OHSAA Board update

runohio

Active member
The Board was updated by the OHSAA staff regarding various adjustments to the upcoming fall sports tournaments due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the changes are:
o CROSS COUNTRY: The regional and state tournaments will have a two-day format this year to spread out the event. The Division III races will be run on Friday afternoons (regionals on Oct. 30; state on Nov. 6), while the Division II and I races will be run on Saturdays (regionals on Oct. 31; state on Nov. 7). In addition, the current Ohio Department of Health order limits the number of runners in a cross country race to 150, which is less than a typical regional or state championships race. If the OHSAA’s variance request is not approved, each race will be run in two sections. As previously announced, the state championships will be at Fortress Obetz, while the regional sites are posted at: http://ohsaaweb.blob.core.windows.net/files/Sports/Cross Country/CCRegionals.pdf
 
 
With traffic and other potential issues with Obetz, it will be interesting to see if they continue with the split day schedule past this season. I suppose it will have to do with officials, rental costs, and other things but might be something they look at long term.
 
This seems like a good idea to me long term. Although I do enjoy the all-day affair of the State meet, I also see the logistical benefit of moving D3 to Friday.

Let's hope they get this variance request approved. With how little spread (virtually none) we are seeing in the schools, it seems silly to me to not make this exception. Especially after they just approved 12,000 people to attend Bengals games.
 
I also heard that they are talking about a Christmas drive through display.

I am NOT making this up. A friend who knows the Fortress director said this could happen as early as next year. The director is also the co-meet manager for XC this year so maybe he will understand how to make it unintrusive "if" it happens. XC can't seem to get a break.
 
Doesn't make sense to me. If the 150 runner limit is not lifted, then most likely there will be a race for individuals including all 3 divisions. How does that work if D3 teams goes the day before? or, do you have the individuals race with the D3 teams on Friday?

Why wouldn't D1 have it's own day and D2 and D3 on the other. I would think that would be closer to equal numbers. D3 on it's own will be small and then D1 + D2 is very large.

Why two days and not 3?

I'm not getting warm fuzzy feelings about Obetz for cross country right now. Christmas light drive through display!
 
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Am I that stupid? Of those 3 options, I do not see anywhere that there will be a team race and a separate individual race for each division. Are those not the options? Were there different surveys sent out?

I see the first option being a single individual race made up of all individuals from the 3 divisions.

I see the other two options as 2 team races in each division with the individuals split between the 2 team races.

On a side note. How does option 3 even make any sense? Odd teams and even teams?

I'm a designer and sometimes people will have an idea that isn't that good. I come up with a design that is better, but I also come up with a design that is worse so that they have something to reject other than their own idea. The third option seems like one of those "This is so bad that the other two ideas seem ok."
 
I believe each division will have a team race and an individual race, if the 150 number is not lifted.
I'm confused at this 150 number. How can Trumbull County Fairgrounds host meets with up to 400 runners in a race (upcoming Legrnds) but the post season races have to be under 150? Don't give me the "but they use waves"... those are 30 seconds apart. 2 minutes into the race it's 400 kids running together.
 
psyhcodad, it was one of the three options in the survey sent to coaches last week.
No, that option called for a consolidated individual-qualifier race with all of the individual qualifiers across all three divisions. Not separate individual races for each division.
 
And the first and third options are really the only acceptable choices here. None of the options are perfect, obviously, but the downside of the second option is much, much worse than the downsides of the first and third options.
 
And the first and third options are really the only acceptable choices here. None of the options are perfect, obviously, but the downside of the second option is much, much worse than the downsides of the first and third options.
I think it's option 1 or 2. Option 3 makes no sense to me. You have the # 1 ranked team not running against the #2? That makes no sense. I can see the top 10 ranked teams running against each other, but odd ranked teams against odd and even against even?
 
I also heard that they are talking about a Christmas drive through display.

