(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

AURORA — During their meeting on Wednesday, the softball committee recommended a change to its mercy rule, and also the use of a double bag at first base.

As both would be state adoptions to the NFHS rules, they need to be approved by the Legislative Council during its April meeting, and then by the CHSAA Board of Directors. Both recommendations were unanimous votes by the committee.

Currently the mercy rule kicks in and ends a game when a team is leading by 20 runs after three innings, 15 after four, and 10 after five. The committee’s recommendation is to change the rule so that a game would end if the following circumstances are met:

• 15 runs after three innings
• 12 runs after four innings
• 10 runs after five innings

The recommendation was made with an eye towards sportsmanship.

The committee’s second recommendation would have Colorado adopt the use of a second bag at first base. That recommendation was made with safety in mind, and help avoid injuries caused by collisions during plays at first base.

The traditional white bag would remain in place where it is, and would be used by the fielder during the game. A second orange bag would be placed directly to the right of the white bag in foul territory, and would be used by the batter during run-through plays at first base. If the batter uses the white bag on a run-through play, she would be called out.

Once on base, runners would use the white base.

(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

So long, all-white volleyball.

In 2019, the official ball for the sport in Colorado will be Wilson’s K1 Gold ball, specifically the red, white and navy version of the ball. The volleyball committee voted to recommend that change during its meeting on Tuesday.

“This helps us modernize and get on par to where the NCAA and other leagues are at,” said CHSAA assistant commissioner Bethany Brookens, who oversees volleyball.

Next season will be the first that the K1 Gold, a new and upgraded ball, is available from Wilson.

The volleyball committee selected a colored version of the ball, as opposed to the all-white ball, because of the feedback it received. The colored ball provides better visibility, especially in certain low-light gyms, and will help both players and officials during the course of matches.

The red, white and navy version also has the added bonus of matching the colors used on the courts at the state tournament at the Denver Coliseum.

The K1 Gold will be the official CHSAA ball in 2019. Teams are strongly encouraged to use it during the regular season. Its use will be mandated during the regional and state tournaments.

(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

AURORA — The baseball committee on Tuesday recommended an addition to its mercy rule on Wednesday, one that brings it in line with softball.

Currently, baseball’s mercy rule ends games when one team is up by 10 runs after five innings. Their recommendation is to end games when one team is up by 10 runs after five innings, 15 runs after four innings, or 20 runs after three innings.

The recommendation will be voted upon by CHSAA’s Board of Directors at their meeting next month. If approved there, the change will go into effect for the 2019 season.

Additionally, the baseball committee discussed how to handle upcoming reclassification and realignment. There was talk about adding a sixth classification, which had support from the coaches association.

Another discussion topic was creating a top-level open division consisting of the top 16 or 24 teams, and then reclassifying the remaining schools into other classifications. Ultimately, they created a subcommittee to spearhead this effort.

The committee also recommended a universal pitch count rule for all levels. Currently, there is a different rule for varsity and sub-varsity players. If approved by the Legislative Council next April, this change would go into effect with the 2020 season.

There was also discussion about moving regionals to a double-elimination format. There was strong opposition to a true double-elimination format from the administrators on the committee. But there was some support for a modified four-team format which has a single-elimination first round, and then a best-of-three series for the remaining two teams.

No recommendation was made, but the topic of postseason format is likely to re-emerge next year.

The group also talked about implementing a minimum number of games in order to qualify for the postseason via the RPI. That is also likely to come back next season.

(Steve Oathout)

AURORA — Colorado Academy and Glenwood Springs are set to add varsity hockey programs for the 2018-19 season, following a vote of approval from the sport’s committee on Friday.

It will bring the total number of varsity hockey teams to 36 next season. Additionally, Sargent is mulling over whether to add a junior varsity program.

The two schools presented their intention to begin competition next season. Colorado Academy started its program with a JV schedule this season.

“We’re committed,” said Colorado Academy athletic director Bill Hall.

