FHSAA pens plan to compromise for 2019
Push-back from member schools convinced the Florida High School Athletic Association to draw up a compromise plan before it shakes up classification and playoff formats for the 2019-20 school year and beyond.
In meetings on Sunday and Monday in Gainesville, the FHSAA’s board of directors saw a new draft recommendation that eliminates two classifications (8A and 9A) and incorporates significant new power ranking elements while retaining the tradition of district tournament play for all teams and the age-old approach of aligning schools based on school enrollment.
One big change still intact in a proposal scheduled for an Oct. 29 vote by the board is the elimination of mandatory district play for the seven team sports that permit 25 regular-season games: girls volleyball, baseball, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, and softball.
The FHSAA will again align teams into classes, based on school size, and districts, but schools will build their own schedules. Seedings for district tourneys would be decided by end-ofseason MaxPreps rankings.
As in the model for football’s 5A through 9A schools, district tournament champions will advance to the playoffs and be seeded No. 1 through No. 4 within their region based on the rankings. The four remaining at-large berths will be determined by the power points. Each class above 1A will have roughly 145 teams jousting for 32 playoff berths.
With no district play required until the postseason, the FHSAA says it will be able to distribute teams equally across districts. In the past that wasn’t the case because the association was reluctant to push isolated schools into far-flung districts if it forced excessive travel. For example, Class 8A girls volleyball currently has a district with just three Tallahassee schools while the Orlando-area has two eight-team districts — all with two available playoff berths.
The sports impacted will have six divisions above Class 1A rural, with 7A housing the largest schools. Boys and girls soccer would grow from five classifications to six (2A through 7A), with no rural division in that sport.
The original FHSAA proposal was to eliminate districts and divide schools above 1A into six classes based on power rankings to achieve competitive balance. Division 1 would have had the top-rated 32 teams, regardless of school size.
Football, which underwent a sizeable format change last year that includes power points based on wins, losses and strength of schedule, is not part of the revision.
Oviedo, Hagerty shine in tourney
Backyard girls volleyball rivals Oviedo and Hagerty both made strong showings against national competition at Nike Tournament of Championships in Arizona.
Oviedo (12-3) won five of seven matches played on Friday and Saturday, winning the Gold bracket for what amounts to ninth place among 78 teams.
The Class 9A Lions lost 2-1 in pool play to Mesa, Ariz.; and 2-0 to Santa Ana, Calif., Mater Dei, which finished second overall to another California power, Los Angeles Marymount. Oviedo avenged the Mesa loss in a big way with a 25-7, 25-21 victory over the Jackrabbits in its three-match sweep through Saturday bracket play.
Hagerty (11-4) also went 5-2 and dealt Marymount its only loss of the weekend in early pool play on Friday, pulling off the upset with a 26-24, 14-25, 20-18 win.
The Huskies lost their next match to Lone Peak, Utah, 25-20, 25-18 and finished third in a tough pool on a tiebreaker to drop out of championship contention. That pushed Hagerty into consolation play, where it won three consecutive matches on Saturday before falling 25-22, 17-25, 15-3 to Chandler, Ariz., Hamilton in the Silver Division final.
West Orange (14-5), which arrived on a two-year, 41-match winning streak, went 2-5 for the weekend. The Warriors were 1-2 in their pool, but still managed to advance to championship play, where they lost to Oviedo 25-22, 25-21, 15-11 and to Bishop Gorman of Las Vegas and Mira Costa, Calif., on the second day.
Class 8A Hagerty plays at 9A West Orange on Thursday night at 7.
Extra points
The First Academy (3-0) hosts Tampa Bay Christian (2-2) tonight at 7 in a makeup football game that was originally scheduled to be played Sept. 14 in Tampa. Circle Christian junior
Canon Claycomb went 2-0 in match play contests on Monday to help the U.S. build a 7½ points to 4½ lead in Jr. Ryder Cup golf competition at Golf Disneyland in Paris. He faces Nicolai Hojgaard of Denmark in today’s closing singles.
Windermere High basketball standout Dakota Rivers announced his commitment to Florida Gulf Coast via Twitter. Lake Howell hoops scholar-athlete Jonathan
Lawrence committed to Furman.