The Palomar College football team, 7-3 and ranked No. 7 in the final Southern California coaches' poll, was denied a spot in the Southern California Community College playoffs, but will play one more game.

On Saturday at 3 p.m., the Comets will meet Cerritos (7-3 and ranked No. 6 in Southern California) in the Golden Empire Bowl in Bakersfield.

The Comets and Falcons were left out of the eight-team SoCal playoff structure because of a selection process that gives automatic berths to champions of the region's two lower-level conferences, in this case San Diego Mesa (6-4) of the American Division Mountain Conference and Antelope Valley (6-4) of the American Division Pacific Conference.

Mesa is 13th-ranked in the final Southern Cal coaches poll and plays at Fullerton on Saturday. Antelope Valley is 14th-ranked and plays at College of the Canyons.

Palomar defeated Mesa 37-17 this season, but the Comets finished tied for second with Saddleback in the National Division's Southern Conference, but Saddleback defeated the Comets.

Palomar coach Joe Early had been led to believe Southern California's three top conferences would each get two automatic berths with two at-large spots open to the next-best teams.

If that was the case, Cerritos and Palomar would both be in the playoffs.

-- John Maffei