Under a new format for Division I basketball, volleyball, soccer and girls water polo state tournaments, league runner-ups will host first-round play-in games with winners advancing to an eight-team tournament on Oahu. An example of a possible bracket is pictured above. ScoringLive photo illustration

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WAIKOLOA, Hawaii — As expected Friday morning, the Hawaii High School Athletic Association executive board approved a recommendation out of this week's Hawaii Interscholastic Athletic Directors Association annual conference that will result in more state tournament games played on the neighbor islands.

The HHSAA executive board voted unanimously in favor of the measure, which affects the Division I state tournaments in the sports of volleyball, soccer, basketball and girls water polo.

The original proposal sought to alter the format only for the D1 state softball tournament, but was amended during a straw poll Tuesday to include all D1 12-team tournaments, excluding baseball and softball.

Instead of the traditional schedule for four rounds in four consecutive days, the tournaments will now open with a quartet of play-in games on Monday. The losers of those games — which will be hosted on three different islands with the runners-up of the Big Island Interscholastic Federation, the Maui Interscholastic League, the Interscholastic League of Honolulu and the Oahu Interscholastic Association as the designated home teams — will be eliminated, while the winners will move on to an eight-team tournament on Oahu beginning Thursday and concluding Saturday.

The executive board is made up of the state's five league presidents. Although the Kauai Interscholastic Federation — which competes exclusively in D2 in all team sports — saw its five athletic directors abstain from Wednesday's HIADA general assembly vote, but league president Daniel Hamada voted in favor of the measure at Friday's executive board meeting at the Hilton Waikoloa Village.

The play-in games will be held at sites to be determined by each host league, although HHSAA executive director Chris Chun said Thursday that he anticipates those games will be played at school sites.

It is the latest state tournament schedule to be modified by the HHSAA's regional committee, which had implemented two-week regional formats in boys and girls soccer, girls basketball and boys volleyball.

"I've always been a proponent for years of a regional concept, anyway, and so this is a step in the right direction," Hawaii Preparatory Academy athletic director Steve Perry said. "It's not technically a regional — I've always been partial to a 16-team and four-regional set-up — but this is great in the sense of it only affects those first-round games."

Perry, who was in attendance at the open-door portion of Friday's meeting, said the benefits are two-fold.

"It gives the league runners-up a chance to stay home and if they're successful they know they're going for the three days of play," Perry said. "If they lose they're done and they save some money. I think it's a great idea. I think it's a concept. I'm sure there's going to be some headaches or things to tweak, but I hope it generates something even moreso later on."

All of the 21 recommendations out of HIADA were approved, as presented, by the HHSAA executive board, which was able to approve, deny or amend any recommendation, and will go into effect for the 2016-17 school year. Eighteen of the measures passed unanimously; the other three were split votes.

The OIA and ILH will now host state tournaments independent of each other in the sports of bowling, cross country, golf and tennis. For Perry, it essentially means more travel costs for neighbor island student-athletes and parents.

"In the past if, for instance, both boys and girls golf tournaments are on Oahu, then the ILH runs one and the OIA runs one, or they alternate where the ILH does it that year and then in another four years the OIA will do it," Perry clarified. "It hasn't been any issue as far as I know. Those smaller sports are not huge money-makers. It's not like you have a concession like you do at a basketball tournament. I don't understand the need to host split versus balancing it out one island, one island, one island, one island."

Perry added that because most of the state tournaments for team sports are held on Oahu, so-called "individual team sports" such as golf and tennis had been scheduled for neighbor island venues.

"We have good venues for those sports and it balanced things out, so it kind of gave us a chance to save some money there," Perry said.

During the meeting, OIA executive director Ray Fujino noted that in a 12-team state tournament held on a neighbor island — he cited D2 girls basketball as an example — his league, which is the largest of the five, is required to send over half the tournament field.

The OIA and ILH voted in favor of the measure, while the KIF, MIL and BIIF were opposed. Due to the weighted voting system that is used — each league gets one vote per member school — the neighbor island leagues were denied, 54-42.

Perry, who is the state golf coordinator, also chimed in on another recommendation that won the approval of the executive board that will keep the boys and girls state golf tournaments from overlapping official rounds and practice rounds when held on the same week at the same course, if possible.

"I'm not sure what ‘if possible' means or who's saying that — is that just me saying, ‘No, it's not possible?' but we'll make it work," Perry said.

At last month's David S. Ishii Foundation State Championships at Kauai's Wailua Municipal Golf Course, the final round of the girls' tournament — which saw a four-hole playoff after a 36-hole tie — overlapped with a boys' practice round, but it wasn't much of a factor, Perry said.

"It went smoothly this year. I mean, even with the playoff, it went smoothly. Everyone got their stuff in," Perry said.

"I understand what they're saying, but it just lengthens the whole footprint we've leaving on the golf course and we always try to be considerate of them because they're losing so much money," Perry said. "It's about logistics and then there's a number of officials that travel — not even including myself — but other rules officials and such that come from off-island that have to be there for an extra day."

The ILH and OIA voted in favor of the measure, while the KIF, MIL and BIIF were opposed.

The only other issue that was close was regarding track and field, more specifically holding all field events as single-day finals. The pole vault and high jump events were already conducted in this manner; now the shot put, discus throw, long jump and triple jumps events will also follow suit.

"It should make things more efficient, not only for the administration of the meet, the officials and the coaches and athletes," BIIF track and field coordinator Kimo Weaver said. "I think it's going to be easier for meet officials to run the meet. Always on day one, we're always searching for officials to help run all the events. Currently the format, we have to get all the event (preliminaries) in on day one. This will reduce it by three events."

Weaver also noted that the same format is used by the NCAA and many other state high school associations.