The team is expected to have 30 players. If there are enough players, CA would continue to have a JV team in addition to the varsity team.

Colorado Academy plans to play home games at Foothills Ice Arena.

This will be Glenwood Springs’ first foray into CHSAA competition, though Yampah Mountain High School in the area has fielded a JV program the past three seasons. (Yampah Mountain is set to discontinue that program next season.)

“The numbers we have in our youth hockey program in Glenwood, they’re substantial,” said Glenwood Springs athletic director Craig Denney.

Glenwood expects to have between 40 and 45 players in its program, allowing them to have both varsity and JV teams.

The team will practice in Glenwood Springs, but because that’s a covered outdoor rink, they will play their home games in Eagle. The team would be allowed to play one outdoor game at their rink in Glenwood.

CHSAA commissioner Rhonda Blanford-Green noted the growth in the sport, saying, “It’s almost like there’s a resurgence of ice hockey. We were dropping programs at one point.”

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Conferences realignment recommendation

The committee recommended the following league alignment for the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons. It is a change from the current four-conference alignment to six conferences of six teams.

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Notables

• There was some talk about a potential split into two classifications for the sport. Blanford-Green addressed the topic during the meeting: “We are probably at capacity for adding another male gender championship,” she said, noting Title IX implications. “The Board is going to be leery of adding another championship, especially if it’s going to take us out of equity. So the potential for expanding, unless there’s a lot of growth in this sport, is going to be hard to do.”
• The committee voted to support an increase to a 23-game season from the current 19. That change would have to be proposed to the Legislative Council by a league.

(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

AURORA — During the Legislative Council meeting on Thursday, the Technology Committee reported on their recommendation surrounding the future of the RPI formula.

The gist of that recommendation: Move away from the standard formula — 25 percent weight on a team’s own winning percentage, 50 percent on a team’s opponent’s, and 25 percent on the opponents of their opponents — to a 30/40/30 model.

The recommendation was delivered to the CHSAA Board of Directors during their meeting on Wednesday. The Board will vote on that recommendation in February.

The Technology Committee has met several times since last August, including an in-person meeting, and several video conferences, in exploring the future of the RPI. Included was a trip to visit with Erik Packard, a statistics professor at Colorado Mesa University who has his own ranking system for high school sports.

The Committee also commissioned a survey of CHSAA member schools asking for their input on the RPI. More than 220 schools responded. That survey showed that:

• Accuracy is the most important factor in a formula.
• They want more weight on their own winning percentage.
• They believe that RPI should be used to set postseason fields, but not to seed them.

Using this feedback as a guide, the Technology Committee then set out to examine all the RPI data CHSAA has ever captured — including from seasons prior to its implementation in 2016.

In order to determine which formula was most accurate, they compared a team’s ranking in the final RPI standings of the regular season to their actual performance at the state tournament.

Seven different weights were examined. Because schools had asked for more weight on their own winning percentage, they first looked at a 50/25/25 model. In every case — in every sport — that formula was the least accurate.

In the overwhelming majority of the data, the standard formula (25/50/25) was the most accurate.

A second formula was either the most or the second-most accurate formula in all sports: 30/40/30.

Ultimately, this is the formula the Technology Committee recommended to the Board on Wednesday. The recommendation is that this formula be used in all sports, which will help eliminate the confusion of separate formulas.

Worth noting: It is the most accurate formula for football, too — more accurate than the current formula (37.5/37.5/25) that is being used.

Additionally, the Technology Committee will explore what it would look like if a classification modifier were to be used in all sports.

(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

AURORA — The equity committee, which oversees Title IX and other topics for CHSAA, isn’t taking a stance on the upcoming proposal to lengthen baseball’s season. The group did, however, strongly state that if baseball’s games limit is increased, softball should be given the same opportunity.

