“We’re totally up in the air with volleyball,” said Cindy Adsit, WIAA assistant executive director who oversees volleyball.
Adsit said this fall that there were “issues at every site,” ranging from lengthy delays, not enough seats or restrooms, limited concessions for spectators and poor outside lighting. Some of those issues can be fixed by site managers or by moving locations. Others can only be remedied if the tournament format is changed.
In November, the 4A and 3A tournaments were staged at Saint Martin’s College, while The Evergreen State College was host to the 2A tournament. The 1A, 2B and 1B tournaments were held at the Yakima SunDome.
The most pressing issue, Adsit said, is the tournament format and schedule.
At the 4A and 3A tournaments, the schedule fell behind by almost four hours. First-day matches that began on Friday lasted into Saturday, finishing at 12:40 a.m.
Adsit said the WIAA was looking at ways to ensure matches don’t last past 10 p.m. Among the changes considered are reducing teams’ warm-up time before matches; reducing matches to best-of-three instead of best-of-five; making the tournament single-elimination until the semifinals; and reducing the number of teams that reach the state-tournament site to eight, four or two.
Adsit said the WIAA will send questionnaires to volleyball coaches to solicit their opinions on prioritizing potential changes.
Adsit said the SunDome was in little danger of losing its tournaments, but the 4A, 3A and 2A tournaments would change locations unless reforms were made. She said Evergeen had to overcome a few hurdles to be considered to host the 2A tournament again.
“Whether or not we’re back at Evergreen is a big ‘if,’” Adsit said. “If the courts are put side-to-side we won’t be going back.”
The WIAA has looked into other potential sites, including the Clark County Events Center, Kennewick Toyota Center and Town Toyota Center in Wenatchee. Adsit said Saint Martin’s was interested in hosting the tournament again, too.
Everett’s Comcast Arena, Kent’s ShoWare Center and Spokane Arena were either not available or not interested in hosting the tournaments.
In other WIAA-related news:
• The 4A and 3A baseball state semifinals and finals will be played in the spring at Gesa Stadium in Pasco. Safeco Field in Seattle and Tacoma’s Cheney Stadium were unavailable on May 25-26 because the Mariners and Rainiers have home games.
Gesa Stadium has a seating capacity of 3,700 spectators and is home to the Tri-City Dust Devils, a short-season Single-A minor league baseball team.
• Preliminary enrollment counts for the 2012-14 cycle were sent to schools last week, said John Miller, WIAA assistant executive director. Schools have until Tuesday to decide if they will opt up in classification. Classifications will be finalized at the WIAA executive board meeting in January.
Doug Pacey: 253-597-8271 doug.pacey@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/preps Twitter: @DougPaceyTNT
