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110The Geographic Principle of IHSA State Tournament Series1. The State Series is designed to determine a State Champion. The State Series is not intended to necessarily advance the best teams in the state to the State Final.2. Representation in an IHSA State Final Tournament is determined on a geographic basis — that is, schools advancing to the State Final Tournament (or in Boys Football, the State Final Game) qualify from given geographical areas of the state. Pairings for the State Final Tournament are determined every year in a drawing that is open to the media/public.3. The number of schools in a State Final Tournament, and levels of competition in the State Series, are determined by the number of schools entered in the series.4. Schools are assigned to first level tournaments/meets on a geographical basis so that there is a reasonable balance in the numberof schools assigned at each first level site.a. Factors considered in assigning schools to first level tournaments include:1. Schools willing/eligible/selected to host and their location;2. Number of schools entered in state series and their locations; and,3. Classification of schools in the state series.4. In individual state series tournaments/meets, the number of schools with full teams assigned to the beginning competition is balanced as much as possible. Travel distance to the tournament/meet site could justify an imbalance in the number of schools assigned to a site.b. Factors considered in assigning schools to first level tournaments do not include:1. Won-lost records of the schools;2. Strengths or weaknesses of the schools in a geographic area;3. Anticipated or potential revenue; and4. Individual, private requests of schools and/or coaches.5. Assignments to first level tournaments are reviewed and rearranged every 3 years (though the host of each first level tournamentmay change from year to year). Sometimes, changes in schools willing to host or schools entered may necessitate intermediate adjustments to the assignments.Guidelines for Seeding for Bracketed Team SportsSeeding shall occur only at the lowest level of grouping, and therefore, neither the super-sectionals nor the state final shall be seeded.Except in football, where an objective computer-based system shall be used, coaches of the teams in each group shall seed the teams of that group. When voting on seeds, coaches shall not vote for their own school. In each group, all seeds shall be added up, with the highest and lowest seeds being thrown out, and then averaged.In Class 1A (in soccer) and Class 1A and 2A (in other bracketed team sports), all state series shall begin with sub-sectionals. A subsectional is a grouping of two geographic regionals.In Class 2A and 3A (in soccer) and Class 3A and 4A (in other bracketed team sports), all state series shall begin with sectional complexes. In sectional groupings where excessive travel is a factor, geographic sub-sectionals may be used at the discretion of the IHSA Administrator.In grouping and seeding a sectional complex, true seeds shall be used to populate the brackets except in cases where a conflict ariseswith pre-determined regional hosts. (For example, if the #1 and #8 seeds are both regional hosts, they cannot be assigned to the same regional and an adjustment must be made.)In grouping and seeding a sub-sectional, only the top four seeds shall be separated. Seeds #1 and #4 shall be assigned to the same regional unless there is a hosting conflict, in which case seeds #1 and #3 shall be assigned to the same regional. The remaining schoolsshall be assigned to the regionals based on geographic proximity and paired according to their seeds.In pairing the sectional semi-final round containing sub-sectionals, the regional from sub-sectional A containing the #1 seed shall bepaired with the regional of sub-sectional B containing the #2 seed, and vice versa, except for the southernmost sectional in Class 3A (soccer) or Class 4A (other sports), where the two regionals in each sub-sectional shall be paired with each other.In football, after the field for each class is determined, schools in Classes 1A through 6A shall be divided geographically into two groupsof 16 and paired according to their seeds within each group. In Classes 7A and 8A schools shall not be separated into groups, but paired according to their true seeds.In all classes of bracketed team sports, the Executive Director is authorized to modify the state series brackets to accommodate unique travel situations.19. CRITERIA FOR INCREASING THE NUMBER OF CLASSES IN IHSA SPORTS AND ACTIVITIESThe following criteria shall be followed when considering proposals to increase or decrease the number of classes in IHSA sports and activities:1. The Board of Directors shall determine the number of classes based on the criteria set forth in this policy.2. The classification systems used by Boys Football, Music, Competitive Cheerleading and Competitive Dance are unique and aredetermined by the Terms & Conditions of the respective sport or activity.3. For all other sports and activities, entries may be divided into classes according to the criteria in the following tables: