Proposed High School State Meet Changes

The Coaches Association is regularly looking at ways to improve the Nordic skiing competition, especially at the State Meet level. In recent years, they've consider proposals for a multi-day event and new categories of competition. This year, the main thrust has been towards increasing the team competition.

A number of proposals have been tossed around:

a) All Teams Score (Hybrid plan) While there are eight section winning teams competing for the team title at the State Meet, every season there teams that qualify enough skiers out of a conference that a team score could be calculated for them. The hybrid plan would simply allow those teams that send four or more skiers to the State Meet to compete for the team title.

b) Increased Team Competition The State Meet team competition is not same for all sports. In cross country running, the top two teams from sections qualify for the State Meet. However, cross country running can accommodate the large fields generated by these format (via a two-class system and courses that can handle the volume). The Nordic skiing proposal would to send the top two teams but reduce the team size from seven to five (with possibly two or four backup skiers). Then, instead of sending the top 12 remaining section skiers, the proposal would send the top five skiers who are not on the two qualifying teams.

c) Top 15 Rather than selecting one (or two) teams at the section level, one proposal would be to advance the top 15 competitors from the section meets.  If any team has at least four skiers in the top 15, then they would compete for the team title.  This differs from the current and hybrid formats in that top section team does not automatically advance, but rather would have to place at least four in the top 15 to compete.

While there was discussion of a number of proposals, the hybrid plan is the one the Coaches Association selected to pursue with the High School League for the 2011-2012 season.

The hybrid plan would result in a greatly increased team competition. It allows highly qualified teams to compete for the team title, rather than getting blocked out in a tough section. Looking back at last year's State Meet, four teams sent at least four skiers and would have scored under this new format. And these teams were extremely competitive, with the four boys from Stillwater putting in a performance that would have tied the Duluth East champions, losing out in the tie-breaker based on time by just 10 seconds! And the Forest Lake girls would have gone home with the second place trophy, losing by just 5 points to Duluth East. (Hybrid scoring for 2011 State Meet)

The High School League is expected to vote on the proposal this June.