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July 14, 2025
By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X
This is the sixth part in a series of area schools involved in the upcoming Foothill Area releaguing that will begin for the 2026-2027 school year. The 20 schools involved in what will be a new conference are from the current 605 League, Del Rio League, Gateway League and Mid-Cities League. This is the third time since the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year that area schools have been involved in releaguing.
Up until the end of the 2001-2002 school year, Whitney High athletics were situated in the Delphic League, facing schools from West Los Angeles, North Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley. Then the Wildcats moved into the Academy League and were traveling in the opposite direction on the 405 Freeway to face Orange County schools.
The most recent league change placed Whitney, and former Academy League member Oxford Academy, in the 605 League where its athletics finally got to see more of their ABC Unified School District rivals. Now, the Wildcats will see much more after this upcoming school year as up to 14 new league opponents could be new rivals.
“I was very open to it,” said Whitney co-athletic director Marlene Jollensten when she first heard about plans for the new 20-school conference. “Since I first started being an A.D., one of the first things that [co-athletic director] Virginia Keith was trying to tell me about was the league that we’re currently in was founded because we wanted equity. So, when we started to see what could potentially happen down the road with how few schools were in our league, the thought of going into this bigger [conference]…I was open to it. It fell within the values that we wanted to have.”
Jollensten graduated from Whitney in 2005, became a coach there in 2012 and a teacher in 2020. When the Wildcats were in the Delphic League, they would have to fight the traffic on the 405 Freeway, travelling anywhere from 29 miles away to Pacific Hills High to as far as Montclair Prep, which was 46 miles away. It was slightly better when Whitney was in the Academy League even though the farthest it would have to go was to St. Margaret’s High, just shy of 40 miles from the Cerritos institution.
Across the board in the major sports, Whitney became more competitive when it was in the Academy League and even more as a member of the 605 League. However, the girls volleyball program won Delphic League titles from 1998-2000 and finished in second place in its final year the school was in the Delphic League. Both soccer programs finished in second place in the 1998-1999 season while the girls were in second place the following season and the softball program was successful in the final seasons before moving to the Academy League. But the girls basketball program finished below third place in three of the last four seasons in the Delphic League and the baseball program has never finished above fourth place since the 1998 season.
“As someone who was a player in the Academy League and then a coach while we were in the Academy League, yes, there was a very large gap, at least in the sports I was involved in,” said Jollensten. “We’re talking about Sage Hill, St. Margaret’s, Crean Lutheran. Yes, we were all in that same league and it was a hard league to be in. Our goal was to place fourth. I would say it’s very different than it is now. Our goal [now] is to place first.”
Whitney athletics have fared much better in the seven years of the 605 League despite not having a football program, which people have said sets the tone for the rest of the school year. The Wildcats also did not have a boys water polo team in 2019, have not had a girls soccer program since the pandemic and did not have a baseball program from 2021-2023.
In contrast, the Wildcats have won eight 605 League titles, all since 2021 and three coming in the 2024-2025 school year, highlighted by the girls basketball team, which claimed a CIF State Division 4 title this past March. In fact, of the major sports, Whitney has finished in last place in the 605 League 10 out of a possible 61 times.
“I think [the 605 League] has been a great experience,” said Jollensten. “As an athletic director, I’ve got to work with fantastic people; we look out for each other. If something goes wrong where if the gym starts leaking, [we ask] if we can swap home and away [games]. We were very open to making sure that everybody in the league was happy. So logistic-wise, [the 605 League] was absolutely amazing.
“And for the students, it was really nice that we got to play two other high schools in our district,” she continued. “You found that the kids were very excited to be able to play against people they knew, and then of course, our rival school. I say that with a lot of love. I love the Oxford-Whitney rivalry; it’s been there forever, and especially now that I get to work with [Oxford Academy athletic director David] Clifton. But it seems like a whole new dynamic to it. So, it’s a lot of fun. We enjoy it and we plan on continuing to schedule games with Oxford even if we don’t end up in the same league in our conference.”
Something else Whitney was at ease with in the 605 League was the travelling with Pioneer High being the farthest school, about 10 and a half miles away, or 15 minutes with no traffic. With the new conference, the farthest Whitney would travel is 13 and a half miles to Firebaugh High.
Jollensten said the school tried to ask around to merge with a smaller league before talks of the new 20-school conference surfaced. However, the schools Whitney was asking, which happened to be in the Del Rio League, all wanted to be together, according to the co-athletic director. Those talks occurred last December.
“We felt that it would have been a nice way to kind of dip our toes,” she said. “It just ended up being that we were kind of like we’re just going to have to dive right in. But Del Rio was where we were considering because of where they are geographically, but also where their ranking was. They seemed to be the most obvious choice for where we were at that time.”
Jollensten says the fact that Oxford Academy and Whitney don’t field football programs, it’s not going to hinder the process of plugging in the other schools into the number of leagues they decide to go with. With 18 schools with a football program, it makes sense logistically to have three leagues of six schools each. But a seven-team league could get you more automatic berths and according to Jollensten, each sport will dictate how many leagues they want to have.
Currently, Whitney hasn’t had a girls soccer program since the 2019-2020 season when the Wildcats finished in third place. Jollensten said the school tries every year to bring back the program but hasn’t been able to get the numbers to, as she puts it, comfortably put together a team with a couple people on the bench in case a starter or two has to leave because of an injury.
“That would not only affect us, but that would affect the relationships as possible scheduling for the years coming with a full league,” she said. “We just don’t have the numbers for it. But we try every year.”
On the flip side, the baseball program didn’t have the numbers coming out of the pandemic to keep a team and it wasn’t until 2024 when the school brought back the sport. Jollensten added that the school is happy to be able to have a baseball program and is hoping that the coaches continue to have the same passion for the sport.
Jollensten doesn’t know immediately which sports will benefit or not benefit with the new conference because she has to wait and see what happens this upcoming school year and in the first year or two of the new conference. The example she used was that any sport could do well one year, get bumped up to a higher league, not do as well thus not getting an automatic berth to the CIF-Southern Section.
“I think our girls [basketball] are definitely closer to the top which is going to make it harder for them,” said Jollensten. “It’s going to make it harder for them, I would say, especially since they had won their state championship title.”
When it comes to challenges that the athletic directors and principals will face this upcoming school year, Jollensten says it’s going to be logistical issues, like having double meetings because they’re going to have to deal with the new conference while attending to their own current league duties at the same time. Another issue is the possibility of how much say each school has in the new conference; how much has been established and how much can be changed.
One other aspect of the new conference that Jollensten is excited about is forming new rivalries with schools that the Wildcats have either faced here and there in non-league contests, or schools that they haven’t faced before. But no matter what comes out of it, the new conference figures to be even a better fit for Whitney.
“We’re looking forward to it; we made this decision not just for the benefit of our kids, but for the kids in our entire league and for the benefit for the other schools in our league,” said Jollensten. “That’s the wonderful part about having those relationships with the rest of the A.D.’s and I’m hoping to continue and build more of those types of relationships.”
Jollensten added that there will be a simple meet and greet amongst the 20-plus athletic directors on Aug. 1 with the first official meeting most likely on Sept. 4.
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