Page 104 - Demo

Grouping and Seeding State Tournament Series, continued
Guidelines for Seeding for Bracketed Team Sports
Seeding shall occur only at the lowest level of grouping, and therefore, neither the super-sectionals nor the state final shall be seeded.
Except in football, where an objective computer-based system shall be used, coaches of the teams in each group shall seed the teams of that group. When voting on seeds, coaches shall not vote for their own school. In each group, all seeds shall be added up, with the highest and lowest seeds being thrown out, and then averaged.
In Class 1A (in soccer) and Class 1A and 2A (in other bracketed team sports), all state series shall begin with sub-sectionals. A sub- sectional is a grouping of two geographic regionals.
In Class 2A and 3A (in soccer) and Class 3A and 4A (in other bracketed team sports), all state series shall begin with sectional complexes. In sectional groupings where excessive travel is a factor, geographic sub-sectionals may be used at the discretion of the IHSA Administrator.
In grouping and seeding a sectional complex, true seeds shall be used to populate the brackets except in cases where a conflict arises with pre-determined regional hosts. (For example, if the #1 and #8 seeds are both regional hosts, they cannot be assigned to the same regional and an adjustment must be made.)
In grouping and seeding a sub-sectional, only the top four seeds shall be separated. Seeds #1 and #4 shall be assigned to the same regional unless there is a hosting conflict, in which case seeds #1 and #3 shall be assigned to the same regional. The remaining schools shall be assigned to the regionals based on geographic proximity and paired according to their seeds.
In pairing the sectional semi-final round containing sub-sectionals, the regional from sub-sectional A containing the #1 seed shall be paired with the regional of sub-sectional B containing the #2 seed, and vice versa, except for the southernmost sectional in Class 3A (soccer) or Class 4A (other sports), where the two regionals in each sub-sectional shall be paired with each other.
In football, after the field for each class is determined, schools in Classes 1A through 6A shall be divided geographically into two groups of 16 and paired according to their seeds within each group. In Classes 7A and 8A schools shall not be separated into groups, but paired according to their true seeds.
In all classes of bracketed team sports, the Executive Director is authorized to modify the state series brackets to accommodate unique travel situations.
19. Criteria for Increasing the Number of Classes in IHSA Sports and Activities
The following criteria shall be followed when considering proposals to increase or decrease the number of classes in IHSA sports and activities:
1. The Board of Directors shall determine the number of classes based on the criteria set forth in this policy.
2. The classification systems used by Boys Football, Music, Competitive Cheerleading and Competitive Dance are unique and are determined by the Terms & Conditions of the respective sport or activity.
3. For all other sports and activities, entries may be divided into classes according to the criteria in the following tables:
Bracketed team sports/activities
Number of schools entering teams Number of classes allowed
600 or more 300 to 599 all others
4 2 1
Number of classes allowed
Individual sports/activities
Number of schools entering teams or individuals 450 to more
350 to 449
all others
3 2 1
4. Boys and girls sports with comparable entries shall have an equal number of classes.
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