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Members of the HIADA voting body gathered for the final general assembly on the final day of the 56th annual Hawaii Interscholastic Athletic Directors Association held at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. Brien Ing | SL

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WAIKOLOA, Hawaii — Collaboration and compromise was the theme on the final day of the 56th Annual Hawaii Interscholastic Athletic Directors Association Conference at the Hilton Waikoloa Village Thursday.

The HIADA general assembly passed a measure that will see the Big Island, Maui and Oahu host first-round games for Division I state tournaments in the sports of volleyball, basketball, soccer and girls water polo by a near-unanimous margin.

Beginning in the coming prep sports year, the runners-up of the Big Island Interscholastic Federation, Maui Interscholastic League, Oahu Interscholastic Association and Interscholastic League of Honolulu will host a play-in game on the Monday of the week of 12-team state tournaments. The losers of those games will be eliminated, while the winners will advance to meet league champions in quarterfinal round games to be played Thursday on Oahu. Semifinals and championship finals will be played Friday and Saturday, respectively, also on Oahu.

The result is less potential travel for neighbor island teams — who often face the financial and logistical hardships of participating in state tournaments on Oahu — as well as more state-tournament games for prep sports fans on Maui and the Big Island.

"We're happy with the result," BIIF executive secretary Lyle Crozier said. "We're always in favor of any kind of regional that we can host, so we figure if our second-place team is good enough to win that game, then they'll represent us well on Oahu and, of course, they want to play in the venues on Oahu, like the Stan Sheriff Center."

Like Crozier, MIL executive secretary Joseph Balangitao also thinks the new format will be beneficial for all parties.

"I think it was fair and we're satisfied with how everything went," Balangitao said.

The MIL has previously hosted state tournaments in soccer and volleyball, while the BIIF has put on state tournaments in both volleyball and girls water polo. Both leagues had been in the rotation for both the boys' and girls' volleyball tournaments prior to Thursday's vote. Now, those tournaments — at least, the final three rounds of them — will all be played on Oahu.

"We're giving up water polo and volleyball, but our kids want to play in those venues on Oahu and we felt giving up those things was worth the benefit," Crozier said.

The OIA, meanwhile, will likely feel the effects of the new formatting more than any other league, in terms of travel. In most cases the league's third- and fourth- place teams will be sent to Maui and the Big Island for play-in games.

Despite that, OIA executive secretary Raymond Fujino said it wasn't a hard sell to his league's ADs.

"I think the key was that the theme of the conference was, ‘For the kids,' so I think in doing that the neighbor islands were agreeing that Oahu does have the best championship venues and that will allow them to have some hosting, but also come back to Oahu to play in the Stan Sheriff or Aloha Stadium or the Blaisdell, instead of a high school gym," Fujino said.

All four of the affected leagues voted unanimously in favor of the proposal with the Kauai Interscholastic Federation — whose teams compete exclusively in D2 in all team sports — abstaining their five votes.

"I think it shows cooperation by all the leagues because the Big Island and Maui gave up hosting the whole tournament to make sure that they get to host a home game in each of the tournaments, so it's a concession by all of them," HHSAA executive director Chris Chun said.

Chun noted that there would be no overnight travel for the Oahu teams in the play-in games to help keep expenses at a minimum.

"Air availability permitting, we would schedule it so that they can fly in and fly out on the same day," Chun said.

First-round games on Maui will likely start in the early evening, while those on the Big Island — due to the fact that there are less late-night flights out of both Kona and Hilo — will likely start in the afternoon.

Balangitao does not anticipate that an early start time will have much of an effect on potential gate revenue.

"Whenever there is a regional game or a state tournament on Maui people come out," Balangitao said, citing a regional game in the D1 girls basketball state tournament that was played between Maryknoll and Lahainaluna before a crowd of about 1,500 at the Lahaina Civic Center in 2014.

"Whether it's football, baseball, softball, people will come out and it's only fair to our parents because it costs so much to travel to Oahu to watch their son or daughter play in a state tournament, but now they may be able to watch their son or daughter play in a state tournament game on Maui. We know we have to give-and-take because most of the teams are on Oahu, but as a neighbor island we'd still like to host and have our kids maybe have a chance to play in front of their home crowd."

Last month the MIL and BIIF played hosts to the D1 and D2 state baseball tournaments, respectively, both of which were well-attended.

"It was great for the revenue and even when it rained it was still a good deal of people," Balangitao said of the D1 tournament played at Wailuku's Iron Maehara Stadium.

Chun said that although some league tournaments may end the Saturday before the start of the a state tournament — essentially leaving just one day to finalize things such as seeding and travel plans — he thinks it can be worked around.

"If they end on Saturday the scheduling is going to be tight because we have to seed it after they're finished, so we might have to tweak it to a Tuesday, but we know it's going to be two Oahu teams so we can block flights," said Chun, who added that the host league of the play-in games would be left to determine the exact site of those games.

Even though the proposal passed through a committee vote Wednesday and the HIADA general assembly Thursday, it still requires the approval of the HHSAA executive board, which can approve, deny or amend any of the 21 HIADA recommendations when it meets Friday morning.

Among the other notable measures that passed Thursday was one to hold all field events as single-day finals at the state track meet. After being defeated in committee Wednesday, the BIIF brought it back to the table as a minority report Thursday, where it was approved by a vote of 59 for and 36 against.

Also, the distance of the state cross country meet will go from three miles to five kilometers, and scoring for D1 and D2 teams will be separated although there will still only be one race for each gender.