Athletic directors in attendance gathered for the HIADA general assembly Sunday morning. Kalani Takase | SL

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WAIKOLOA, Hawaii — The highly-debated double-regional proposal that was the hot topic of the weekend at the 54th annual Hawaii Interscholastic Athletic Directors Association Convention is one step closer to becoming a reality.

On the final day of the three-day conference at the Hilton Waikoloa Village on the West side of the Big Island saw the measure pass by a vote of 64 for to 31 opposed with four abstentions by the HIADA general assembly Sunday morning.

The proposal, which was introduced by Hawaii High School Athletic Association executive director Chris Chun, would alter the format for the D1 boys and girls soccer and volleyball state tournaments next school year. Instead of the four regional sites used for last year's D1 boys volleyball and girls basketball state tourneys under the pilot program, there would be just two regionals on the opening weekend — one on Oahu and the other alternating between the Big Island and Maui.

The champions from the two Oahu leagues — the Oahu Interscholastic Association and the Interscholastic League of Honolulu — would remain on their home island in one regional, while the Big Island Interscholastic Federation and Maui Interscholastic League champs would be the seeded teams in the neighbor island regional. Teams advancing out of the regionals would then converge on Oahu for the second weekend of the tournament.

"It's kind of neat because we'd be expanding the tournament — we had a total of two tournaments (under the regional format) last year, but now we'll have four next year," Chun said.

In a straw poll Friday, a committee of athletic directors voted in favor of the proposal, 24-0, with 22 abstentions — mostly coming from OIA administrators. The same committee narrowly passed the measure, 23-22, with one abstention. Despite receiving the recommendation of the HIADA body Sunday, the HHSAA Executive Board can accept, reject or amend the proposal at a meeting Monday morning.

"Like always, we go in there with the idea that these are going to pass, but we don't get our hopes up too much, because things like that can happen at the board meeting where they vote against it," BIIF executive secretary Lyle Crozier said.

The OIA once again opposed the measure Sunday, casting all of its 31 of its votes against it.

"The pilot was supposed to be for boys volleyball and girls basketball for one year and then we would revisit it — that's why we were against it — we thought we were going to improve upon that, but this is a while new thing and we weren't ready to accept it," OIA executive secretary Raymond Fujino said. "We just wanted more details as to why it became a whole new concept when we were still working off the first concept."

Proponents of the proposal felt that the change to a two-week format was long overdue for the soccer state tournaments, which have long been played over four consecutive days at one site.

"Soccer is exciting to see what will happen because we'll get more D2 games in the stadium and then the D1 games, from the quarterfinals, will be played like feature games, too," Chun said.

It can be a daunting task for non-seeded teams to have to play four games in as many days — which the Aiea girls soccer team did this year. Na Alii, which finished sixth in the OIA tournament, made an unlikely run to the D1 state title game, but ultimately ran out of gas, falling to eventual-champion Kamehameha, 4-0.

Another measure that passed Sunday seeks to include the BIIF in the rotation for the D2 basketball state tournaments. The proposal, which was brought to the general assembly floor as a minority report from the league, passed 48-36 with 11 abstentions.

"We've done well in the past in those tournaments and we think that our island and the other neighbor islands would represent Division II really well and by hosting a tournament at the (Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium in Hilo), I think the HHSAA could make a lot of money," Crozier said.

However, the proposal did not cite specifics such as when it would be implemented, how often the tournament would rotate off Oahu or whether it would be for both boys and girls tourneys.

"That one I have to clarify because there's no guidelines as far as how often or when it would begin, so we'll try and figure that out at the board meeting if it passes (Monday)," Chun said.

Other notable measures passed Sunday included the increase of participants for the boys and girls air riflery (42 to 60), bowling (80 to 100) and cross country (160 to 200) state tournaments. Also, the body voted to change the weight classes for girls wrestling and voted against a proposal to eliminate the D2 cross country state tournament.