They have maps, & they've assigned Regl sites...

[new2u]

How can they possibly assign those AAA schools on their cool 3A Suburban Map with any reasonable geographic, let alone competive representation?

East Aurora, Minooka AND Lockport? And Marist is feeding Niles West?

This means that Minooka will have to grab east beyond Lockport
and that Lockport (maybe Minooka too) will have to grab beyond Marist to fill out the lineup, that is unless the Normal Regional is to have no more than 7 or 8 teams compared to 12 or so everywhere else - with 2 or fewer of those likely to be Sectional-worthy (boys or girls).

And then you have Proviso West, which will have to grab Chicago schools to the north of Marist, making Marist's draw a complete island.

So why not drop Minooka, have Marist feed Normal West and have PW feed Niles? Then one of the Hinsdales could host at C. Legge and feed Schaumburg along with "TBA", which will ultimately end up being either Wheaton N or Glenbard E or W.

This doesn't have to overload Schaumburg with the best teams. York and Lyons could go to Niles West, and the Napervilles and Benet could go with Lockport, Sandburg and LWE down to Normal West.

Schaumburg would still prob be the toughest boys Sectional to qualify from, but not by so much.

[new2u]

Oh, I forgot - Lake Park could go to Niles, too (girls).

[historian]

Hard to say what the IHSA will do, but last year had 167 schools compete in cross country that will be "AAA" this year. (I might have missed one or two, but I think that is pretty close)

Last year, the Centralia Sectional had 10 "AAA" schools in the entire sectional, 8 from the St Louis area. Count Quincy there, cut Danville a break (to Normal regional) and the Granite City regional has 9 teams. The Eas tPeoria Sectional had 18 teams in it last year that would be "AAA" this year - subtract out the Rockford group and you are down to 9 - Normal, Normal West, Bloomington, Pekin, Moline, East Moline, Rock Island, Ottawa, and Bradley. Add in Danville and that makes 10 for Normal.

Not sure who would feed to Lockport or Minooka - Would Naperville/Nequa/Waubonsie come down through that way ?

[xcrunner322]

yea nequa and wabonsie would most likely be in that regional which would make a tough one

[xcrunner322]

new2u who are you saying is not worthy of running at sectionals

[new2u]

From a Normal regional? I'm just not seeing more than 2 or 3.
Maybe both Normals and Bloomington, for example, for the girls.
Not even likely that all 3 of those will be regional-worthy, with only 80 openings for 167 teams.

I guess I'm not seeing WV and Nequa going to the Normal sectional, at least not if the Napervilles, Benet, Lockport, LWE all go - who's left then to populate East Aurora, StC East and "TBA"? You need about 36 teams to fill those. Do half of those come from the south shore of Chicago? It just doesn't seem to work geographically, no matter how you slice it, with the teams that are to be allocated to the regional sites they're listing.

I've printed the 3A and 3A Suburban maps, and tried to divide the schools up. Maybe I'm just not as smart as the Bloomington Gurus.

[new2u]

So it's every bit as bad as could've been imagined. On another thread somebody says 17 of the top 25 go to Schaumburg? I'm assuming that's the boys. On the girls side, about 17 of 25 is also a good estimate. If you take freshmen into account, which I trust the week2 rankings will, the girls will have at least 12 of the top 17 or 18 in the state at Schaumburg - if they all make it out of regionals!

This situation is easy to avoid, at least to the extreme that we're seeing it. The IHSA obviously JUST DOES NOT CARE about whether the assignments are fair. They already have to stretch many of these bus trips out, to fill all of the regionals. How hard would it have been to send HC or NN or Benet to Marist or Lockport or Minooka? How hard would it have been to get WN, Glenbard E or W, or Hins S, to host a regional instead of Lake Park, and then send Lake Park to Niles?


The Palatine Sectional is assigned a little light for a State Meet of 20, for both boys and girls, although I'm sure no one who's in it thinks so. Niles and Normal are an absolute joke for 5th/6th place, while Schaumburg is assigned at least 7 too many State-worthy teams.

All they had to do was print their own maps and draw it out in 10 minutes per the week1 rankings, or better yet, wait for week3 or 4.

[historian]

Just understand - the IHSA does not seed any sport over a state-wide basis. Your complaint is exactly the same one the Chicago Public League has sounded about basketball for years, and the suburban football powerhouses, and the list goes on and on. (who wants to be in the same track sectional with East St Louis and Springfield Lanphier) The system is not designed to bring the absolute best twenty teams to Detweiler any more than it was designed to bring the top 8 basketball squads to Peoria in March.

In order to qualify a team for state and compete for the four team trophies, you have to finish in the top five for your Sectional - clearly, that is tougher for some schools than others. Every sport works under the same type of geographic system - as a school, sometimes the system works to your benefit, sometimes it doesn't.

[ccaddict]

I wish people would stop comparing cross country to the other high sports. The other sports the team success is measured by wins and losses, and individual success is measured by statistics. In cross country it is " what place did you finish at state". The letters my son gets from colleges don't begin with "its great your team came in six in sectionals", it begins with " its great you placed ___ at the state meet, and your time of ____ at the state meet is excellent.
They need to do something fast. Your school being one mile north or south of some arbitrary border shouldn't decide if your going to the state meet or not.