The finals results displayed the overall skill quality and parity of the leagues in the San Diego Section’s third season, plus  the effect of 2025 defensive rule changes. Not a single top seed found the finals!

All finalists were 2-to-7 seeds, plus 12 seed Canyon Crest. The ability to rush the quarterback unheeded was particularly effective.

Full brackets summary with scores in bold are listed below.

DIVISION I—Torrey Pines 20, Westview 13.
The Falcons (19-10), runners-up in 2024 and 2023,  bested Classical and Mission Hills to face the Wolverines who had upset top seed and undefeated (20-0) Bonita Vista, 18-9.

Westview (17-3), the 2024 D-II champion, had throttled Grossmont 23-0, in a revenge win for an early season loss. However, Torrey Pines used its own defense with key, late takeaways to secure the championship.

D-II—Calexico Vincent Memorial 40, Imperial 34.
The 74 combined points is a section playoff record. The Scots (23-5) topped Granite Hills then upset top seed Poway to advance to the final, while the Tigers beat Clairemont in overtime, 26-20.  Scots sophomore Azul Trujillo, who leads the nation with more than 9,400 passing yards and more than 100 touchdown passes, tossed six TD’s, four to Jessica Manriquez.

D-III—Mira Mesa 25, Brawley 0.
The Marauders (13-11), who lost in a D-I semifinal to eventual champion Classical in 2024, lost their first seven games of 2025, but finished with seven consecutive wins, including over Point Loma and higher seeds Mater Dei and Helix.
The Imperial Valley-based Wildcats got by Ramona and Our Lady of Peace, but ran into a stingy Mira Mesa defense.

D-IV – Patrick Henry 25, Mt. Carmel 20.
The Patriots (12-9) survived the road hazards of Morse, University City and El Capitan, the No. 1 pot hole, to claim their first championship. They fell in the D-II first round in 2024, but held off a late charge by the Sundevils for the D-IV  win.

D-V – Olympian 25, Canyon Crest 12.
The Eagles (8-12), the only 2025 repeat champions, beating San Ysidro in 2024 (D-I Classical repeated in 2023 and 2024), bested Valhalla and San Diego. The 12th-seeded Ravens, got past the 5, 4 and 1 seeds, and led 6-0 in  the final, but then Olympian’s Aubrey Tibayan threw for three TD’s, and held the Canyon Crest to one score, to win going away.

Complete 2025 season schedule and scores are here.

DIVISION I

DIVISION II

DIVISION III

DIVISION IV

DIVISION V

Henrik Jonson, Webmaster

The postseason begins this week and the Open Division is so stacked that season-long  No. 1 Lincoln is out and placed in Division I.

Mission Hills, Open Division-seeded No. 1 and the leader in John Maffei’s last regular-season poll,  meets visiting No. 4 Cathedral and  No. 2 La Costa Canyon is host to No. 3 Carlsbad.  Lincoln, defending state Division 1-AA champion, has a bye.

“Maffei Madness” will resume with a final poll after the San Diego Section playoffs.

HAPPY TRAILS, COACH

Chris Hauser was placed on administrative leave after four games and eventually retired as head coach at Mission Hills, leaving a career record of 210-89-2, and a winning percentage of .699.  DJ Zapata serves as interim coach and has a 5-1 record heading into  the playoff against Cathedral.

Hauser has the 11th most wins of any coach in San Diego County history.  His teams at Vista and Mission Hills won or tied for 12 league championships and reached the San Diego Section championship game seven times, winning two.

MAFFEI MADNESS

John Maffei’s The San Diego Union-Tribune Week 11 poll:
Points awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis. *First-place votes. Previous rankings in (italics).
NR–Not ranked. MaxPreps, Cal Preps, and Cal-Hi Sports are state rankings.