The Centennial and Continental Leagues have teamed up on a proposal that would increase baseball games from 19 to 23 in classes 5A, 4A and 3A. That proposal is set to be voted on by the Legislative Council during its meeting next week.

The topic was debated at length during the committee’s meeting on Thursday morning. Ultimately, the group put out the following statement:

The Equity Committee recognizes that the passage of this bylaw could present equity considerations and potential issues. We strongly recommend that each league considers these potential issues.

If this proposal passes, the Equity Committee would recommend the passage of an identical bylaw for the like sport of softball.

The topic of increasing games was briefly discussed by the softball committee during its most recent meeting, but no league ultimately submitted a proposal to do so.

This statement from the equity committee more than likely means that should the increase to baseball’s games limit pass next week, an identical proposal to increase softball’s games would be put before the Legislative Council for consideration in April.

“If the membership wants 23 baseball games, we would ask that they also support the addition of games in softball,” said Bethany Brookens, the CHSAA liaison to the equity committee. “We need to at least offer softball teams the chance to schedule the same amount of games as the comparable sport of baseball.”

(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

AURORA — During a busy meeting on Tuesday, the football committee formally made its league alignment recommendations, and also discussed changes to the postseason format and practice schedule.

The 15-member committee — made up of two representatives of each classification, as well as chair Mike Krueger — walked through alignment proposals for all seven classes in front of a packed meeting space.

Ultimately, they settled on one recommendation per class. Those alignments can be found on the 2018 and 2019 football alignment page.

All recommendations from the football committee must be approved by the Legislative Council at its January meeting.

Some highlights on the alignment:

• Three schools (Alameda, Mitchell and Hinkley) were moved down a classification by the committee, using the latitude given them according to bylaw 1500.1

They considered seven schools under this process, but settled on the three, as they most closely fit the criteria as laid out in bylaw 1500.21.

• Most classes have 42 schools. The ones that don’t: 5A (40), 1A (40), 8-man (43), and 6-man (32).

• The committee really tried to get back to a more traditional league alignment.

“We heard loudly from our membership that we want more traditional leagues, and play traditional neighborhood rivals,” Krueger said at the beginning of the meeting.

With that in mind, many leagues relied heavily on geography. For example: the five Pueblo schools are grouped together with Durango in 3A; some school districts, such as Jeffco and Cherry Creek, were kept together where possible in 5A.

• 5A took a new approach to its alignment as it moved away from the waterfall format with an eye toward saving struggling programs.

“We have to do something with some programs, or we’re going to flat lose some programs,” said Chris Noll, the Doherty athletic director who is a 5A representative.

So the football committee identified and separated out 10 teams and placed them in a league on their own. The remaining 30 teams were split into six-team leagues.

There was also a lot of discussion about the difficulty of scheduling non-conference games in 5A, and some even asked if CHSAA could schedule the non-league slate.

“We do see this as a very significant issue,” Krueger said. “If we don’t step up and start to help our sister schools (schedule), there will be movement toward that mandate.

“As badly as we want to mandate that, the other side is people want the flexibility to schedule how they want,” he added.

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Playoff and practice changes

(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

The committee also tackled a number of items outside of alignment on Tuesday. Among them:

•  The committee proposed expanding the 5A football field from 16 to 24 teams. The 5A alignment was created with this change in mind.

All six league champions, including the league of 10, would receive an automatic bid to the playoffs. The next 17 qualifiers would come from the final RPI standings of the regular season, with the exception of the league of 10.

The final playoff spot would be an at-large bid as determined by the seeding committee, using the criteria they will use to seed the tournament — including, but not limited to, things like RPI standing, head to head and strength of schedule.

• Classes 4A through 8-man changed their seeding criteria to where a conference champion in the top-10 of the seeded playoff bracket will host in Round 1, unless they are playing another league champion. In that case, the higher seed will host. Once seeded, the seeds of the teams will not change, regardless of who hosts the game.

For example, if the No. 10 seed is a league champion but the No. 7 is not, the No. 10 team would host the first-round game. If both are league champions, the No. 7 would host.

