DANE FUELLING
WZBD.com
Sports with four classes: Volleyball, Basketball, Baseball, Softball
The IHSAA made a fairly monumental shift in the classification of team sports at its June meeting. Feeling the heavy weight of pressure from administrators in some of the biggest schools in Indiana, the association seems to have satisfied most parties involved with a compromise that quells any uneasiness over the idea of schools manipulating their enrollment data to meet a specific enrollment target.
Instead, the association decided to shift five percent of the 4A schools down into 3A and five percent of the smallest 3A schools into 2A and so on.
Again, this change only affects volleyball, basketball, baseball and softball and the one thing that is accomplished that is perhaps most beneficial is the fact that schools will all compete in the same class across the different disciplines on the IHSAA docket. While the success factor could still change that, it seems much more likely that schools will stay in the same class in all four sports.
How did the association accomplish this? Instead of having separate enrollment and classification sheets for each sport with only the schools fielding teams in that sport, the association will now have one list, comprising all member schools, and then separate them into the 20-25-25-30 split.
So what does this mean locally?
Let’s start by taking a look at where teams may fall locally.
The cut line for 4A is set to be either 81 or 82 schools.
The following schools are nowhere near that line locally: Homestead, Carroll, Northrop, Snider, North Side and Huntington North.
South Side and Wayne are currently at 71 and 72 on the list, so they are likely to stay 4A unless their enrollment falls significantly in the next year.
The likely big winners in this whole deal locally will be Columbia City, DeKalb, New Haven and East Noble, who seemed destined to drop down to 3A. That will put all but Huntington North from the NE8 into the 3A class for the foreseeable future, although Columbia City’s rapid growth could definitely put them into the top 80 of Indiana schools.
Also of note will be the addition into 3A of one Indiana powerhouse: Indianapolis Cathedral. New Palestine also has a strong athletic program and will be down a class.
Who will drop from 3A to 2A?
It seems likely that Woodlan will be very, very close to the cut line for dropping to 2A. If the new rules were applied to current enrollment figures, Woodlan would be within ten students of dropping a class.
The Bellmont Braves and Norwell Knights have had to make several trips in multiple sports to Oak Hill in the past 12 months, but that relationship is likely to end as Oak Hill is below the current cutline and the Golden Eagles are likely to be back in 2A.
Statewide, Evansville Mater Dei will undoubtedly be back down to 2A after being one of the smallest 3A schools this year in boys basketball.
Will anyone local join Southern Wells in 1A?
Adams Central does not seem to be anywhere near the “drop zone,” but it seems South Adams could be extremely close to the cutline. Depending on how the IHSAA does their math and assuming they round down on the big classes and throw the oddball into 1A, it seems as if South Adams could be just 14 students away (five schools) from falling out of their postseason rivalry with the Jets.
What could the new sectionals look like?
One big advantage to the new system and the numbers the IHSAA currently claims is some convenient math. The association loves its current setup with 16 sectionals across the state. The current numbers suggest that the IHSAA could have seven schools in every sectional and achieve exactly the 102 schools, so it makes sense to project seven-school sectional fields in these sports.
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