it last year, and this year we want to make our mark and be part of it.’ I think they were aware of that last year, and took some real pride this year in making a name for football on our campus.�

Among large schools, the battle for second place is close.

Esperanza has 121.3 points, Foothill has 117, and Dana Hills--despite getting only three points in football, seven in boys’ cross-country and four in water polo--is in fourth place with 108.9 points because of its girls’ programs: cross-country (32), tennis (36) and volleyball (26.9).

Hampton, from Brea, said it’s a worthy award for all those programs to aspire to.

“The kids were talking about it an awful lot,� Hampton said. “You know how kids are--they felt they did a heck of a job and felt they were proud someone recognized they did a good job.

“As I talk to coaches, I constantly remind them that this is an award and honor that we’ve won and we want to continue to do the best we can within the boundaries of good sportsmanship.�

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Divisions

Using enrollment figures from the Southern Section, Orange County’s high schools were split into two divisions. The cutoff point was 1,300 students.

LARGE SCHOOLS

1. Los Alamitos, 2,053

2. Esperanza, 2,024

3. Fountain Valley, 1,970

4. Saddleback, 1,950

5. Irvine, 1,860

6. Santa Ana Valley, 1,800

7. Century, 1,792

8. Capistrano Valley, 1,786

9. El Toro, 1,782

10. Santa Ana, 1,764

11. Westminster, 1,735

12. Aliso Niguel, 1,722

13. University, 1,700

14. Huntington Beach, 1,609

15. San Clemente, 1,604

16. Dana Hills, 1,602

17. Edison, 1,596

18. Marina, 1,571

19. Mission Viejo, 1,542

20. Sunny Hills, 1,520

21. Mater Dei, 1,517

22. Anaheim, 1,477

23. Orange, 1,476

24. Trabuco Hills, 1,427

25. Woodbridge, 1,421

26. Loara, 1,403

27. Villa Park, 1,390

28. El Dorado, 1,374

29. Cypress, 1,374

30. Foothill, 1,361

31. Los Amigos, 1,358

32. Canyon, 1,347

33. Kennedy, 1,344

34. Katella, 1,344

35. Santa Margarita, 1,329

36. Santiago, 1,309

37. Laguna Hills, 1,306

SMALL SCHOOLS

1. Troy, 1,297

2. Brea Olinda, 1,282

3. Tustin, 1,269

4. Garden Grove, 1,253

5. Newport Harbor, 1,251

6. Valencia, 1,227

7. Buena Park, 1,194

8. Savanna, 1,193

9. Sonora, 1,183

10. El Modena, 1,175

11. Ocean View, 1,150

12. Pacifica, 1,133

13. La Habra, 1,118

14. Western, 1,105

15. Magnolia, 1,073

16. Servite/Rosary, 1,054

17. Fullerton, 1,046

18. Bolsa Grande, 1,022

19. Rancho Alamitos, 1,018

20. La Quinta, 977

21. Costa Mesa, 804

22. Estancia, 771

23. Corona del Mar, 741

24. Laguna Beach, 596

25. Calvary Chapel, 488

26. Brethren Christian, 443

27. Orange Lutheran, 436

28. Whittier Christian, 379

29. Connelly, 292

30. Capistrano Valley Christian, 167

31. St. Margaret’s, 150

32. Southern Calif. Christian, 121

33. Claremont, 120

34. Fairmont, 116

35. Orangewood Academy, 69

36. Heritage Christian, 60

37. St. Michael’s, 62

38. Liberty Christian, 40

Large School Top 20

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School FB BCC GCC GT GVB WP Total Santa Margarita 39.3 36 21 19 34.4 11.3 160.9 Esperanza 17.3 18 40 9 12.1 24.9 121.3 Foothill 25.5 13 15 14 14.5 35 117.0 Dana Hills 3.0 7 32 36 26.9 4.0 108.9 Los Alamitos 18.2 2 23 28 3.1 29.2 103.6 Capistrano Valley 21.7 13 13 11 30.8 13.1 102.5 El Dorado 14.6 11 15 20 1.3 37.5 99.3 Mater Dei 40 13 9 27 3.6 3.3 95.9 Sunny Hills 24.7 15 20 14 10.5 11 95.2 Irvine 11.4 2 32 2 23.7 18.3 89.3 Katella 3 32 28 3 9.7 13 88.7 Aliso Niguel 40 2 15 4 13.5 10.8 85.3 El Toro 16 23 17 0 0 25.4 81.4 Villa Park 3 2 11 28 14.1 22.6 80.6 Huntington Beach 3 23 2 9 36.5 4.6 78.1 Laguna Hills 15.2 15 11 19 14.1 2.2 76.5 Woodbridge 0 0 15 40 20.3 0 75.3 Fountain Valley 11.4 11 4 0 39 4.3 69.6 Mission Viejo 4 20 27 4 2.1 11.8 69.0 Santa Ana 0 27 18 10 0 3.6 66.6

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KEY: FB--Football, BCC--Boys’ cross-country, GCC--Girls’ cross-country, GT--Girls’ tennis, GVB--Girls’ volleyball, WP--Water polo.

Values are rounded to nearest 10th. Rounding might create slight discrepancies between sum of individual figures listed and total.

Small School Top 20

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School FB BCC GCC GT GVB WP Total Servite/Rosary 30.5 2 18 40 24 30 144.5 Newport Harbor 31.6 15 11 31 30 4.4 123.0 Orange Lutheran 30.5 40 40 2 3.5 0 116.0 Brea Olinda 4 23 20 28 13.3 25.4 113.7 El Modena 8.6 23 40 5 26.8 5 108.4 Valencia 24.7 11 11 15 31.5 9.4 102.5 Corona del Mar 4 23 27 24 2.9 19.5 100.4 Tustin 13.4 40 18 15 4.7 9.1 100.1 Pacifica 26.1 0 28 11 18.7 13 96.8 Laguna Beach 0.5 0 0 27 35.2 33.4 96.1 La Habra 7 4 15 4 25.1 21.6 76.8 Garden Grove 1 15.3 5 19 12.3 17 69.6 Brethren Christian 15.6 11.3 15.8 11 16 0 69.6 Costa Mesa 10.5 32 2 0 0 22.4 66.9 Capistrano Valley Chr. 16.4 1.3 12.5 0 30 0 60.1 Troy 23.8 0 4 20 4.4 5.5 57.7 Rancho Alamitos 31.2 5 15.8 0 1 0 53.0 St. Margaret’s 12 1.3 5 10 20.8 0 49.0 Buena Park 8.6 9 2 0 2.9 26.1 48.7 Sonora 2 20 2 11 9.7 3.3 48.0

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KEY: FB--Football, BCC--Boys’ cross-country, GCC--Girls’ cross-country, GT--Girls’ tennis, GVB--Girls’ volleyball, WP--Water polo.

Values are rounded to nearest 10th. Rounding might create slight discrepancies between sum of individual figures listed and total.