IHSVCA ‘Serves’ Seeding Proposal To IHSAA Executive Committee

(4-2-22) Jean Kesterson and Rhonda Low, the president and treasurer of the Indiana High School Volleyball Coaches Association (IHSVCA, served up a proposal to the IHSAA Executive Committee recently-

PROPOSAL FROM INDIANA HIGH SCHOOL VOLLEYBALL COACHES ASSOCIATION

Proposal 3
Seed the top two teams in each sectional and regional to allow the best teams to play for the championship. Other teams’ placement will be a blind draw.

COMPLETE – March 25th IHSAA Executive Committee Meeting

Every year in every sport a ‘blind draw’ seeding process is taking place to determine an IHSAA state champion. Ping Pong balls decide the bracket placement and the future of every team…regardless of regular season records. That process can have the two best records or the two worst records matching up in the first matches of the Sectional.

From the IHSAA –

About the Draw
To conduct the random drawing for the girls basketball state tournament, the IHSAA places ping-pong balls representing each school in each sectional into a lottery-style air mix machine. A motorized fan in the bottom of the machine blows the balls around the inside of the transparent container and air then forces each ball up through a tube in random order.

For example, the first ball retrieved from the machine will be the visiting team in game one with the second ball representing the home team in game one. The third ball to come out is the visitor in game two and the fourth ball the home team in game two. That same method is followed through all 64 sectionals and 16 regionals.

The IHSVCA proposal is quite simple…seed the top 2 teams to guarantee that they do not play in the first match and both have the opportunity to possibly play in the title game in both the sectional and regionals. The proposal allows for the rest of the teams to be selected in a ‘blind draw‘…throwing some crumbs to the IHSAA and probably not firing the ping-pong balls in this change to the system.

Around the US seeding teams in high school tournaments has been going for years, Indiana will not be making a revolutionary move if the IHSAA approves the proposal…just a very small step to catch up with the neighbors next door.

How they seed volleyball in Ohio –