Today the NCHSAA Board had a meeting today where they voted on a numerous number of proposals across all of the sports they sponsor. In big news for the running community is that a change was approved was a proposal a change in team qualification methods for the NCHSAA State XC Meet!
This season in the NCHSAA 4A Mideast we saw two teams, Apex and Apex Friendship, that were ranked 8th in 9th respectively in 4A based off time, had their season end at the regional meet. In 2A Brevard was ranked 6th in the state, but took 5th at their regional meet just 11 points behind Smoky Mountain who took 4th. The following week at the 2A State Championships Smoky Mountain took 2nd place, and due to a tough region they almost didn't get to run.
The issue is that every region has a different number of teams that compete. Some regions have as many as 27 schools while some only have 15. When each region has 4 teams advancing to the state championships, it seems a little unfair to teams that have to compete against 10 more schools than the other. The proposal is not to decrease teams advancing out of any region, but to increase the qualifiers from 4 teams to 4, 5 or 6 teams depending on the size of the region. Coaches voted on this proposal and every classification had over 90% voting for the change.
Under this proposal all ranked teams, teams that rank top 16 in their respected classification, would advance to the state meet. It will also increase the competition at the state championships vastly.
Another thing to keep in mind is that next season holds a major conference realignment. Currently teams are placed into regions based off what conference they are in. Next season we could see teams placed into regions based on the location of their school.
While we don't know exactly from the proposal was approved, we do know that their will certainly be a change for the better for NCHSAA Team Qualifying next cross country season!