VHSL Changes Sites For Postseason

Posted: May 7, 2016
By ROB NIEDZWIECKI
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — The Virginia High School League is making more significant changes to the postseason, only this time it’s with the facilities that they’ll be played in.

Three months after it voted to eliminate conference competition from postseason play in 2017-18, the VHSL Executive Committee voted to change the locations of several of its state competitions during its meeting on Thursday.

For at least 2016 and 2017, the VHSL will hold the Group 3A and Group 4A football state championship games at the College of William & Mary and the Group 5A and 6A title games at Hampton University. Liberty had hosted the 3A and 4A state championships for much of the past two decades, and the University of Virginia had hosted the 5A and 6A title games every year since 2009.

Liberty also will no longer host the Spring Jubilee state championships for Groups 4A and 3A, with Salem serving as the new host beginning in the 2016-17 scholastic year for at least two years. Liberty had hosted the Spring Jubilee — which features baseball, softball, soccer and tennis — since the 2013-2014 school year, when the VHSL expanded from three group classifications to six.

Also, wrestlers in Group 4A ­— which includes Handley, James Wood, Millbrook and Sherando — will head to the Scope Arena in Norfolk beginning in the 2016-17 scholastic year for at least two years after previously competing at the Salem Civic Center.

The Group 5A and Group 6A state wrestling competitions will also take place in Norfolk. Each of those three state tournaments will feature a 12-person bracket, according to VHSL director of communications Mike McCall. After expanding from three classifications to six in 2013-14, the VHSL reduced brackets from 16 people to eight.

Clarke County — which is in Group 2A — will continue to send its wrestlers to Salem, along with Group 1A and Group 3A schools.

In outdoor track, the Group 2A and Group 1A state championships will move from Radford University to Harrisonburg High School for two years beginning with the 2016-17 school year, and Group 4A and Group 3A will move from Harrisonburg High School to Sports Backers Stadium in Richmond over that same time span.

In a phone interview Thursday, VHSL executive director Ken Tilley said the VHSL has received a lot of suggestions from its member schools to give other parts of the state a chance to host state championships events, so last fall they began looking at options that they thought might appeal to people from both a geographic and entertainment standpoint.

“In December we met with a lot of managers and site directors for colleges and civic centers and talked with a lot of people who work at visitors’ bureaus,” Tilley said. “There was a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of people interested in bidding to host events.”

For football, Tilley said William & Mary was an attractive option for reasons beyond just its facility.

“A lot of people like to go Williamsburg because of the town‘s history,” Tilley said. “The town has a lot to offer.”

Tilley said he did not think the controversy surrounding Liberty president Jerry Falwell Jr. had an effect on the VHSL’s executive committee’s vote to discontinue holding most of its championship events there. (The 2017 Group 2A, 3A and 4A indoor track state championships will take place at Liberty, but the VHSL has not committed to a site for the 2017-18 school year.)

The Washington Post reported on April 15 that debaters from at least five Northern Virginia high schools decided to boycott the VHSL state debate tournament held at Liberty University because of remarks made by Falwell in December that they perceived to be anti-Muslim.

Though Tilley is retiring from his position at the end of June and will be replaced by Billy Haun, he said he anticipates that the VHSL will continue to explore looking to move state competitions to different facilities every few years.

As for moving wrestling from the Salem Civic Center to Norfolk, Handley wrestling coach David Scott said he’s looking forward to it.

“I think it’s cool. I’m excited,” Scott said. “The Civic Center provided a lot of good memories, especially for the kids, but with 5A and 6A there in addition to 4A, everyone gets to see the best wrestling in the state.”

Also on Thursday, the VHSL executive committee voted to alter the state basketball format by moving the semifinal games away from the Virginia Commonwealth University Siegel Center in Richmond.

In 2015-16, state quarterfinal games were played at various supersites around the state from March 3-5, and the state semifinals and finals for all six group classifications for boys and girls were held March 7-12 at the Siegel Center. The day’s action started at 10 a.m. each day at the Siegel Center, with six games held each day, the last finishing around 10 p.m.

Beginning in 2016-17, the state tournament will still be played over two weeks, but the state quarterfinals and semifinals for each group will be played during the first week, all at the same supersite. The quarterfinals will take place Thursday and Friday, and the semifinals will be played Saturday. Beginning at 3 p.m., four games will be played each day.

The state championship games will still be held at the Siegel Center the following week. Four games will be played each day Thursday through Saturday, with the first game starting at 2 p.m and the last starting at 8 p.m.

For the state quarters and semis, seven supersites will be used on a rotating basis. In 2017, Group 2A will play its games at James Madison University and Group 4A will be at the Salem Civic Center. In 2018, 2A will be at UVa-Wise and 4A will be at Old Dominion University.

Other sites in the rotation are Virginia High School in Bristol and VCU (the VHSL does not plan on having either 2A or 4A play there in the rotation they released, which covers the next seven years) and Robinson High School in Fairfax. Group 2A is not scheduled to play at Robinson in the next seven years, but Robinson will be the home for the 4A tournaments in 2019 and 2022.

Tilley said there was a lot of enthusiasm from VHSL member schools about doing this.

“It eliminates the morning games, which are harder for fans to attend,” Tilley said. “Having the quarterfinals and semifinals at one location also cuts down on travel. And by moving the semifinals up, if you lose, athletes who participate in spring sports can get started on their seasons earlier.”

In other basketball news, the executive committee voted to implement a 30-point mercy rule for the fourth quarter of regular season and conference tournament games that will go into effect for the 2016-17 school year.

If at any point a team goes ahead by 30 or more points in the final eight minutes, the clock will continue to run except during free throws, timeouts, injuries or the administration of technical fouls.

Basketball now joins soccer (where the game can end when a team takes an eight-goal lead at any point beginning with the midway point of the second half), baseball and softball (the game can end after as few as five innings when a team is up 10 runs) and football (where a running clock begins when a team takes a 35-point lead in the second half) as sports with mercy rules.

Tilley said the 30-point rule was proposed by the 1A West Region a couple years ago. Tilley said the 1A West’s original proposal to have a running clock at any time in the second half wasn’t well received by the VHSL and its member schools.

But after adjusting their proposal to make it mandatory for the fourth quarter only, the VHSL thought it was a worthwhile measure, because it could minimize unsportsmanlike acts such as running up the score and the hard fouls that might be committed by a team that is frustrated at being on the losing end of a rout.

“Some years ago [the 1A West] had some concerns over [lopsided] games where players were getting frustrated and fans were getting bothered by what was taking place on the court,” Tilley said. “You’d like to think that teams don’t try to run up the score, but sometimes the talent disparity is such that leads get to be pretty significant. This can help move games along.”

The VHSL does note that prior to the season, each individual district can choose not to use the 30-point rule for games involving their teams. However, if a school is traveling to a non-district school whose district does use the 30-point rule, then they must abide by the home team’s policy.

James Wood boys’ basketball coach Tim Wygant said he does not like the 30-point rule. Though he said he doesn’t anticipate the rule coming into effect very often, he believes speeding up the game is a detriment to the players who would be involved in those situations.

“Kids can still learn in those situations,” Wygant said. “A game like that offers an opportunity for the kids who don’t play as much to get game experience and execute the things we’re trying to teach them.

“It’s also a chance for me to see what type of effort the players give. When you’re up by 30 you can lose focus, and when you’re down by 30, you can get frustrated, so a situation like that gives me a chance to see what they’re made of.”

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