OTHERS RECEIVING VOTES
Santa Fe Christian (10-0, 13 points), Holtville (9-1, 4), Mission Bay (10-0, 4), Rancho Bernardo (8-2, 4)

VOTING PANEL

Twenty-nine sportswriters, sportscasters, and administrators from the San Diego Section, plus Max Preps:

• John Maffei (The San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Donald Ray Norcross, Kevin Farmer, Rick Hoff, Steve Brand (Union-Tribune correspondents)
• Joe Heinz, Todd Cassen, Ron Marquez (San Diego Section)
• Brandon Stone, Allison Edwards, John Carroll, Chase Izidoro (KUSI-TV)
• Rick Smith (partletonsports.com)
• Braden Suprenant (93.7 FM “The Fan”)
• Mike Dolan (Coaching Legends)
• Tom Helmantoler (Southern Conference)
• Joe Evangelist, Rex Johnson, Bruce Ward (CIF Advisory Committee)
• Raymond Brown (sdsports.net)
• Christian Pedersen (San Diego Sports Association)
• Bodie DeSilva, John Kentera, Dennis Ackerman, Steve (Biff) Dolan, Eric Williams, Thomas Gutierrez, Tom Ronco, Adam Paul (freelance contributors).

Sixteen games tonight and 28 more Friday will settle the San Diego Section regular season and determine league champions not yet clinched.  Playoff pairings are expected Sunday afternoon.

Coming down to the wire Cathedral, Lincoln, Mission Hills, Carlsbad, and La Costa Canyon are alive for  berths in what will be a stacked, four-team Open Division bracket.  One of those clubs will drop down and automatically become the favorite in Division I.

MAFFEI MADNESS

John Maffei’s The San Diego Union-Tribune Week 10 poll:
Points awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis. *First-place votes. Previous rankings in (italics).
NR–Not ranked. MaxPreps, Cal Preps, and Cal-Hi Sports are state rankings.

OTHERS RECEIVING VOTES
Imperial (9-0, 14 points), Santa Fe Christian (9-0, 8), Rancho Bernardo (7-2, 3) Mission Bay (9-0, 2), Holtville (8-1, 1).

VOTING PANEL

Twenty-nine sportswriters, sportscasters, and administrators from the San Diego Section, plus Max Preps:

• John Maffei (The San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Donald Ray Norcross, Kevin Farmer, Rick Hoff, Steve Brand (Union-Tribune correspondents)
• Joe Heinz, Todd Cassen, Ron Marquez (San Diego Section)
• Brandon Stone, Allison Edwards, John Carroll, Chase Izidoro (KUSI-TV)
• Rick Smith (partletonsports.com)
• Braden Suprenant (93.7 FM “The Fan”)
• Mike Dolan (Coaching Legends)
• Tom Helmantoler (Southern Conference)
• Joe Evangelist, Rex Johnson, Bruce Ward (CIF Advisory Committee)
• Raymond Brown (sdsports.net)
• Christian Pedersen (San Diego Sports Association)
• Bodie DeSilva, John Kentera, Dennis Ackerman, Steve (Biff) Dolan, Eric Williams, Thomas Gutierrez, Tom Ronco, Adam Paul (freelance contributors).

Division I games begin Saturday, November 1, with unbeaten and No. 1 Bonita Vista a favorite to repeat its 2023 championship campaign, starting against No. 8 Steele Canyon, which tested the Barons  in Week 6 in an overtime squeaker, 25-18.

All other brackets held true to regular-season form, except:

No. 10 San Marcos upset No. 7 Escondido Charter in D-II, and now faces No. 2 Cathedral in Round 2.

The 20-game experience aided No. 9 Our Lady of Peace in  a D-III victory over No. 8 Santa Fe Christian, and will play No. 1 Calexico.

Half of the higher seeds in D-IV stayed alive, as No. 9 Escondido topped No. 8 Castle Park, and No. 11 Kearny bested No. 6 Santana.

No. 12 Canyon Crest slid by No. 5 Sage Creek, 7-6, to meet No. 4 Chula Vista Learning in D-V.

Full brackets summary with to-date scores in bold are listed below. Complete 2025 season schedule and scores are here.

DIVISION I

DIVISION II

DIVISION III

DIVISION IV

DIVISION V

Henrik Jonson, Webmaster

The five division, 56 team playoff seeds and pairings are set.  First games are Tuesday, Oct. 28, at the site of each higher (lower number) seed. All championship games are Saturday, Nov. 8, are at Escondido high.