I am NOT making this up. A friend who knows the Fortress director said this could happen as early as next year. The director is also the co-meet manager for XC this year so maybe he will understand how to make it unintrusive "if" it happens. XC can't seem to get a break.

Unbelievable.
 
I think it's option 1 or 2. Option 3 makes no sense to me. You have the # 1 ranked team not running against the #2? That makes no sense. I can see the top 10 ranked teams running against each other, but odd ranked teams against odd and even against even?

I really think the first option is the only acceptable one here, but the 2nd is better than the 3rd...depending on how they seed the teams.
Not all regions are even. The SW Girls D1 Region, for example, currently has the #2, #3, #4, #5, and #6 ranked teams in the State. If you are only taking the top 2/3 Teams from each region, you're telling me the #5 and #6 ranked teams in the State won't be in the fast heat? That would be an absolute failure.

I think some sort of system where the Regional winner automitaclly advances to the fast heat, and then you pick the next 6 teams based on rank, would be fair. But honestly, there are some regions where the winner isn't even a Top 10 team.

Also, if they did go with option #1, how exactly would that work for the Regional? What if the best inidivudal in the Region has an team good enough to qualify for the Regional, but not the State meet? Are they stuck in team race at Regionals with no chacne to advacne to the inidvidual race at State? I'm confused on how that would work exactly.

Again, let's hope they just get the varriance. Honestly, it would be outrageous to me if they do not get it approved. Expanding the races by a small factor for the championship season alone is not an outrageous ask to me. I think the OHSAA has proven that we can have these competitions safely.
 
My apologizes, I misread the first option, all individuals would run in one race at State.
Also, if they did go with option #1, how exactly would that work for the Regional? What if the best inidivudal in the Region has an team good enough to qualify for the Regional, but not the State meet? Are they stuck in team race at Regionals with no chacne to advacne to the inidvidual race at State? I'm confused on how that would work exactly.
There is no individual race at Regional, they would run Regional in 2 races with individuals qualifying out like in the past.
 
My apologizes, I misread the first option, all individuals would run in one race at State.
Also, if they did go with option #1, how exactly would that work for the Regional? What if the best individual in the Region has a team good enough to qualify for the Regional, but not the State meet? Are they stuck in team race at Regionals with no chance to advance to the individual race at State? I'm confused about how that would work exactly.
There is no individual race at Regional, they would run Regional in 2 races with individuals qualifying out like in the past.

So how would they determine who was in each race for Regionals?
 
Friday, November 6 – Division III* 2:30 P.M. – Boys – Section 1 “Team Race” 3:10 P.M. – Boys – Section 2 “Qualifying Individual Race” 3:50 P.M. – Girls – Section 1 “Team Race” 4:30 P.M – Girls – Section 2 “Qualifying Individual Race”
Saturday, November 7 – Division II * 9:30 A.M. - Division II - Boys – Section 1 “Team Race” 10:10 A.M. – Division II – Boys – Section 2 “Qualifying Individual Race” 10:50 A.M. – Division II – Girls – Section 1 “Team Race” 11:30 A.M. – Division II – Girls – Section 2 “Qualifying Individual Race”
Saturday, November 7 – Division I* 2:30 P.M. – Division I – Boys – Section 1 “Team Race” 3:10 P.M. – Division I – Boys – Section 2 “Qualifying Individual Race” 3:50 P.M. – Division 1 – Girls – Section 1 “Team Race” 4:30 P.M. – Division I – Girls – Section 2 “Qualifying Individual Race”

Now see, I was kinda correct. This shows an individual race for each division.
Found under:
2020 REGULATIONS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS DISTRICT, REGIONAL, STATE CROSS COUNTRY TOURNAMENTS
 
Wishful thought. These divisional individual races are going to be really small. Might they expand the individual Region to State options?
 
