If you have ever been puzzled by the variety of Conferences, Leagues, and Divisions that athletes at Coronado High School (CHS) compete in, you’re not alone. This is the place to unpack them all. There’s a quiz at the end, so pay attention.
CIF – San Diego Section
Starting with the larger context, Coronado High School plays in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) – San Diego Section, one of ten sections in the state. CIF – San Diego covers most of San Diego and Imperial Counties — area 10 on the map, the southernmost section.
Conferences
Within the CIF – San Diego Section, there are eight conferences: City, Coastal, Frontier, Grossmont, Metro, North County, Southeastern, and Southern. Teams are loosely grouped geographically into conferences. Coronado High School plays in the City Conference. Below, see the map and key for a list and location of the schools in the City conference. Additionally, see this map for schools in every conference.
Leagues
Within the City Conference in which Coronado High School competes, there are four Leagues: Central, City, Eastern, and Western. Yes, there is both a conference and a league named “City.” League placements are not intuitive, so hang on.
CIF – San Diego tries to align teams that will be competitive within leagues, so Coronado plays in different leagues depending on the sport. For example, this year the Islander girls basketball team, football, and track & field compete in the Central League, but Islander softball, boys basketball, and boys soccer play in the City League. The other 15 Coronado High School teams are almost evenly split between the Eastern and Western Leagues.
Every league crowns a champion at the end of the season. For example, in fall 2024, the CHS girls volleyball team won the Eastern League. In spring 2024, CHS girls lacrosse won the Western League. The next time you are in the CHS gym, check out the banners of your favorite teams. You will see the years that each team won a league championship.
Quick Recap
To recap, Coronado High School is in the CIF – San Diego section that spans as far north as Fallbrook, as far south and east as Calexico, and as far south and west as San Ysidro.
Within the CIF – San Diego section, Coronado High school competes in the City Conference where Coronado High School is the southern-most school. Most of the other schools are located in the city of San Diego. Only one school in the City conference lies north of the 56, Cathedral Catholic.
Depending on the sport, the school plays in one of four leagues within the City Conference: City, Central, Eastern, or Western.
Divisions
You’re doing great. In addition to conference and league placement, CIF – San Diego also places teams into Divisions.
Unlike conferences and leagues, division placement does not take geographic proximity into account, so teams from any one of the eight conferences may compete in the same division. At the end of regular-season play, CIF – San Diego hosts a tournament for every division in every sport.
Each sport determines divisions in one of two ways: by performance or by school size. For those sports that determine divisions based on performance, the highest-ranked teams are placed into Division 1, the next highest into Division 2, and so on. More on the two ways of placing teams later.
In addition, starting in 2013-14, the top-ranked teams in Division 1 have been selected as Open Division teams. These top-ranked teams play in a tournament separate from the CIF – San Diego Division 1 tournament.
To be placed into the Open Division is a big deal. The placement means that the team is one of the top eight (or four for football) from among as many as 124 teams in the CIF – San Diego Section. The next time you go to the CHS Gym, look for the “OPEN” designation on some of the sports’ banners. To get into the Open Division is special. To win the Open Division is elite. Coronado has won an Open Division title one time: the 2017 Boys Water Polo Team. Boys water polo also won state titles in 2000 and 2001.
Division Placement Based on Previous Performance
Most sports determine divisions based on the team’s previous success using what is called the 70-30 formula. During or before the preseason, every team is ranked based on its performance over the previous two seasons. The most recent season’s ranking counts for 70% of a team’s overall rank, and its ranking from two year’s prior counts for 30% of the team’s overall rank.
For example, among 112 teams, Coronado High School’s baseball team was ranked 28th after the spring 2024 season and 24th after the spring 2023 season. Using the 70/30 formula, you can calculate the team’s 2025 preseason ranking by taking 70% of 28 to get 19.6 (.7 x 28) and 30% of 24 to get 7.2 (.3 x 24). The sum of the two is the team’s 2025 preseason rank of 26.8 (19.6+7.2). All of the baseball teams in CIF-San Diego were ranked using the same method. The 20 top-ranked teams were placed into Division 1, the next 20 in Division 2, and so on. Using this formula, Coronado’s baseball team was placed into Division 2.
There is an exception, however. A team can move up or down at most one division from year to year. For example, Valhalla’s baseball team was ranked 13th in the preseason and so should have been placed in Division 1. But, the team played in Division 3 in Spring 2024 and so was only able to move up one division, to Division 2. Similarly, Steele Canyon played in Division 1 last year, but its preseason rank would have placed it in Division 3. Because the team could only move one division from year to year, it was placed into Division 2.
This approach to placing teams into divisions means that Coronado High School competes in different divisions for different sports. For a few examples, CHS Girls and Boys Water Polo, Girls and Boys Lacrosse, and Girls Soccer play in Division 1 this year. Softball and Boys Basketball play in Division 3.
There are typically 18-24 teams in each division, too many to compete against in one season, so that might explain why the teams are assigned to conferences and leagues in addition to divisions. The division placement is used to determine who competes in end-of-season CIF-San Diego section tournaments.
Division Placement Based on Size of School
If the sport has an individual component, then it is usually placed into a division based on the size of the school. The sports that place teams based on school size are girls and boys golf, track & field, cross country, and swimming & diving. These sports have team competitions, but they also have individual competitions such as the 100 meter dash or individual awards for top golfers in the section.
Coronado High School is one of the smaller schools in the San Diego section, so for these individual sports, it is placed into a division with other small schools. The division placement is based solely on school size, not past performance.
In the past, almost every sport determined its division placements based on the size of the school. The reasoning for placing sports based on school size assumed that smaller schools had fewer participants from which to choose, so competing against other smaller schools was fair. Similarly, having large schools compete against other large schools meant that they had larger numbers of students from which to choose, and so competing against other large schools made sense.
What this approach did not take into account was context and opportunity. For example, Coronado is a Navy town with a SEAL base and is almost completely surrounded by the ocean and bays. It also has three large pools within about a mile radius (Brian Bent Memorial Complex, Vice Admiral Martin Fitness Center Pool on North Island, and City of Coronado Aquatics Center).
One could reasonably imagine that water polo teams might be great in Coronado, and they are. So, despite the school’s small size, both the girls and boys water polo teams compete in Division 1 based on their performance, and they often earn a spot in the coveted Open Division. If the Water Polo teams competed based solely on the size of the school, they would be placed into Division 3 out of a total of three divisions for the sport.
Division Placement Based on End-of-Season Ranking
And, there’s more! Football and girls and boys tennis also determine divisions based on performance, but they base the team’s performance on the current season rather than the two previous seasons. For example, this fall 2024, football used the CalPreps Rankings on November 3 (after the teams had played all of their regular-season games) to determine division placement. The top four teams were placed into the Open Division, and the next 12 teams were placed into Division 1, and so on.
Girls and Boys Tennis use the Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) system to determine division placement. At the end of the regular season, the ratings of the top nine players at each school are calculated to rank teams. The top eight teams are placed into the Open Division, and the next 16 teams are placed into Division 1, and so on.
Takeaways
Given that Coronado is one of the smallest schools in CIF – San Diego, the fact that most of Coronado’s sports (that are placed into divisions based on performance) earn spots in the top half of all divisions means that they routinely outperform their size. About 1000 students attend Coronado High school. CHS often competes against schools that are more than twice the size of Coronado. For example, Torrey Pines, Eastlake, and Helix High School have more than 2500 students, and Coronado is often competitive with those schools.
What is the takeaway? Coronado High School is small but mighty, and its teams compete well against their larger lot.
What are your next tasks?
Go to the CHS Gym and take some time to review the banners for every sport. Look for the word “OPEN” and get excited about the success of those teams. Know that teams that win a CIF – San Diego section tournament in any division, but especially the Open Division, are extra special.
Note the dynasties that Coronado’s teams have had over the years.
See how well Coronado families, the school, and the town believe in and support all of their athletes: both girls and boys teams are well represented with league and CIF championships.
Take in a sport you’ve never watched. Regular-season competitions are often free and you’ll likely be wowed.
Quiz
All right. It’s time to see whether you can earn a Coronado High School/CIF-San Diego braggart badge.
1) What CIF section does Coronado High compete in?
a) Southern
b) San Diego
c) Central
d) Central Coast
2) What Conference does Coronado High Compete in?
a) City
b) Coastal
c) Metro
d) Southern
3) What league does Coronado High School compete in?
a) City
b) Central
c) Eastern
d) Western
e) Trick question. It depends on the sport.
4) What Division does Coronado High School compete in?
a) 1
b) Open
c) 5
d) 3
e) Trick question. It depends on the sport.
5) What method is used to determine division placement for softball?
a) size of school
b) performance during the current season
c) performance in the previous two seasons using the 70/30 formula
d) none of the above
6) What method is used to determine division placement for cross country?
a) size of school
b) performance during the current season
c) performance in the previous two seasons using the 70/30 formula
d) none of the above
7) In general, how do sports teams fare at Coronado High School?
a) They often beat the big dogs which is cool because size-wise it is a little dog.
There aren’t other options for this question. This one is a gimme.
What are you waiting for? Get out there and support your Islanders!
*I gathered data from CIF San Diego section website by selecting each sport and choosing the option, Divisions, if it appeared. In some cases, that spreadsheet was not available, so then turned to the Preseason Bulletin for guidelines.
Quiz Answers: 1) b; 2) a; 3) e; 4) e; 5) c; 6) a; 7) a of course!
