How regional pairings are made leads 5 things we learned in Iowa high school volleyball last week
With 355 high schools and more than 11,000 student-athletes playing volleyball across five different classes in Iowa, the process for determining regional pairings has got to be a time-consuming, complicated formula taking days to figure out, right?
Surely there has to be a massive computer program to put it all together. There certainly has to be a large group of Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union staff members working for days on end to get everything right. Perhaps even school names are in a hat or even a few darts are thrown here and there?
Guess again.
The process really only entails a handful of IGHSAU staff members, a set of rankings, a map of the state on a corkboard and a bunch of pins and rubber bands.
Seriously, that's it. It's not as complicated as it may seem.
In fact, the IGHSAU has it down to a science.
"It's basically one of those things where we use my rankings from the previous week, but we also look at teams' overall performance and where the good teams lie," IGHSAU Associate Director Jason Eslinger said. "We have a corkboard in the shape of Iowa with every school represented by a pin. We look at the top eight teams and try to separate them out as much as we can. Then we use rubber bands to wrap around every push pin in each region. How the teams are grouped depends on how they are ranked and where they are located. I think we do a pretty good job of it."
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Eslinger said the first thing they look at for each class is the top eight teams. Those teams, Eslinger said, have earned the right to be placed in a region separate from other top eight teams. But there are occasions when that's simply not possible due to travel restrictions.
"Sometimes we just can't separate the top eight teams," Eslinger said. "Two or three years ago New London and Holy Trinity were both in the top eight in Class 1A and they ended up meeting in a regional semifinal because we had no other teams in that area based on the way the rest of the map was laid out. We had a bunch of teams on the eastern side who were not very solid teams. Unfortunately, it just worked out that way."
Eslinger said the next area of prime consideration is travel. While travel is not a huge concern for softball, which is played in the summer when school is out, sitting on a school bus for two or three hours on school nights is not ideal for student-athletes.
"In softball, you can make three-hour trips and it's not a big concern," Eslinger said. "In volleyball, we want to bring that in a bit closer. We also try to avoid some of the matchups from the previous year if we can. And then we have to factor in which schools put in bids to host and which did not."
The regional pairings were released last Friday and the road to state begins on Monday.
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Eslinger said volleyball teams and fans can expect a few pleasant surprises at the state tournament Oct. 31-Nov. 3 at the state-of-the-art Xtream Arena in Coralville. Preparation began weeks ago for the first state volleyball tournament at the new venue.
"The new arena has a lot of sparkle to it. The players and fans are going to love it big-time," Eslinger said. "They built this arena as the centerpiece of the Coralville area. There are a lot of nice shops, hotels and restaurants close by. There are plenty of things for people to go and do when their teams aren't playing. It's almost like its own little village. The fans are going to love it."
With all that in mind, here are 4 more things we learned in Iowa high school volleyball last week.
A bevy of freshmen are among the leaders in numerous categories, which bodes well for the future. Those freshmen include Channing Johnson of Denver, who is averaging 9.9 assists per set; Brynn Bakula of Cedar Falls, who is averaging 9.1 assists per set; Reese Naeve of Iowa City Regina, who is averaging 5.2 kills; Bailey Boeve of Hinton, who is averaging 2.2 blocks; Ellie Mueller of Dowling, who is averaging 1.0 blocks and Loycee Palmer of East Mills, who has 387 service attempts and has a 97.7 percentage at the service line.
Dike-New Hartford is on a roll. The two-time defending Class 2A state champions won the Westside Invitational last Saturday at Cedar Rapids Jefferson in impressive fashion. The Wolverines swept Cedar Rapids Washington, Class 4A's No. 6 West Delaware, Class 1A's No. 3 Burlington Notre Dame, Class 3A's No. 6 West Liberty, Class 3A's No. 3 Mount Vernon and Class 4A's No. 3 Marion.
The Bound power rankings differ in four of the five classes from the IGHSAU. Bound has Ankeny No. 1 in 5A, Mount Vernon No. 1 in 3A, Western Christian No. 1 in 2A and North Tama No. 1 in 1A. The only class they agree on is 4A, where each has Cedar Rapids Xavier No. 1.
Several players reached career milestones in the past week. Ellen Waller of Aplington-Parkersburg got her 1,500th kill; Steph Boyer of Waterloo Columbus got her 1,000th dig; Carly Henderson of Riverside got her 500th dig; Emily Boeckman n of Calamus-Wheatland got her 500th dig; Ava Wyatt of Gladbrook-Reinbeck got her 1,000th kill and Annabelle Cormier reached her 500th assist.
Matt Levins is a sports reporter for the USA Today Network in Burlington, Iowa, who has covered local sports for 32 years at The Hawk Eye. Reach him at mlevins@thehawkeye.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Here's a look at how regional volleyball pairings are determined in Iowa HS volleyball
