A guide to the action

At look at the Division I-A playoffs (click here for bracket):

County teams: 11 - Villa Park; El Toro; Estancia; Laguna Beach; Northwood; El Dorado; Calvary Chapel; Huntington Beach; Brea Olinda; Trabuco Hills; Canyon

County seeds (among top four):  No. 4 El Dorado

Best Draw: El Dorado. As the No. 4 seeds, Golden Hawks should roll to quarterfinals, where a possible match with Laguna Beach awaits.

Worst Draw: El Toro. Chargers shared Sea View League title but lost the tiebreakers. As a result, the got the No. 2 seed and a potential match with Valencia of Valencia in Round 2.

Best first-round match: Estancia-El Toro and Huntington Beach-Brea Olinda are two county match ups,  but I like Calvary Chapel against West Ranch. That could be an interesting one.

First round outlook: Look for El Dorado, Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach and El Toro to advance with ease. Brea and Estancia are out then so that leaves Calvary Chapel, Canyon, Northwood, Villa Park and Trabuco Hills. Calvary is a close call. Canyon can advance. Trabuco Hills and Villa Park are heavy underdogs. And Northwood is a slight underdog.

Round of 16 outlook: Laguna Beach and El Dorado should advance. Huntington Beach has a possible contest against Serrano, the Mojave River No. 1 team. The coin flip could be a big factor in that one. These are the 3 best county hopefuls for the quarterfinals.

Quarterfinals outlook: Laguna Beach-El Dorado is a rematch of last year's playoff, won by the Breakers. Should HB advance, the Oilers would face No. 3 Marymount, a tough opponent for HB.

Semifinals outlook: The LB-ED winner is likely to get top-seeded Dos Pueblos.

Final outlook: Dos Pueblos heavy favorites over league opponent Santa Barbara.

Comments: Having 11 county teams makes this division exciting to follow. The biggest potential match is Laguna Beach and El Dorado and hopefully it happens. Unfortunately, the division also has Dos Pueblos, as good a team as there is in the CIF-SS. But it will also be fun to see if any other county teams can pull a shocker or two and close its season in style.

Division I-AA analysis and outlook

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