Lacrosse committees set postseason RPI recommendations, realigns conferences

(Matt Minton/JacksActionShots.com)

AURORA — The lacrosse committees have recommended standard postseason qualification and seeding criteria for both the boys and girls sports, starting with the 2017 seasons.

The committees, which met on Tuesday, also realigned conferences — again, for 2017, not this coming spring season.

The recommendations will now head to the Legislative Council at its April meeting for final approval.

Currently, the girls and boys had different postseason qualifying procedures, though both allow league champions to automatically qualify. The girls use a selection and seeding committee that decides which teams make the 20-team field. The boys have a system whereby a committee votes on the field, with only certain teams eligible (the top 50 percent of each league, plus one team). The 16-team fields are then seeded by a committee.

Under the proposed format, both the boys and the girls would move toward what nearly every other sport has adopted to this point: League champions automatically qualify for the field, and then the rest is filled in based on the final standings in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) of the regular season.

The seeding criteria is also standardized in the recommendation: RPI would be the primary consideration, with slight adjustments allowed due to geography or to avoid league opponents. That adjustment would likely only be a seed or two.

“There was no reason to not align all of lacrosse to look similar in the selection and the seeding,” said Harry Waterman, the CHSAA assistant commissioner in charge of lacrosse. “Both committees worked very well together to find common seeding that worked for everyone.”

The postseason fields would remain at 20 teams (girls) and 16 teams (5A and 4A boys).

The realignment was also done with any eye toward the postseason. Leagues were relatively balanced out in terms of the number of teams, and the committees tried to find some competitive balance, as well.

“They made an attempt to be sure there was competitive balance in every league while maintaining the balance in numbers,” Waterman said. “Now, this would also allow teams to go field a competitive non-league schedule if they so desire as they take the strength-of-schedule component of the RPI into consideration.”

Lacrosse teams play a 15-game regular season. The 5A boys leagues are comprised of seven or eight teams. In 4A, most are six-team leagues with one seven-team league. The girls have five eight-team leagues, one nine-team league, and four independents.

The proposed new league alignment is below.

Girls

Boys

Class 4A

* – 5A team playing in a 4A league.