IHSA

IHSA Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes - 2005-06

Boys/Girls Soccer Advisory Committee

April 26 , 2006

The IHSA Boys/Girls Soccer Advisory Committee met in the IHSA Office in Bloomington, Illinois, on Wednesday, April 26, 2006, beginning at 10:00 a.m. Committee Members present were: Tony Bauman, Bloomington (H.S.); Dennis Canny, Rochester; Joe Chivari, Aurora (Marmion Academy); Jason Kilmer, Chillicothe (Illinois Valley Central); Paul Kohorn, Lisle Sr.; Ed McBride, Official, Mackinaw; Ian McCarthy, Chicago (Whitney Young); Mike Villa Troy, (Triad) and Assistant Executive Director, Beth Sauser was also in attendance.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. Item A and B. Dates and Sites: (boys and girls)

Recommendation: Alter the format of the State Tournament beginning in 2007-2008 seasons. This change would allow the qualifying teams for the state finals to play 1 Semi final game on Friday and 1 game on Saturday for the Consolation or Championship game.

Class A Boys

Week 15         Tuesday/ Wednesday    October 9 and 10           Sectional Play in games
Week 15         Friday/Saturday             October 12 and 13         Sectional Quarterfinal games
Week   16         Tuesday/Wednesday     October 16 and 17         16 Sectional Semi-Final games@ 8 sites
Week   16         Saturday                       October 20                    8 Sectional Final games @ 8 sites
Week   17         Tuesday                        October 23                    4 Quarterfinal games @ 4 sites
Week   17         Friday                           October 26                    State Semi-Finals
Week   17         Saturday                       October 27                    State Finals

Class AA Boys

Week 15         Thursday/ Friday           October 11 and 12         Regional Quarterfinals
Week   16         Monday/Tuesday           October 15 and 16         128 Regional Semifinal games @ 64 sites
Week   16         Thursday/Friday            October 18 and 19         64 Regional Final games @ 64 sites
Week   17         Tuesday                        October 23                    32 Sectional Semifinal games @ 16 sites
Week   17         Thursday                      October 25                    16 Sectional Final games@ 16 sites
Week 17         Saturday                       October 27                    8 Super-Sectional games @ 8 sites
Week   18         Tuesday                        October 30                    4 Quarterfinal games @ 4 sites
Week   18         Friday                           November 2                  State Semi-Finals
Week   18         Saturday                       November 3                  State Finals

Class A Girls

Week 45         Tuesday/ Wednesday    May 6 and 7                  Sectional Play in games
Week   45         Friday/Saturday             May 9 and 10                Sectional Quarterfinal games
Week   46         Tuesday/Wednesday     May 13 and 14              16 Sectional Semi-Final games @8 sites
Week   46         Saturday                       May 17                         8 Sectional Final games @ 8 sites
Week   47         Tuesday                        May 20                         4 Quarterfinal games@ 4 sites
Week   47         Friday                           May 23                         State Semi-Finals
Week   47         Saturday                       May 24                         State Finals

Class AA Girls

Week 45         Thursday/ Friday           May 8 and 9                  Regional Quarterfinals
Week   46         Monday/Tuesday           May 12 and 13              128 Regional Semifinal games @ 64 sites
Week   46         Thursday/Friday            May 15 and 16              64 Regional Final games @ 32 sites
Week   47         Tuesday                        May 20                         32 Sectional Semifinal games @16 sites
Week   47         Thursday                      May 22                         16 Sectional Final games@ 16 sites
Week 47         Saturday                       May 24                         8 Super-Sectional games @ 8 sites
Week 48         Tuesday                        May 27                         4 Quarterfinal games @ 4 sites
Week   48         Friday                           May 30                         State Semi-Finals
Week   48         Saturday                       May 31                         State Finals

Rationale: The Advisory Committee recommended the format change to coincide with changes the other team bracketed sports will experience when their participating state final teams play only one game per day at the State Finals. If this were to pass then the seed meeting dates would need to be adjusted. (8-0)

Item 1 Died for Lack of Motion

3. Item VI. Time Schedules Starting Times(girls)

Recommendation: Super Sectional games held on Memorial Day may begin between 11:00 am and 7:00 pm.

Rationale: Expanding the start times would give host managers another option to schedule the game, during the Holiday. (8-0)

Item 3 Approved

4. Item VIII. A. 7. Tournament Rules (boys and girls)

Recommendation: During the state series and per NFHS rules a designated coach’s box must be marked for each game. If a box is not designated Coaches from each team must remain seated throughout the game.

Rationale: Throughout the state the coach’s box has not been properly marked as prescribed by the NFHS therefore if the rule is ignored then there will be a penalty. (8-0)

Item 4 Approved

5. Item XI. A Officials Appointment and Fees: (boys and girls)

Recommendation: For the Class A Sectional Play-in and Quarterfinal games as well as for the Class
AA Quarterfinal games hosted by higher seeded teams, host schools would obtain three licensed officials. The names of the officials would be sent to the IHSA office for verification a minimum of 5 days before the game is to be played. The IHSA would continue the practice of reimbursing host schools for the officials fees.

