Coin flip ends Cardinal Newman’s football season

A flipped coin, not a bouncing football, brought the seasons of a handful of North Coast Section teams to abrupt ends Sunday.

Players on Division 3 top-seed Cardinal Newman-Santa Rosa had decided last week that if they reached the final — which they did Friday with a 38-0 defeat of El Cerrito — they would opt for a coin flip with Eureka to decide which team would advance to the CIF Northern California title game.

They could have chosen to play for an NCS title — which teams in Divisions 2, 4, and 5 did — and have that game be the end of their season, win or lose.

So, on the direction of the team, Cardinal Newman athletic director Jeff Nielson called “tails” during Sunday’s conference call with NCS Commissioner Gil Lemmon. It was heads.