Should Districts Be Harder Than Regionals?


There has never been and probably never will be true balance across our sport. That is just a fact of life, some regions or districts are better than others. The question remains though, should we be getting to a point that it is harder to advance out of a district than it would be to advance out of regionals? 

That seems to be the case with the Northern Virginia District in 5A. This district compiled of eight teams is allowing five of the eight teams to advance to the regional. That is pretty fair in our mind but the kicker is they are also only letting in two at-large berths into regionals outside of those teams. 

That means there is a realistic chance that some athletes will be left out of the regional and state meet because of their district's very odd qualifying. 

Here is one scenario that could very well happen based on the current virtual meet. 


PLACE
TEAMPOINTSSCORERSSPLITAVERAGE
1Tuscarora High School (VA)431+7+10+11+14 (23.5+28)2:09.6019:14.86
2Briar Woods716+12+13+19+21 (25+27)56.9019:52.80
3Rock Ridge High School723+9+18+20+22 (36+37)1:47.3019:40.80
4Freedom (South Riding)97.54+8+23.5+30+32 (39+40)1:55.0019:59.20
5Potomac Falls13817+26+29+31+35 (41+46)57.2020:32.50
6Stone Bridge14015+16+33+34+42 (45+50)2:08.7020:41.98
7John Champe High School1792+38+44+47+48 (51+52)4:20.9021:32.04
8Broad Run2045+43+49+53+54 (55+56)4:19.0022:14.36


You have John Champe and Broad Run both finishing outside of the scoring position. They are led by 5A #5 and #11 Bethany Graham and Elli Desmond. Right now they should be able to advance but what if they didn't? 

Bethany Graham dropped out of Third Battle because of a sore ankle...maybe she needs an extra week to recover. Imagine that, the girl who could win the state title is unable to go to regionals because her district actually limits the number of individuals. 

Or another scenario could be that Graham and Desmond qualify but Suzie Muller or Kelly Byars do not. They are both sub 20 minute girls. They rank #29 and #31 in the entire 5A classification. Suzie is actually the 6th ranked individual in Region 5C outside of the teams likely to advance. That means this district could be actually limiting who advances to the state meet from districts. 

Now the other side of this argument is that you just need to run faster. Each region and district are different. That has always been the issue in the NOVA 6A regions. Those are regions where the team finishing 4th at regionals could finish fourth at states too. 

Tough questions need to be asked though. Do we want to eliminate competition from the state meet at the district level? Should we expand the number of athletes or teams at the state meet?