It was an unusual morning for the Hawaii High School Athletic Association’s executive board.

In an apparently unprecedented move, the Interscholastic League of Honolulu chose to abstain from all voting. With executive director Don Botelho not in attendance, the ILH was represented by Blane Gaison and Georges Gilbert, but did not participate. The ILH block would have been worth 25 votes, or one per league member.

"The ILH voted to abstain (from voting) due to the concerns of another league about HIADA concerns," Gilbert said, noting that league president Perry Martin and Botelho were in agreement with the decision to abstain.

Gilbert added that the decision had nothing to do with a proposal at last week’s Hawaii Interscholastic Athletic Directors Association conference that each league get one vote at the HHSAA meetings.

The weighted votes are as follows: Oahu Interscholastic Association 31, Big Island Interscholastic Federation 24, Maui Interscholastic League 12, Kauai Interscholastic Federation 5. The ILH’s votes would have counted for 26 percent of the total. The ILH’s abstention gave the neighbor island schools the rare potential to outnumber Oahu votes.

On Tuesday morning, the HHSAA executive board examined and ruled on recommendations from athletic directors who spent three days in Lihue weighing proposals at the annual HIADA conference.

» Cross country: Administrators voted 41-31 in favor of recognizing a Division II champion. Chun emphasized that leagues must declare which schools are in D-II before the season.

That led to a short discussion about classification criteria. BIIF executive director Lyle Crozier said his league has a cutoff at 950 students (per school). Schools with more than 950 students are required to compete in D-I, and smaller schools are permitted to play in D-I only by request, as was the case for Konawaena girls basketball.

The MIL also uses enrollment as criteria.

» Swimming and diving: A measure to expand scoring from the top five competitors (per event) to the top six — as is the case with judo, track and field and wrestling — did not pass. The vote was 36 in favor, 36 against, meaning there will be no change.

OIA executive director Raymond Fujino noted that passage would’ve meant an opportunity for large teams to pick up extra points, giving smaller teams a disadvantage.

MIL executive director Randy Yamanuha said Seabury Hall’s track and field team lost by two points in 2011 at the state meet, adding that the opportunity for extra points helps smaller schools. The OIA’s Meredith Maeda pointed out, however, that the probability is a larger team would get more sixth-place finishes and points.

Nationally, points are awarded to the top eight finishers.

» Golf: The push-pull cart issue continued, sparking more discussion about semantics than actual debate.

According to USGA rules, there is no rule against the use of push-pull carts, which are favored by some ‘Iolani golfers.

Maeda asked about the purpose of this measure, since there is no existing rule. After 20 minutes of back and forth, the recommendation to allow the use of nonmotorized push-pull carts was approved.

» Seeding criteria: All voting leagues were in favor of an updated seeding format for D-I teams in a 12-team bracket. The process includes seeding the league champions and placing the leagues’ second representative in the opposite half of the bracket based on the league champions’ seeds.

All other proposals that had unanimous or near-unanimous results at HIADA were approved by the HHSAA executive board.

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For all the proposals voted on by the HHSAA on Tuesday, see Paul Honda’s blog at HawaiiPrepWorld.com.