San Diego Section Open Division playoffs are down to four teams, with enticing contests tonight that match No. 4 seed San Ysidro (18-11) at 25-4 and No. 1 St. Augustine and No. 3 Montgomery (24-5) at No. 2 Carlsbad (24-5).

San Ysidro, in and out all season after the high expectations of Mikey Williams’ return from a two-year hiatus at a North Carolina academy,  has won five of its last six and apparently has improved its defense.

Coach Terry Tucker’s team won its two most recent games, 65-62, and 79-73, over Montgomery and La Costa Canyon, respectively. This from a squad that won a game when its opponent scored 100 points and more than 80  points in 12 others.

San Ysidro leads the section with an 83.2 offensive average and has scaled 100 three times. The Cougars are reminiscent of the Gary Zarecky-coached Sweetwater teams of the 1980s that in three seasons produced offensive averages of 92.3, 91.7, and 88.4.

One of  the stars on those Red Devils squads was Mahlon Williams, father of San Ysidro’s Mikey.

St. Augustine’s offensive average of 76.3 shows the Saints are able to stay up with anyone and their 57.2 defensive average pose a stiff challenge to the Cougars.

MONTGOMERY TAKES FLIGHT*

Ed Martin became coach at Montgomery in 2008-09, assuming a historically barren program that had just concluded a four-year run of 22-73.

Martin was an unpromising 8-20 in his first season, 10-16 in his next, and  flattened out at  5-21 in his third.

Montgomery is 223-117 and with a .658 win percentage since then and Martin takes his 24-5 squad  and No. 3 Open Division seeding to No.2 Carlsbad (24-5).

Montgomery has won 20 or more games in four of the last six seasons. The Aztecs are averaging  73.2 points against 51.9.  Carlsbad is the second highest scoring team in the San Diego Section with a 78-point average and is averaging 62 points on defense.

Seedings in the Open Division and in D-I, D-II, and D-III bring together the top four seeds in each. A a pair of upsets in D-V Tuesday night saw, 8 seed Classical upend No. 4 Del Lago, 61-51, and Santana, No. 6, edge Valley Center, No. 2, 55-53.

*John J. Montgomery, after whom the school was named when it opened in 1970, reportedly flew a powered glider about 600 feet in 1883 on nearby Otay Mesa, 20 years before the Wright Brothers’ described airplane flight in Kitty Hawk, N.C.

Calexico Vincent Memorial and the Rock Academy, top seeds in Division IV and V, respectively, were among three ousted favorites in San Diego Section quarterfinals playoffs Friday night.

San Pasqual (16-13) defeated Vincent (22-7) , 56-52, and Classical (15-9) outlasted Rock (21-7), 49-45, in overtime in a pair of upset victories by No. 8-ranked teams.  On a  less dramatic stage No. 5 Rancho Buena Vista (20-10) edged No. 4 West Hills (24-5), 69-59, in D-III.

Open Division No. 1 seed St. Augustine defeated 8 Mater Dei, 88-62; 2 Carlsbad ushered out defending champion number 7 Torrey Pines, 65-57, in overtime; 3 Montgomery eliminated 6 Santa Fe Christian,  69-60, and San Ysidro won the 4-5 game with La Costa Canyon, 79-73.

Despite the  big reversals in D-IV and V, the playoffs pretty much have been chalk.  There have been only  nine upsets in the  two rounds of 65 games, an 86.2 winning percentage and a nod to the value of power ratings.

Semifinals play in all five divisions resumes Wednesday at the sites of the favored seeds. Quarterfinals results with upsets highlighted:

Six favorites went down in Boys’ divisions I-V in the 38-game first round of the San Diego Section playoffs.

Seedings are based on power ratings that essentially are a comparison of “who you played and how who you played did.”

There were some stunners, three in D-IV and V.

Brawley (8-18), a 15th-ranked struggler in D-V,  traveled 132 miles and over the cold and windy mountains to startle Clairemont (22-6), the No. 2 seed, 55-40.

There also were a couple 3-14 upsets.

Play resumes Friday, including quarterfinals games in the eight-team Open Division.

Surprises are  highlighted.

Union-Tribune prep czar John Maffei announced that this week’s poll will be for the regular season, which has ended, and that a final poll will be released following the last time out, basket, or free throw, and final tick of the scoreboard clock in the playoffs.

St. Augustine so far has run the table, amassing all 19 votes for first place since Maffei’s weekly ballots went out in November.

The No. 1-seeded Saints (24-4) will begin Open Division playoffs Friday night at home against No. 8 Mater Dei (21-7), the poll’s sixth-ranked team this week.

A perhaps more interesting matchup Friday will be the  game between 4  seed San Ysidro (17-11) and 5 La Costa Canyon (16-11). Each posted impressive wins in their final pre-playoff tests,  San Ysidro, 65-62 over Montgomery, and the Mavericks, 59-41 over Torrey Pines.

The Mavericks will have to negotiate more than 40 miles of Southbound Interstate 5 during afternoon rush hour before they will reach the Cougars’ lair.

Other Open Division jousts will send 6 seed Santa Fe Christian (24-4) to No. 3 Montgomery (24-4)  in another I-5 challenge and 7 seed Torrey Pines (18-10) to 2 seed Carlsbad (23-5).

Play in Divisions 1-5 will be Tuesday night, except for the D-III clash featuring 13 seed Escondido Charter at 4 Rancho Buena Vista on Wednesday.

Teams with the best (lower number) seed will be at home.

LIONS ROAR

“Maffei Madness”, not unlike March Madness, began last night when San Diego Jewish Academy (9-14) and 99th in the San Diego Section, according to MaxPreps, won a play-in game by defeating 16-13 High Tech Mesa, 55-48, ranked No. 105 and champion of the Pioneer League, on the neutral First Church of the Nazarene court.

The Lions’ reward will be a third game against No. 1-seeded Rock (20-6), winner of the Ocean League, in which San Diego Jewish finished fourth. Rock, ranked 50th in the San Diego Section, defeated the Lions, 63-36, and 65-27 in league play.

The San Diego Union-Tribune Week 11 poll

First-place votes in parenthesis.
Points on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.
First-place votes in parenthesis. Last entries in columns indicate previous rank.
Cal-Hi Sports’ and Max Preps’ represent state rankings. NR—Not ranked. Records as of Monday, Feb. 13.

Others receiving votes

La Jolla Country Day (19-7, 7 points),  Del Norte (18-7, 4), Coronado (21-7), Ramona (18-9), and Victory Christian (20-8,  2 points each).

• John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune.
• Steve Brand, Terry Monahan, Eric Williams, Freelance contributors.
• Rick Smith, partletonsports.com.
• Adam Paul, eastcountysports.com.
• John Kentera, Braden Supremant (97.3 FM The Fan).
• Bodie DeSilva, scoreboardlive.com.
• Steve (Biff) Dolan, Mountain Country 107.9 FM.
• Christian Pedersen, San Diego Sports Association.
• Todd Cassen, Joe Heinz, Ron Marquez, CIF San Diego Section.
• Rex Johnson, CIF Advisory Committee.
• Joe Evangelist, San Diego Coaching Legends Committee.
• Tom Helmantoler, Southern Conference Advisor.
• Aaron Burgin, fulltimehoops.com.
• Max-Preps.

The leagues and teams sometimes are different and some teams play football in one league and basketball in another.  Some teams don’t play football and some of these leagues don’t offer football.

MaxPreps ranks any team in California that provides information and Max’s information is not always complete.  Cal-Hi Sports rates from 1 to 25 and then cites many more considered to be on “On the Bubble.”

Max received information from 124 San Diego Section schools this season, compared to 84 football-playing schools in 2022.

Winning a league championship is the first step  to the playoffs for aspiring teams, although teams that did not win their league may be seeded higher in the postseason and may have better overall records.

But that doesn’t diminish the achievements of the champions of the 42 Boys’ and Girls’ circuits in the San Diego Section.  Ask any coach, the initial goal at the start of the season is to “win our league.”

The 22-23 league champions with state rankings by MaxPreps and Cal-Hi Sports:

BOYS

GIRLS

One week to go in the regular season and the ranks have been shaken.

St. Augustine, Carlsbad, and Montgomery remained 1-2-3 in the latest Union-Tribune vote, but seven others changed positions. Most notable were Santa Fe Christian’s leapfrogging from No. 8 to No. 4 and Mater Dei’s rising from No. 9 to No. 6.

Santa Fe, its regular season complete at 25-4 and a co-champion in the Coastal League with La Jolla Country Day (19-7), defeated Army-Navy, 99-65, The Bishop’s, 77-64, and Montgomery, 70-69, last week.

The Falcons and Torreys each posted 11-1 league records.  Country Day, unranked in San Diego, won the first meeting, 74-55, and the Falcons took the follow-up, 74-65.  Santa Fe is ranked 66th in California by MaxPreps and Country Day 120th.

Three other teams unranked by the Union-Tribune panel, were given higher state-wide grades by the computer than Lincoln, No. 8 locally but 142 in Max’s algorithms.  Del Norte is 105th, San Diego 114th, and El Camino 122nd.

Mater Dei is 7-4 in the Metro Mesa circuit, third to Montgomery’s 10-0 and San Ysidro’s 8-2.  The Crusaders moved up by the strength of a 92-86 win over San Ysidro after a 74-65 defeat of Otay Ranch.  The Crusaders finish Wednesday against Olympian.

The San Diego Union-Tribune Week 10 poll:

First-place votes in parenthesis.
Points on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.
First-place votes in parenthesis. Last entries in columns indicate previous rank.
Cal-Hi Sports’ and Max Preps’ represent state rankings. NR—Not ranked.

Others receiving votes

La Jolla Country Day (19-7, 6 points),  Victory Christian (16-8, 3), El Camino (17-7, 2), Ramona (16-9, 2), Del Norte (15-7, 1).

VOTING PANEL

• John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune.
• Steve Brand, Terry Monahan, Eric Williams, Freelance contributors.
• Rick Smith, partletonsports.com.
• Adam Paul, eastcountysports.com.
• John Kentera, Braden Supremant (97.3 FM The Fan).
• Bodie DeSilva, scoreboardlive.com.
• Steve (Biff) Dolan, Mountain Country 107.9 FM.
• Christian Pedersen, San Diego Sports Association.
• Todd Cassen, Joe Heinz, Ron Marquez, CIF San Diego Section.
• Rex Johnson, CIF Advisory Committee.
• Joe Evangelist, San Diego Coaching Legends Committee.
• Tom Helmantoler, Southern Conference Advisor.
• Aaron Burgin, fulltimehoops.com.
• Max-Preps.