Forfeits, errors, oversights change PCAC South championship result

By Nick Pellegrino
Updated: March 1, 2019

By Nick Pellegrino
East County Sports staff writer

EL CAJON (2-28-2019) – After enduring a less-than-auspicious season, the Grossmont College women’s basketball teams was declared champion of the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference’s South Division – but only for about 24 hours.

In the days leading up to the seeding committee meeting to determine brackets for the California Community College Athletic Association championship, the title of champion switched several times.

Utilizing on-court results only, Southwestern College won the title, followed by Imperial Valley, Grossmont and San Diego City. All four schools entered the final week of PCAC play with a shot at garnering the crown, but the Jaguars captured their final two ballgames to claim the outright title.

Or so they thought.

Between the completion of the regular season and the meeting to set the state playoff pairings, a wild array of mistakes and oversights were announced.

It was deemed Southwestern College utilized an ineligible player and were forced to forfeit two games, allowing Imperial Valley to leap from one game behind to one game ahead and be deemed champions.

In addition, one of the SWC forfeits was to Grossmont from the Jan. 30 contest, lifting the Griffins into a tie for first with Imperial Valley.

However, San Diego City later announced its use of an ineligible player in a game with Southwestern from Feb. 15, allowing the Jags to recover one victory and forge a 3-way tie for the division title.

At this point, based on established tie-breaker criteria in the PCAC rulebook, Imperial Valley was awarded the division’s berth into the South Regional playoffs, where they fell to host Cypress on Wednesday’s (Feb. 27) first-round contest.

However, the final standings were still not finalized.

San Diego City discovered the illegal player also played against Grossmont, which would’ve sent the Griffins into the playoffs as outright champions – if discovered in time.

But that point proved moot when Grossmont found out it, too had used a player who was not cleared to play against the Knights, meaning the Grossmont-City game will result in a double-forfeit.

Thus, Imperial Valley and Southwestern will be listed in the PCAC historical annuals as co-champions at 5-3 in South Division play, followed by Grossmont (4-4), San Diego City (3-5) and San Diego Mesa (2-6). The double-forfeit correctly leaves the total of losses (21) two higher than wins (19).

EastCountySports.com