Five Orange County teams are among the 12 girls volleyball teams in Division 1 of the CIF Southern Section playoffs.
Mater Dei, last year’s CIF-SS Division 1 champion, is seeded third. The other four county teams in the top division are Crean Lutheran, Los Alamitos, Newport Harbor and San Juan Hills.
Los Alamitos (27-8), champion of the Sunset League, plays at South Coast League champion San Juan Hills in the first round Wednesday. Newport Harbor is at Mira Costa and Crean Lutheran is at Harvard-Westlake in the first round.
First-round games for Divisions 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 are Tuesday and Divisions 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 play their opening matches Wednesday.
Mater Dei has a first-round bye in Division 1. No. 1-seed Sierra Canyon and No. 2-seed Redondo Union also have first-round byes.
Twelve teams were placed in the Division 1 bracket that is single elimination. Division 1 last season was an eight-team bracket that used a pool-play format.
The teams were placed in playoff divisions according to their ratings by the Massey Ratings System at the end of the regular season.
All four Trinity League teams made the playoffs. Santa Margarita, which finished second to Mater Dei in the league standings, is seeded No. 4 in Division 2. JSerra and Orange Lutheran are in Division 2 as at-large teams.
Foothill, which finished second to Crean Lutheran in the Freeway League, is the No. 4 seed in Division 3. Loara is the No. 2-seed in Division 9.
Absent from the girls volleyball bracket sheets is Beckman.
The Patriots finished fourth in the five-team South Coast League with a 3-5 league record. Beckman (19-13) had the .500-or-better record required for at-large berth consideration and, if it had been selected, would have been a Division 3 at-large team.
Trabuco Hills, 13-13 overall and 1-7 in the South Coast League for a fifth-place finish, got a Division 3 at-large berth. Beckman had a higher Massey rating than Trabuco Hills, 7.185 to 6.816.
Beckman coach Darin McBain said via text message that he did not understand why his team did not get an at-large berth but did not respond to a request for additional comment.
The first round has a few matches that have two Orange County teams in them: Aliso Niguel at Foothill in Division 3; Western at Pacifica in Division 6; Century at Esperanza in Division 7; and Legacy Prep at Fairmont Prep in Division 9.
The finals are Nov. 8. Four finals will be played at Cerritos College, and the other six finals will be at home-team sites.
The CIF Southern California Regional playoffs are Nov. 11-8. CIF State finals are Nov. 21 and 22.
