Each sport sponsored by the Minnesota State High School League will be able to choose how its state tournament field is seeded according to a plan approved by the MSHSL’s regular Board of Directors meeting today (Thursday).
Each sport will have three seeding options starting in the 2024-25 school year:
Option 1: Team sport seeds Nos. 1-5 with a random draw for seeds Nos. 6, 7 and 8.
Option 2: Team sport seeds all teams once per state tournament.
Option 3: Team sport does not seed in the first round of the tournament. The team sport will use a regional/sectional or scheduled rotation.
Sports with multiple classes must use the same seeding option in all classes and sports that have both boys and girls programs must use the same seeding option.
Boys volleyball
Boys volleyball will be played as a spring sport as the board approved a recommendation to play in the spring instead of the fall. Boys volleyball became an official MSHSL-sponsored sport last spring, making Minnesota the 25th state association to sanction the sport.
For this school year, boys volleyball is being played as an emerging sport under the direction of the Minnesota Boys High School Volleyball Association. Since 2019, boys volleyball has been played in the spring. From its inception, Boys Volleyball has grown to nearly 2,000 annual participants, which ranks Minnesota as 10th in the country for that sport.
During its regularly scheduled meeting, the Board of Directors heard from Osseo activities coordinator Bill Quan, who served as chair of the Boys Volleyball Season Placement Task Force. In sharing data and feedback from stakeholders, he cited established sustainability and growth potential as two primary reasons for recommending the spring season placement.
Other research shared was that numerous participants said they play sports in other seasons. Other criteria considered in making the recommendation include the availability of high school coaches and officials. The task force acknowledged some factors for placement in the fall yet added that boys volleyball in the spring is the national norm.
In other Action Items, the Board of Directors:
Approved a Finance Committee recommendation to set the price of admission for the Cross Country State Meet at $13 for adults and $8 for students which is identical to the Track and Field State Meet. This is the first time the Cross Country State Meet will be a ticketed event, per a directive of the Board of Directors that seeks a form of revenue from each state tournament.
Approved a Spring Activity Advisory Proposal to add a third day to the Softball State Tournament beginning in 2024. Teams will play one game per day.
Approved a Spring Activity Advisory Proposal in Track and Field to add a 400-meter event in the wheelchair division at the section and state meet levels, effective in 2024.
Approved a Spring Activity Advisory Proposal in Track and Field to change the method of calculating the qualifying standards for the state meet. The new standard would be determined by taking the average of the performance of the ninth-place finisher in the state preliminaries in the previous three years.
Approved the reformatted Dance Team Rules Book for 2022-2024.
Approved a Spring Activity Advisory Proposal in Speech to adjust the requirement for citations with the use of visual aids, the definition of stage properties and the implementation of a tiebreaker.