NCS football playoffs: Healdsburg a surprise selection

When the North Coast Section high school football playoff brackets went public Sunday, most local coaches were fairly happy with their teams’ seeds. But at least one entry on the brackets raised some eyebrows.

Healdsburg, a team that finished below .500, in the bottom half of the league and lost its final four games of the season, made the playoffs.

The Greyhounds were seeded 15th, the last Division 4 team to make the cut. That part makes sense, since they finished 3-7 overall and just 2-4 in the Sonoma County League.

Even Greyhounds coach Todd Beth was surprised.

Only one other school among the 69 playoff teams had a record as bad or worse than Healdsburg: Ygnacio Valley, which was 3-7 and 1-4. They will face?Division 3 defending champ No.?1 Campolindo in the first round, so they likely won’t be around for long.

Healdsburg, as the low seed in Division 4, will face North Bay League champ Cardinal Newman, seeded No. 2 behind Clayton Valley Charter.

Beth acknowledges his team is a huge underdog to the Sonoma County powerhouse.

“We could have withdrawn, but the seniors wanted to keep our hat in the ring, just for the experience,” he said. “The seniors put in a ton of work in the offseason. This is one more game for them and a good building block for next year.

“It’s kind of the beginning of next season. The younger guys are going to get some playoff experience.”

Playoff seeding is a complicated and unscientific process that includes a variety of criteria such as overall record, league finish, strength of opponents, a team’s record against league leaders and coaches’ ratings.

Healdsburg finished fifth in the SCL among seven teams, behind Sonoma Valley, which did not make the playoff cut in Division 3.

The Greyhounds lost to league-leaders Analy, Petaluma, Piner, as well as Cloverdale of the North Central League I.

But in an odd way, those losses actually benefited Healdsburg, according to the selection announcement. All four of those teams made the playoffs, which apparently made the Greyhounds look better for having played them.

“For us, we’re a school of 600 that plays in the SCL against schools that are double our enrollment,” Beth said. “It’s going to be an uphill battle every year in our league, so we have to work toward the Division 4 playoffs, where we do play schools of our size.”

But the committee paired Healdsburg up with 8-2 Newman, which rolled through the NBL undefeated and whose only losses this year were in the preseason to St. Mary’s and Clayton Valley, which went to the state championship game last year.

Despite the long odds, Beth said he’s not accepting a defeat yet.

In fact, he recalled one of the area’s biggest-ever upsets, in 1996 when Elsie Allen beat Newman, 16-7.

“There’s always a chance,” he said. “Anything’s possible. I never go into a game thinking there’s no chance to win.”

At the same time, he adds: “Newman is a class act, so I’m sure nothing will get out of hand.”

The Greyhounds will travel to Newman for Round 1 of the NCS playoffs at 7 p.m. Friday.

You can reach Lori A. Carter at 521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.