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It’s a packed house at Jim Scott Stadium

Jim Scott Stadium belongs to Estancia High when it comes to the Battle for the Bell. The Eagles share the stadium with Costa Mesa and Calvary Chapel. This season, Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar will also use Jim Scott Stadium for home games because of renovation to Davidson Field at Newport Harbor.
(KEVIN CHANG / Daily Pilot)
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Three high school football teams used Jim Scott Stadium as its home field last season. That number will almost double this season.

With the upcoming $8.5-million renovation to Davidson Field, which Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar call home, there will be five teams playing games at Jim Scott Stadium in the fall. Newport Harbor and CdM join Estancia and Costa Mesa, which have shared Jim Scott Stadium since it opened in 2008, as well as Calvary Chapel.

The facility will play host to games on Thursday and Friday nights. The four schools in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District — Estancia, Costa Mesa, CdM and Newport Harbor — got first priority.

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“There’s going to be a lot of sharing,” said Estancia Coach Mike Bargas, adding that his team’s home games against Ocean View (Oct. 1) and Godinez (Oct. 29) shifted from a Friday to a Thursday to accommodate the rest of the four schools. “Most of the [coaches] I know really well and we’re really good friends. We worked things out.”

Bargas said the four football coaches from the local programs, along with school administrators, sat down to schedule which team played at Jim Scott Stadium on which day. Two of those coaches, Wally Grant and Scott Meyer are no longer in charge of their respective programs, Grant stepped down from Costa Mesa in December and Meyer left CdM in February to coach at Servite.

Out of the coaches, Newport Harbor’s Jeff Brinkley is the longest tenured coach. He’s entering his 30th season at the helm of the Sailors and it will mark the first in which his team plays all of its home contests away from Davidson Field.

The Sailors aren’t too concerned about having to travel for each of their five home games. Three are at Jim Scott Stadium, against Rialto Eisenhower (Sept. 3), Manhattan Beach Mira Costa (Oct. 2) and Fountain Valley (Oct. 8), and two are at Orange Coast College, against Sunset League foes Los Alamitos (Oct. 22) and Edison (Nov. 6).

“Coach Brinkley can make any adjustment before, during or after a game,” said Mike Zimmerman, Newport Harbor’s athletic director. “He’s going to have the kids ready to play.”

Brinkley and Newport Harbor will have time to get familiar with Jim Scott Stadium before they kick off the season on that field against Eisenhower, which will be the first of three Thursday home games for the Sailors. The Sailors and Estancia are having a scrimmage on Aug. 28 at 10 a.m.

Newport Harbor, CdM and Costa Mesa plan to practice on their respective campuses. Zimmerman said the field adjacent to Davidson Field wouldn’t be affected by the renovation, allowing the Sailors to continue to use it for practice, while the lower-level programs will use smaller fields like the outfield on the junior varsity softball field.

“Wherever there’s grass, we will use it to practice on if we have to,” Zimmerman said.

Zimmerman added that the renovations to Davidson Field, which will include an all-weather track and field, lights, team rooms, restrooms, concession space and a press box, should be ready for the 2016 season.

Bargas, who led Estancia to an undefeated Orange Coast League crown last season, isn’t too sure about that timetable. He expects Estancia and Costa Mesa, coached by Glen Fisher, to go through this again in 2016.

“They were supposed to break ground [at Davidson Field] the day after graduation on [June 18],” Bargas said. “In my mind, it’s going to be two seasons of us sharing the field. We just have to roll with the punches. The good thing for us is that we just have to walk to the field for our games at Jim Scott Stadium.”

For the Sea Kings, every game has required traveling. Dan O’Shea, who became CdM’s coach in April, has experienced the trips the past four seasons as CdM’s defensive coordinator.

Wherever the Sea Kings have played, they have been mostly successful the last four years. During the stretch, they have gone 50-6 overall and 19-1 in Pacific Coast League play, claiming three Pacific Coast League titles, three CIF Southern Section Southern Division titles and one CIF State Division III title.

“That’s a gorgeous facility,” O’Shea said of Jim Scott Stadium, which cost $9.5 million to build and features artificial turf, a building with home and visitor rooms, concessions, a press box and scoreboard. “We don’t have lights at CdM, and during our late playoff runs, we’ve practiced at Estancia many times and played a couple of games there.

“It’s entirely possible that we might have smaller crowds [to our home games], but our parents and fans are used to driving somewhere for all of our games. Estancia is five minutes further away, but it’s virtually the same distance as going to Newport Harbor.”

O’Shea said CdM, which opens camp on Aug. 3, has scheduled two evening intrasquad scrimmages at Jim Scott Stadium on Aug. 7 and Aug. 14 to prepare for the turf and the Aug. 28 season opener at home against Palos Verdes.

The Sea Kings have four other home games at Jim Scott Stadium, against Tesoro (Sept. 24), Beckman (Oct. 15), Northwood (Oct. 30) and Irvine (Nov. 5). Six of CdM’s 10 regular-season games are at home, including the one against archrival Newport Harbor in the Battle of the Bay at OCC on Sept. 17. Even though the rivalry game will be on a Thursday night, O’Shea said the Sea Kings are entertaining the Sailors at OCC because the venue can accommodate up to 7,600 fans.

The one team heavily impacted by Newport Harbor and CdM moving over to Jim Scott Stadium was Calvary Chapel, the Santa Ana-based private school. Coach Chris Cox said his team had to move two Orange Coast League home games away from Jim Scott Stadium. Calvary Chapel is playing host to Godinez at Segerstrom High (Oct. 15) and Laguna Beach at Ocean View High (Oct. 30).

“The school district has been awesome with us, and it’s just one of those things where Newport Harbor is getting its stadium renovated,” said Cox, who lives in Costa Mesa. “We have three home games scheduled for Jim Scott Stadium, and we will also be the away team against Estancia [on Oct. 9 at Jim Scott Stadium] and Costa Mesa [on Nov. 6 at Jim Scott Stadium].

“We understand that we’re not in the school district. We’re fifth in the pecking order, but half of our [players] are Costa Mesa residents.”

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