Southern Section Football Playoffs : Mater Dei Meets No. 1 Loyola Saturday at OCC

Mater Dei High School will play host to the nation’s top-ranked team, Loyola, at 7:30 Saturday night at Orange Coast College’s LeBard Stadium in the quarterfinals of the Southern Section Division I football playoffs.

Loyola is 11-0 and ranked first in the nation by USA Today. Mater Dei (6-5) has played 5 of the top 10 teams in the division.

In other Division I games, Fountain Valley (9-2) will host Rubidoux (9-2) at LeBard Stadium Friday night and Servite (9-2) will meet Crespi (6-5) at Birmingham High in Van Nuys.

The Servite-Crespi game is a rematch of a nonleague game this season that Servite won, 35-14. In that game, Servite tailback Derek Brown out-rushed Crespi’s Russell White, 312-81.

Mission Viejo, the top-seeded team in Division III, will travel to Bradford Stadium to meet El Dorado in the quarterfinals. Second-seeded Los Alamitos won a coin flip and will play host to Schurr at Gahr High’s Rants Stadium.

In other Division III games, Santa Ana won a coin flip and will play host to Paramount at a site and date to be determined and El Modena will host third-seeded Dominguez at Fred Kelly Stadium.

The Division VI playoffs feature eight county teams in the quarterfinals, with top-seeded Valencia facing Sunny Hills at Buena Park High and second-seeded Pacifica traveling to Santa Ana Stadium to meet Saddleback in the featured games.

In Division VIII play, Woodbridge won a coin flip and will play host to Santa Clara of Oxnard at Irvine High. Trabuco Hills will travel to Santa Paula.

In the Division IX playoffs, third-seeded Whittier Christian will travel to Desert for a quarterfinal game.