• The committee proposed expanding 6-man from an 8-week to a 9-week schedule. This would allow some teams to play a nine-game regular season, if they so choose.

• They discussed changing the date the teams can start practice. A proposal will come to the Legislative Council from the Centennial League which recommends that football follow the NFHS calendar.

That would mean practice in 2018 could start on Aug. 6 as opposed to Aug. 13. The football committee supports the proposal.

In essence, the proposal would add another week of practice on the front-end of the schedule. Playoff dates would be unaffected, and the season would start on Aug. 23-25, with a scrimmage date available on Aug. 16-18.

This would give all classes, save for 5A, the opportunity to have a bye week during the regular season.

• In conjunction with the practice discussion, the committee recommended changes to how teams practice during the start of practice. The recommended doing away with two-a-day practices.

The practice schedule would start with three days of helmets only, two days of pads and limited contact, and then full pads and full contact on the sixth day of practice. Currently, full contact is on the fourth day.

(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

The baseball committee is recommending an expansion to the Class 1A postseason.

During their meeting on Tuesday, the group voted to recommend expanding the 1A tournament from eight to 16 teams. Their recommendation will be forwarded to the Legislative Council for approval at their January meeting. If approved, the changes would go into effect in the 2019 season.

“The 1A schools felt that a change was necessary to showcase the better teams in their classification,” said CHSAA assistant commissioner Bert Borgmann, who administers baseball.

The baseball committee unanimously approved the recommendation.

Under the proposal, the top two teams from each district would automatically qualify for the 16-team bracket, with the remaining eight spots being filled by the next eight highest teams in the final RPI standings.

The first two rounds of the tournament would technically be regionals, with one school hosting four-team pods a week before the state semifinals. The semifinals and final would be held on the first day of the state track and field meet. Currently, the state final is held on the first day of state track — something that helps small schools as many of their athletes are dual-sport competitors.

This 1A proposal mirrors how 2A handles its postseason, with four-team regionals starting the bracket, and then a final day of semifinals and the title game roughly a week later.

2A is keeping its format the same, but did recommend some changes to their seeding process.

The seven district champions will continue to qualify for the 16-team field, with the nine at-large teams coming via the final RPI standings.

New, however, would be criteria that says district teams cannot face one another in Round 1, and where possible, would not be placed in the same region. Additionally, if teams from the same district finish in the top 8 of the final RPI standings, they would be placed on opposite sides of the bracket.

“2A likes their format, but they felt it needed some tweaking in terms of seeding,” Borgmann said.

There was discussion of 3A, 4A and 5A moving to a single-elimination state tournament from its regional round to the end of state, but the committee elected to keep things as-is for now. They have commissioned a survey of schools to see if there would be interest in changing the format.

The 3A, 4A, 5A representatives also discussed reseeding teams after regionals, but the committee ultimately decided against doing so with a unanimous vote.

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Committee discusses expansion of regular season

The committee talked at length about a proposal that would expand the regular seasons in 5A, 4A and 3A from 19 games to 23.

Ultimately, a proposal will need to come from a league as it would amend CHSAA bylaws (2920), but the committee did express its support for one. It is likely the a proposal is filed with the CHSAA office by the end of next week.

We will have more detail on that proposal once filed, but it is likely to mirror what basketball and volleyball currently do: expand the game limits in 5A, 4A and 3A from 19 to 23, while leaving 1A and 2A at 19.

Worth noting is that this would be an expansion to the limits of games a team can play; teams would not be required to play 23 games.

The committee did note that if a game expansion were to be approved, it would likely also require the season to be extended by a week.

(Marlee Smith/CHSAANow.com)

AURORA — Football’s classifications for the next two seasons are beginning to take shape.

A huge part of that structure is the enrollment splits, which will help divide teams into classes. The proposed splits for the 2018 and 2019 seasons will be considered by the football committee at their meeting on Dec. 7.