Rationale: Schools participating in the play-in and quarterfinal games would have more flexibility to
Schedule and modify their game dates and/or start time by working with their local assignor in securing officials. This would be especially helpful during the Fall when fields and officials are in demand and also in the Spring when schools are working around end of the year activities. (8-0)

Item 5 Approved

State Association Adoptions Recommendations:

1. Recommendation: In the event a game is suspended due to conditions that make it impossible to play, the head referee shall declare it an official game if one complete half or more of the game has been played. If less than one-half of the game has been played, the game may be continued from the point of interruption at the next available playing time; that is, a delay may be called or a game suspended until rescheduled.

Rational: Creates consistency throughout the state for regular season games. (8-0)

2. Recommendation: Yellow cards received during regular season or tournament competition must be counted. Once a player has accumulated five yellow cards, they are suspended for the next game. Once the player accumulates three additional yellow cards, they are suspended for the next two games, three more, they are suspended three games, etc. These are minimum penalties. All yellow cards must be reported by the official to the IHSA and the member School as currently practiced with all ejection reports.

At the start of the IHSA tournament series, a player will start with a clean slate if they have accumulated less than five yellow cards during the regular season. During the tournament series, once a player accumulates three yellow cards, they are suspended for the next game; three more yellows, suspended for two games, etc.
If a player enters the tournament series having accumulated five or more yellow cards during the season, their yellow card count continues. Once they reach eight total cards (regular season and IHSA tournament series) they are suspended for two games, eleven yellows - suspended for three games, etc.

Rationale: The committee reviewed area state associations practice of recording yellow cards throughout the season and state series. This is an effort to clean up the behavioral issues in the game of soccer. (8-0)

3. Recommendation: During regular season contests and per NFHS rules a designated coaches box must be marked for each game. If one box or both boxes are not designated then Coaching staff from each team must remain seated throughout the game.

Rationale: Throughout the state the coaches box has not been consistently properly marked as
prescribed by the NFHS therefore if the rule is ignored then there will be a penalty for non-compliance. (8-0)

4. Recommendation: During the regular season if there is a 10 point differential at the start of the second half or anytime after the start of the second half the clock shall be reduce by half of the remaining time.

Rationale: During the regular season the implementation of the mercy rule would speed up the game and still allow coaches to play their bench personnel. (7-0)

Items of General Discussion and Administrative Recommendations:

1. The committee reviewed the boys and girls soccer manuals and recommended their continued use with appropriate updates made by the IHSA staff for the 2006-2007 seasons.

2. The committee discussed the season summary sheets for the seeding meeting. This useful tool needs to be completed in full by each coach and submitted to the seed meeting host in order to ensure all voting coaches have the same information.
Items of General Discussion and Administrative Recommendations continued:

3. The committee reviewed the seed meeting results from 13 Class AA meetings. The data showed that when the low seed and high seed were thrown out for each team there was no significant change in the order of the seeded teams. Results showed there were no changes for 6 of the sectionals. There were 6 ties created in 5 of the sectionals and the remaining 2 sectionals had teams flip flop seeds i.e. 5 and 6.

4. The committee discussed moving the start date of the boys and girls first practice and first game up in light of the tournament schedule. A by-law proposal will be submitted to the IHSA office. The committee felt that any facility scheduling issues that may arise in the Spring are able to be worked between the sports. An earlier start date would allow girls soccer to have a season comparable in length to softball, help with the athlete’s recovery time between games and ease scheduling issues because of Spring break.

5. The committee reviewed the following information: During the 2005 - 2006 school year the number of teams that entered the played in the following state series:

Boys Soccer                                               Wrestling                                              Girls Soccer
            Class A –    117                                    Class A –    110                                   Class A -   70
            Class AA – 265                                    Class AA – 289                      Class AA - 276
                              382                                           399                                           346
Based on the above information the Committee recommended that the Board review the classification policy for Soccer and Wrestling. The Committee supports the following ideas:

A. For soccer only, go back to using the 50/50 cutoff to determine classification and use one cutoff number for the boys and girls seasons. For example using the boys 50/50 split boys would have 191 Class A teams and 191 Class AA teams. The Girls would have 157 Class A teams and 189 Class AA teams. (7-1)

B. Investigate the benefits of three class system for Soccer (and if applicable Wrestling). This would allow more schools to be competitive and would be fair for all teams. (8-0)

C. The Soccer Advisory Committee also supports the Wrestling Advisory Committee recommendation asking the Board to review the classification policy to allow for sports that do not have at least one-third of the participating schools in Class A by the 55/45 % split, to have the Class A field adjusted to include one-third of the participating schools in that sport. This will allow the Class A tournament to have enough schools to conduct a quality tournament without having Regionals that only have four (4) teams in them in Class A and some Class AA Regionals having 10 or 11 schools in theirs. When you only have approximately 28% of the participating schools in one of the tournaments, you have created quite an imbalance in participation equity in that sport.
The Soccer Committee also suggested that the classification split for boys and girls soccer is identical.

6. Discussed the Officials Part 2 test date and the Officials Evaluation Forms due date.

7. Discussed online seeding vs. traditional seed meetings. The Committee felt that online seed meeting would be appropriate for some of the “timed” sports but would prefer to continue the present system for soccer.

8. Discussed submitted correspondence regarding moving seed meeting dates to a later in the season, eliminate regional sites and have the higher seeded team host, assign games to the widest fields only and other changes in the tournament format.