FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MSHSL Advisory Committee Recommendations Update

The MSHSL Board of Directors met today to cover their usual full agenda of quarterly topics, which included the Advisory Committee Recommendations from winter sports. Mike Weimerskirch and Matt Laue attended and spoke to the board during the meeting on behalf of Nordic Skiing. Nordic Skiing had three proposals in front of the Board.


#1 SCORING ALL TEAMS

While this seems clearly obvious to all Nordic Ski Coaches that each and every team at Sections be scored even though the team may not be full whether that empty slot is due to sickness, injury, force majure or overall team size. No matter the case there is no argument for not scoring all teams at Sections and reporting all scores to the MSHSL and Media..

PASSED with only one dissenting vote. Now all teams will have a score at the Section Meet as will all eight teams that qualify for the State Tournament. All teams are eligible to qualify for the State Meet even if they are unable to field a full team. (While this is an unlikely scenario in high score wins and the fact all team members hold/displace points.) Thank You, to the MSHSL Board of Directors for removing undue scoring requirements for teams and letting all teams compete and score on the results!


#2 PURSUIT ONLY

The directive as set out by the MSHSL years ago was to make the state meet a easier meet to produce and manage. The above team scoring will help in that aspect as would scoring based on Pursuit only. For seven years we have been skiing a pursuit event that is not scored. The State Meet has been an Individual Classic, Individual Freestyle, and Individual Pursuit. Three separate results where extrapolated from the two races.

PASSED after two rounds of voting. The first vote was a voice vote and came in too close to call the the second vote was a roll call vote passing 12-2. In 2007 the MSHSL State Tournament will be a Pursuit only event.

AWARDS there currently is a proposal in front of the MSHSL Awards Committee to transfer more medals to the Pursuit event helping balancing out the awards lost in reducing the event to a pursuit only event. Our hope is that we can go deeper with awards then we have ever done before.

#3 TWO TEAMS ADVANCING

With the growth of Nordic skiing over the past several years the concept of adding a second qualifying team from each section was pursued. Adding a second qualifying team would have meant the reduction of team size from 7 skiers to 6 skiers.

FAILED our proposals were discussed after several other winter activities. Alpine skiing also asked for more competitors and teams at he State Tournament. Their bid failed. Nordic skiing bid also failed after not receiving a second motion for a vote. More information was gathered post meeting discussing the future options. Of course, we have the option of a two class spit, however, if teams vote to forgo the two class spit instead requesting specifically for a two team advancement this will bring more credence to the two team concept. Additional information and supporting arguments would help bolster the fight for two teams.