How did winless Gardena and Westchester make City Section football playoffs?

If the City Section was seeking publicity, it’s going to get it for including two winless football teams in its playoff pairings released on Saturday.

Gardena (0-10) is the No. 16 seed in Division II. Westchester (0-10) is No. 6 seed in Division III.

“That’s pretty bad,” Hamilton coach Elijah Asante said of two winless teams making the playoffs.

In fact, the City Section was only following rules adopted by its football coaches directing that teams be placed in brackets by strictly following where they are rated in computer rankings. Because Gardena came from the powerful Marine League and Westchester was in the Western League, an 0-10 record didn’t prevent them from being included based on strength of schedule.

Rick Prizant, the athletic director at Birmingham and a member of the section’s executive committee, said, “We shouldn’t penalize teams that happen to be in tough leagues and play a difficult nonleague schedule. If they are rated high enough by the computer to qualify for the playoffs they shouldn’t be punished.”

Eagle Rock coach Andy Moran, who’s chairman of the football advisory committee, said there was no scenario for winless teams “to come out of here.”

Look for the coaches to add a new proposal to prevent such a scenario in the future.

“We got some ideas,” Moran said.