Full brackets are listed below, chosen per the official CIF postseason process*.

Complete 2025 season schedule and results are here.

Division I Bracket

Division II Bracket

Division III Bracket

Division IV Bracket

Division V Bracket

*The Division and Seeding selection process divides the top 56 MaxPreps** state-ranked local teams into 8 top teams, then 5 equal 12 team groups. The top 8 teams become Division I (D-I), the next 12 become Division II, and so on.

In the 12 team brackets, the top 4 seeds get a first round bye and teams 5-12  are paired into a standard structure, similar to the national collegiate tackle football 12-team format.

**The entirely computer generated and proprietary MaxPreps.com ranking algorithm, based solely on wins and losses, plus the opponents strength of schedule, is described here.

Henrik Jonson, Webmaster

Game(s) of the Week:

End of the regular season is two weeks out, but host Lincoln and Cathedral should settle the Western League championship and Carlsbad will attempt to close the Avocado League race against visiting La Costa Canyon this week.

The showdowns will bring together four of the San Diego Section’s most successful coaches.

DOYLE AND DUNN

Sean Doyle of Cathedral is fourth all time with 244 victories, having just passed Rob Gilster’s 243. Ron Hamamoto’s 246 is within reach and, with some playoff success, Doyle could catch John Carroll at 248.

Doyle is 10-6 against Lincoln’s David Dunn, but Dunn’s Hornets have won the last four meetings.

Dunn, who played at Morse and was a tight end in the NFL for six seasons, is 113-61-1 (.650) as the Hornets’ mentor since 2010.

Doyle (244-117, .676), who played at University, succeeded Hamamoto in 1996 and stayed when the school moved and officially became Cathedral in 2005.

MacNEAL AND SOVACOOL

Thadd MacNeal, who came to Carlsbad in 2010 after posting a 41-19 (.683) record at Lakewood in the Southern Section’s Long Beach Poly-dominated Moore League, is 112-52 (.683) with the Lancers.

MacNeal is only the sixth coach in Carlsbad’s 69-year history.  Sveto (Swede) Krcmar opened the school in 1957 and was followed by Claude (Buddy) Lewis in 1972, Mel Galli in ’79, Rick Brown in ’87, and Bob McAllister, who was 132-66-6 (.662) from 1994-2010.

Sovacool, a Fallbrook alum, is 106-66 (.616) since 2010 and the Mavericks’ third coach since 1996, when Tim Smith coached the first four teams, followed by Darrin Brown, who was 81-37 from 2000-’09. MacNeal is 8-6 in head-to-head meetings with Sovacool.

MAFFEI MADNESS

John Maffei’s The San Diego Union-Tribune Week 9 poll:
Points awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis. *First-place votes. Previous rankings in (italics).
NR–Not ranked. MaxPreps, Cal Preps, and Cal-Hi Sports are state rankings.

OTHERS RECEIVING VOTES
Oceanside (4-4, 29 points), Santa Fe Christian (9-0, 13),  Imperial (8-0, 7), Mission Bay (8-0, 1).

VOTING PANEL

Twenty-nine sportswriters, sportscasters, and administrators from the San Diego Section, plus Max Preps:

• John Maffei (The San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Donald Ray Norcross, Kevin Farmer, Rick Hoff, Steve Brand (Union-Tribune correspondents)
• Joe Heinz, Todd Cassen, Ron Marquez (San Diego Section)
• Brandon Stone, Allison Edwards, John Carroll, Chase Izidoro (KUSI-TV)
• Rick Smith (partletonsports.com)
• Braden Suprenant (93.7 FM “The Fan”)
• Mike Dolan (Coaching Legends)
• Tom Helmantoler (Southern Conference)
• Joe Evangelist, Rex Johnson, Bruce Ward (CIF Advisory Committee)
• Raymond Brown (sdsports.net)
• Christian Pedersen (San Diego Sports Association)
• Bodie DeSilva, John Kentera, Dennis Ackerman, Steve (Biff) Dolan, Eric Williams, Thomas Gutierrez, Tom Ronco, Adam Paul (freelance contributors).