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The San Diego Section of California’s CIF increased the number of competitive sports divisions in February of 2013, highlighted by a new Open division in which traditionally strong programs will compete for a championship. That format went in to play a year ago for many high school sports, and will take root this fall for water polo.
The new Open Division will include traditionally powerful programs regardless of size, combining large schools like Carlsbad with smaller ones, such as Bishop’s and Cathedral Catholic. Divisions 1 through 3 remain as before.
CIF commissioner Jerry Schniepp led the implementation of the new policy in February, 2013. “Enrollment-based divisions are no longer as relevant as they were 50 years ago or even 20 years ago,” he told North County’s Village News when the change was first announced.
The evidence upon which the policy change was made was clear. Since 2003 three teams won 82 percent of the boys water polo titles and five teams won 86 percent of the girls water polo championships according to the Village News. The Open Division will seed eight teams in its championship bracket. The CIF will use historical rankings to place teams in the Open Division with more recent results given more weight in the calculation.