Those splits:

The enrollment split between 6-man and 8-man will be further defined at the committee meeting.

Additionally, the football committee is proposing to reclassify three schools according to bylaw 1500.1, using the criteria laid out in 1500.21. Those schools are:

• Alameda International (from 3A to 2A)
• Mitchell (from 4A to 3A)
• Hinkley (from 5A to 4A)

League alignments have not been set. Proposals are being reviewed by football committee members and the areas/classifications they represent. Those proposals will be voted on at the football committee meeting on Dec. 7.

On Friday, football committee chair Mike Krueger and CHSAA football administrator Bud Ozzello held separate conference calls with reps from each classification as they continued to gather input and data from schools around the state. It was the latest in a series of informal meetings and calls since the summer that the committee has used as part of its shared decision-making process.

“We truly appreciate all the input from the membership, including the work the committee reps and league czars did, in order to do what’s best for football in this state,” said CHSAA commissioner Rhonda Blanford-Green.

In reviewing the league proposals, the football committee has continued to use three main factors to guide their decision-making:

• Risk-minimization
• Geography and traditional leagues
• Competitive balance

As final alignment proposals are being discussed, member schools are encouraged to contact their classification representatives on the football committee.

The timeline for football’s alignment proposals is the following:

• Dec. 6: Work session for the football committee members only.
• Dec. 7: Football’s committee meeting.
• Dec. 12: Deadline for Legislative Council amendments. (Note: this has been extended from the previous Dec. 8 deadline.)

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Football schools by classification (proposed)

Note: Playup, playdowns and reclassified programs are noted. Playdowns were approved at the CLOC meeting.

(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

AURORA — The softball committee on Thursday heard a proposal that sought to change the format for the sport’s regional and state tournaments. Ultimately, they opted to not vote on it, asking for more feedback from schools.

The proposal, presented by Vista Ridge athletic director Sam Baldwin, sought to change the regional tournaments to single-elimination, and the state tournaments to double-elimination. Currently, regionals are double-elimination, while state is a single-elimination format. Baldwin’s proposal was specific to 4A and 5A, but there was a similar proposal for 3A that largely mirrored the 4A/5A proposal.

While discussing the topic, committee members expressed concern that the proposal would have cut state qualifiers from 16 to eight teams, and that not every softball school had seen it.

“When you show up to a the state tournament and there are all these teams playing, it’s a great feel,” said Pomona athletic director Mike Santarelli, a committee member.

Added Dave Craddock, another committee member who is the athletic director at Pueblo Central: “Some of our coaches kind of liked the double-elimination idea, but they absolutely did not like cutting (the field) to eight.”

Michelle Woodard, the coach and athletic director at Strasburg, echoed that sentiment. “Two years ago, we went to 16 teams (from 12 in 3A) because we wanted more participation at the state tournament,” she said.

Committee members were also hesitant about getting right of double-elimination at the regional round, because they felt it ensured the best teams advanced to the state tournaments.

“If you go to single-elimination, you may have a situation where a 32 (seed) knocks off a 1, and then there’s no chance to battle back, and you’re not having the best teams at the state tournament,” said Eaglecrest coach Yvette Hendrian.

Notably this past season, 5A champion Legend and 4A champion Mountain View lost their first games at regionals but came back to win titles.

The proposal is likely to return to the softball committee in the future for more consideration after schools are surveyed and feedback is incorporated into the format. Because most postseason format changes are typically only approved before the start of the two-year cycle, it means that softball will likely stay with its current format through at least the 2018-20 cycle.

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Notables

• The topic of pitch-counts was raised in the committee. While no proposal is imminent, one may not be far off. “This is on the horizon,” said CHSAA assistant commissioner Bud Ozzello, who oversees softball. “They’re starting to gather data” on the national level, he added.
• New district and league alignment was recommended. That will be included as part of the sport’s report presented to the Legislative Council in January.