I cannot find out how they would determine which Regional race you would be in if there are 2 races.
That will get tricky for uneven number of state qualifiers. For example NW D3 has 7 teams that qualify for state. They come from 4 district races so how do they divide up the team so the best 7 have a far shot to make it to state.
 
It is interesting that it wasn't thought out better than this from day 1. 150 runners should have been the maximum set for the regionals and the state per race.

How do you do that?
1. 18 teams and 24 individuals. One race.
2. 21 teams and a separate race for individuals.

I would think either of those options would assure that the integrity of the state meet would stay intact. No one is really left out. All those that have a real shot at podium or all-state honors would be included.

Nothing about 2 team races at the state meet makes any sense to me. It's a bad idea. By deciding to make D3 have it's own day, the all division individual race option got thrown in the garbage can. My question is. Why only d3? Why wouldn't you combine d3 and d2 and have d1 on a different day. Or, why not 3 different days?
 
I think it's option 1 or 2. Option 3 makes no sense to me. You have the # 1 ranked team not running against the #2? That makes no sense. I can see the top 10 ranked teams running against each other, but odd ranked teams against odd and even against even?
It will be option #1 with all the individuals from all divisions in a single race. Should be a great race.
 
Running a separate race for teams and individuals in Division 1 would be a disappointment as we would not get to see the matchup of Mountain and Moore as well as see how the other top runners stack up. Hopefully the state lets us run more than 150 per race.
 
Why was the option to go back to 16 teams and individuals never brought up. Just a couple years ago this was the case and we rarely had over 150 in a race. Go back to even regionals and all is good. This would only be a one year thing.

Also, from what I have been told the state health dept has approved the 180 per race for the state meet but the franklin county helath dept has not and they are the last word. The regional sites all have meetings with their local health dept for the variance and still waiting on word of that. Troy regional will not need the variance as none of their races are over 150. Tiffin will need it for D3 races, boardman for D1 races and pickerington for D2 races.
 
Why was the option to go back to 16 teams and individuals never brought up. Just a couple years ago this was the case and we rarely had over 150 in a race. Go back to even regionals and all is good. This would only be a one year thing.

Also, from what I have been told the state health dept has approved the 180 per race for the state meet but the franklin county helath dept has not and they are the last word. The regional sites all have meetings with their local health dept for the variance and still waiting on word of that. Troy regional will not need the variance as none of their races are over 150. Tiffin will need it for D3 races, boardman for D1 races and pickerington for D2 races.
Even Regionals is a terrible idea. Then you have boys and girls teams from the same school possibly going to different Regionals. You can have a District only have a couple runners represented at the state meet.

It should have been easy enough for the Districts to figure out how many teams and individuals could qualify through to the Regional in order to keep it at or below 150.
 
Why was the option to go back to 16 teams and individuals never brought up. Just a couple years ago this was the case and we rarely had over 150 in a race. Go back to even regionals and all is good. This would only be a one year thing.

Also, from what I have been told the state health dept has approved the 180 per race for the state meet but the franklin county helath dept has not and they are the last word. The regional sites all have meetings with their local health dept for the variance and still waiting on word of that. Troy regional will not need the variance as none of their races are over 150. Tiffin will need it for D3 races, boardman for D1 races and pickerington for D2 races.

If we were doubling the race to 300, I perhaps could see the hesitation there.

Only increasing the race from 150 to 180 seems so insignificant, at least to me. I understand you have to draw a line somewhere, but it seems ridiculous to say that races of 150 are perfectly safe (and demonstrably so since we have had probably over a thousand actual races at this point in the season), but races of 180 are so wildly dangerous that we can't even make a few exceptions.

Hopefully, all the local health departments just go along with the state health department.
 
Why was the option to go back to 16 teams and individuals never brought up.

I was told long ago when you don't know the answer to something 95% of the time the answer in money. I think this falls into the 95%.

The 150 is nonsense after they ok'd contact sports to happen. This weekend there will be a few teams riding on a bus for 3 hours together will then get off and play tackle football.
 
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