How a California highschool gained its sectional title after a 1-9 season

Keyshawn Johnson sat down with St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy head soccer coach Devah Thomas, who led his group to its first CIF-Southern Part championship title after an 0-8 begin to the season and a 1-9 last report.

How did St. Pius — a small, co-ed personal Catholic highschool hailing from south Los Angeles with roughly 520 college students — accomplish such a feat? 

To begin with, its energy of schedule was sturdy sufficient to earn an at-large berth into the postseason, per Sports Illustrated. 

“Individuals simply cannot imagine it,” Thomas mentioned on the most recent version of “All Facts No Brakes.” “I do not make the foundations, I simply comply with them,” Thomas added of Calpreps, the pc system used to create the playoff divisions.

“I figured if we gained one or two (video games) that we are able to get in as a result of our energy of schedule was one of many high in California,” Thomas mentioned. “Each group that we performed (within the common season) made the playoffs apart from one out of 9 groups — all in a better division than us apart from one group. … [There are] groups that went 7-3 that did not make the playoffs. I imply, they performed the Little Sisters of the Poor, and so it caught as much as them.

“They need aggressive fairness. …. The CIF is working with it … [and] we match the factors.”

Aggressive fairness is a more recent playoff system that locations groups of their applicable division to make for aggressive video games. If there are nonetheless spots out there inside the 16-team area, at-large groups are positioned so as of their Calpreps rankings from highest to lowest. St. Pius’ Calpreps rating is 96. Its energy of schedule score is 17.2, which is increased than all of its playoff opponents besides Cypress (18.1), which St. Pius beat within the first spherical, 21-14.

St. Pius defeated Serrano within the CIF-SS Division 8 last on Friday night time, 38-19. Junior quarterback Jassi Williams threw 25 passes to 6 completely different receivers for 444 yards and scored a mixed 5 touchdowns (4 passing, one dashing).

Thomas went on to share why he felt St. Pius would go on a run if it acquired into the playoffs. “You simply noticed the grit, the grind of those children,” he mentioned. “They by no means gave up. They got here each Monday after a loss and have been nonetheless motivated.”

The Warriors’ soccer group consists of simply 30 whole gamers, with simply two seniors on the entire group.

Subsequent up is the state regional sport on Saturday night time. St. Pius will host San Diego-based St. Augustine, which went 0-10 in its common season, within the Division 4-A matchup.

St. Pius beforehand reached and misplaced the Division 14 last in 2019 and Division 7 last in 2021, which was Thomas’ first season. Thomas has gained playoff video games in each season since then.

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