LIHUE » The look of Hawaii high school athletics is changing in girls wrestling.

In track and field, they’re going back to to the not-so-distant past.

After one day of the annual Hawaii Interscholastic Athletic Directors Association conference, early indications are that girls wrestling will expand from 11 weight classes to 14. That would match the number of weight divisions offered to boys.

An early straw vote Thursday by the committee handling the proposal, which was offered by Hawaii High School Athletic Association wrestling official Keith Matsumoto, registered a unanimous, if unofficial, vote. If it is approved in committee today, then approved in general assembly Saturday, it would still need passage by the HHSAA’s executive board before becoming official.

But the odds are in favor of expansion.

Meanwhile, another committee was positive on a proposal to expand the number of qualifiers for track and field state championship events from 26 athletes to 32. The number had been at 32 for decades before being reduced a few years ago due to budget constraints.

"I like this because we won’t have empty lanes anymore," said ILH track and field official Jeff Meister.

A proposal from the ILH to create a structured format for seeding state-tournament teams was not so popular in committee.

"We have to trust our league representatives and coordinators," Kealakehe AD Mike Hernandez said. "There were a lot of good things about (the proposal). However, after further discussion, there’s still going to be problems. They talked about strength of schedule; you may beat me, but at the time, what if we had 23 players ineligible? Schools that play a team early in preseason might not have enough practice time or players. Then they improve over the course of the season."

That group, committee 4, was the last to emerge after an hour and 41 minutes. Other committees had lighter loads and were done in half the time.

Cross country may get an interesting jolt. A proposal from the MIL would award championships to Division II individual and team champions.

The proposal will need some rewriting, though, so that there won’t be a need for two separate boys races and two separate girls races.

"They’re going to amend it," Ka’u AD Kalei Namohala said. "I like it if they amend it."

One football proposal made it to the conference. The MIL submitted an idea to go from six teams to eight teams in the Division I tournament. It failed to garner many votes.

"You gotta ask OIA their concerns why. Our proposal would level the playing field and give everyone (a first-round) opponent," Kamehameha-Maui AD Kurt Ginoza said.

He was clearly disturbed about the rejection, particularly with former and current coaches in the same committee. As it is, the top two teams — the seeded squads — get first-round byes.

"In the nature of football, that’s a huge advantage," Ginoza added.

Outgoing KS-Hawaii AD Bob Wagner noted that the BIIF’s football proposal last year differed from the MIL offering in a slight but crucial way. The BIIF proposal asked for the current formula to determine seven of eight teams in the D-I tourney, plus an at-large berth. The D-II would have used the formula for all eight entries.

The current MIL proposal asks for a formula to determine the first seven teams, then an at-large in both D-I and D-II.

"We only have six teams," Wagner said of his issue.

Ginoza planned to amend the MIL proposal, meaning there were two proposals — the other being the cross-country/D-II measure — for him to work on Thursday night. So much for relaxing at a fancy resort.

Girls wrestling has been on the upswing since its inception in Hawaii. Matsumoto has been involved as a coach or official for 32 years.

"The only argument against any addition is, will there be enough participation? I think there’s adequate reason to justify addition. When we first started (girls wrestling), there was question about whether there was demand," he said.

The results have been persuasive over the years.

"The risks that administrators took, the fruits of that are demonstrated this year. Two of the four girls for the Olympics from the U.S. are from Hawaii, both from public schools," Matsumoto said of Clarissa Chun (Roosevelt) and Stephany Lee (Moanalua).