After ADs vote them in, softball regionals are put on hold

WAIKOLOA, Hawaii » Softball regionals will have to wait a year, the Hawaii High School Athletic Association executive board decided at its meeting Thursday at the Hilton Waikoloa Village.

On Wednesday, a state high school softball regional format became a reality when the Hawaii Interscholastic Athletic Directors Association members voted to employ it for the 2016 season. However, the HHSAA board voted to change HIADA’s decision and moved it to the 2017 season.

The extra year will allow a committee tasked with implementing regional tournaments to iron out any logistical problems that come up. By waiting an extra year, however, the possibility exists that the softball regional format could get overturned at next spring’s HIADA meeting. In the past few years, the regionals committee helped the state install regionals for softball, volleyball and girls basketball, and it also can research the viability of regionals for other sports.

Neighbor island leagues favor the regional format because it allows non-Oahu schools to host state tournament games during the early rounds.

"State tournaments are Oahu-centric," said HHSAA board member Shawn Suzuki, the principal at Konawaena of the Big Island Interscholastic Federation. "Regionals expand this and bring it to the (neighbor-island) audiences. I personally enjoyed watching ‘Iolani and Kaiser play in soccer on Konawaena’s field in a match that actually meant something. Regionals have had success in other sports. For softball, I don’t see why not."

HHSAA executive director Chris Chun, who is not a voting member of the board, has a different opinion due to the fact that regionals are spread over two weekends (at Oahu and neighbor-island sites) instead of four consecutive days.

"I know we can’t get Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium two weekends in a row," he said. "I think softball is the wrong sport for regionals. It might not bring in the same kind of revenue (when held on the neighbor islands)."

Ray Fujino, the Oahu Interscholastic Association executive director and not a voting member of the board, prefers four consecutive days.

"It’s the culminating event of a season and you get 12 teams in one place for a four-day tournament. The other way, you lose the camaraderie."

The HHSAA board reviewed all 19 proposals passed by HIADA, and reversed course on one. On Wednesday, the athletic directors passed a proposal to cut the number of boys and girls wrestling weight classes to 12 from 14. On Thursday, the HHSAA board upped the number back to 14 and will ask for future guidance from the National Federation of State High School Associations whose guidelines call for 14 weight classes.

"We want to increase competition," HPA’s Steve Perry said. "It’s frustrating for kids to be in a weight class that doesn’t have other wrestlers or a small number of wrestlers in it."

"We want 14," the OIA’s Fujino said. "We’d like to keep it status quo and build the (number of participants in the sport) up (to fill the weight classes)."

Only Suzuki for the BIIF voted in favor of going with HIADA’s recommendation of 12. The ILH abstained and the three other leagues voted against it.

A measure voted down at HIADA calling for the start of football practice one week earlier (from July 20 to July 13) was reintroduced by the HHSAA board and defeated again. Only the OIA voted in favor of it Thursday.