The San Diego Section’s third girls flag football championship playoffs included eight East County teams: No. 4-seeded Grossmont and No. 8-seeded Steele Canyon in the top Division I field, No. 5-seeded Granite Hills in the Division II bracket, No. 2 Helix in the Division III tier, No. 1-seeded El Capitan and No. 6-seeded Santana in the Division IV field and No. 6-seeded West Hills and No. 7-seeded Valhalla in the Division V bracket.
Granite Hills, West Hills and Valhalla won their opening-round games while Helix and El Capitan received a first-round bye.
•Granite Hills defeated No. 12 Scripps Ranch, 31-25, in a Division II matchup.
•West Hills shut out No. 11 Montgomery, 24-0, while Valhalla edged No. 10 Oceanside, 20-19, in a pair of Division V contests.
Both Grossmont and Steele Canyon received byes to the quarterfinals, making the second round of the playoffs filled with seven Grossmont Conference teams.
Two teams advanced to the semifinals: Helix (27-13 over No. 10 Mission Bay) and El Capitan (25-6 over No. 9 Escondido).
Upsets have ruled the day in this year’s postseason tourney.
Grossmont went down, 23-0, to fifth-seeded Westview in Saturday’s quarterfinals while 12 other higher-seeded teams lost their opening playoff games.
El Capitan (14-6) hosted No. 5 Patrick Henry (10-9) in Tuesday’s semifinals while Helix (11-10) hosted No. 6 Mira Mesa (12-10) in Wednesday’s semis. All semifinal winners advance to Saturday’s divisional championship gamers at Escondido High School.
The Division V game is set to kick off the five-game finals at 10 a.m., followed by the Division IV game at noon, the Division III game at 2 p.m., the Division II game at 4 p.m. and the Division I game at 6 p.m.
In quarterfinal contests, Helix defeated No. 10 Mission Bay 27-13 while El Capitan eliminated No. 9 Escondido 25-6. Granite Hills lost 39-33 to No. 4 Vincent Memorial, West Hills lost 27-6 to No. 3 San Diego and Valhalla ended its season with 20-6 to No. 2 Olympian.
Besides Grossmont’s loss, Steele Canyon held a 13-6 lead on No. 1 Bonita Vista through three quarters before the Lady Barons (20-0) rallied with a lethal 20-0 fourth-quarter run to claim a 26-13 win to advance to Wednesday’s semiffinals.
Senior Kailiana Ewing and senior Ily Barclay scored touchdowns for Grossmont Hills League champion Steele Canyon (18-5).
“We had a great season,” Lady Cougar coach Phillip Givens said. “We just ran into a great team. This was a game between two championship-caliber teams.”
