How Does Your State Determine Who Competes at the State Meet?

All classifications in Idaho utilize a set number of qualifiers from each district to field 16 kids at the state meet.

The largest classification uses 2 individuals from north Idaho, 4 individuals from east Idaho, and 9 individuals from the Boise area. There is also one more "at-large" spot that is purely based on time.

We also have an additional rule that if a runner that is out of the qualifying position is faster than the 8th fastest overall qualifier (called the rule of 8), then that runner is also into the state meet. What's significant is that the CDA boys will only get 2 guaranteed runners, but they could potentially grab the at large and force another runner in. The Boise area can never grab one of those additional rule of 8 spots. East Idaho teams are competing at 4500', so it's rare that any at large distance spots come from there.

The system is okay, but you get seasons like this one where the 10th fastest time in the Boise area is 9:39, while 11th and 12th are 9:41. North Idaho has 8:57, 9:01, 9:26, 9:33 for their top times, while east Idaho has 10:04 for their 4th fastest time, which grabs one of those auto spots.

The girls is worse as the Boise area has 15 girls under 11:30, while east Idaho's 4th fastest girl has run 11:55...

This is more or less what we do in CA. 1-6 athletes per section (Southern gets 6, the other sections get no more than 3, the small sections get 1). Then there are the auto qualification times/distances/heights. Those have to be earened at the section championships though. Nothing can carry over from March

I was looking at our state list and in almost every event, there is a mark in the top 4-6 that has been there since mid march or before. It makes no sense for someone to get advanced to the state meet in June if they haven't replicated their qualifying mark for 3 months.

Louisiana is entirely on a district/regional/state system for outdoors. Nothing during the regular season matters. This year there are seven separate classes based on school, but next year they're going down to six. There are a few slight qualifying differences for some of the smallest classes, but this is how it generally works:

District: max two individual entries in each event per school. Most districts are 6-8 teams, I think the smallest districts have 5 teams and the biggest have 10. Top four individuals (and top four relay teams) from each event go to regionals.

Regionals: Each class has three regions. Most regions have three districts, but a few have four. So typically each individual event will have 12 competitors, sometimes 16. Top three qualify to state.

State: nine entries in each event. No prelims for anything, just finals. All events for a given class take place in one day.

Some of the districts are very uneven in terms of quality. One district has a 12:34 girl missing out on regionals while another girl will make it to regionals with an 18:41 (and get lapped multiple times by girls who have broken 10:50). But the regions are a little more balanced. I understand the impulse to see better competitors make it to state, but if you're #5 in your district or #4 in your region you probably wouldn't make the podium at state.

Frankly, I much prefer it this way to a time-based system. We have that for indoor, with all five qualifying meets either at LSU or McNeese. Those regular season meets usually end up being miserable all-day experiences, with endless heats of the 400 and various other sprints. I have zero interest in attending a meet like that (I'm a HS teacher and XC coach, but I don't coach track). Nor do I want to sit through some outdoor invitational meet where a bunch of people are just out there chasing times.

But a district meet against our biggest rivals, or regionals with spots on the line for state, or a state championship meet? That's something interesting to me as a fan. It's like rojo always says, we don't need more meets, we need more meets that matter. High-stakes, win-or-go-home action is good viewing. Not, "Oh, little Suzy had a bad day, but her time from earlier this year might get her in, so we just have to sit around and wait for all the other district meets to end." Top four get to regionals, top 3 get to state. That's easy to understand and fun to watch.

I get that a system with some at-large spots might make sense for some states, where the quality can be extremely uneven. There was some talk of trying to go to a time-based system in Louisiana, but the track coaches weren't too interested. I just think it adds too many complications in terms of certifying all the regular season meets, making sure everyone has working wind gauges, etc. I also think it would unfairly reward the richer schools that can afford to go to more meets to chase times.

Rhode Island is different for indoors vs outdoors.

Indoor is just top 24 performances in each individual event, top 16 for relays.

Outdoors - you need to reach a qualifying time at select invitationals, Divisional, or Class meet. No qualification is needed for Divisional or Class meets. Anyone who doesn't qualify for states can participate in the JV state meet.

Trust me that no one is thanking the committee right now. No one understands what it takes to qualify or what's going on. Coaches from other teams are asking me (three teams so far) and I am not in charge of it. I would guess there are going to be some very upset coaches as we go through this process.

Used to be top 6 in regionals 40 years ago but no idea now in Va

Coach. I'm sorry that the communication from the section office has been so poor. We went over the process, in detail, at the pre season league reps meeting. Those reps should have shared this info with all of the coaches at your pre season league meeting.

I get it. The process is confusing, especially if you're trying to read through the documents on the section websites. I'll write up a document that is a little more clear.

Qualifications from League Meets to Divisional Trials and From Divisional Trials to Finals are found in section E of theDivisional meet format document.

Qualifications for Masters can be found in section S of the Divisional finals document.

Let me help you out. The documents are contained here:

cifsjs.org

Track Field - CIF Sac-Joaquin - CIF Sac-Joaquin

The official home of CIF Sac-Joaquin. Stay updated with schedules, scores, and news.

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Whatever you posted doesn't work.

Like I said, I am the one they are coming to to explain it. There should be one document that explains qualifying all the way through. Not these documents with a bunch of typos and old information that isn't being updated in time (months ago).

I will write it up this weekend

Just learned something new about Ohio as we're creeping towards tournament time. It's always been the first four from districts into regionals, then the first four from regionals onto state, plus the next 2 fastest times across all regions. (for a total of 18 athletes at State).

Cut to 2026, with 5 divisions instead of 3.

D1 simply has no district level, just a "super-regional", but at regionals across the state, now the first five qualify, plus the next three fastest times; regionals reduced from four sites to just three. So still 18 athletes, just likely going to confuse some people.

One daughter is still in middle school where the rules also changed this year. It's always been just the first 24 best athletes in each event. No divisions, just the top 24. This year they divided schools into two divisions (A and B), so two state champions will be anointed in each event (one meet for both divisions taking turns). Oddly the divisions have nothing to do with school size, but simply geography. NE, E, and Central Ohio is Division A, with the NW, SW, and SE in Division B.

And now using Athletic.Net for meet entries and rankings instead of MileSplit...except some meets still using Milesplit (not confusing at all). Very strange year. Milesplit has my 8th grader's 1600 p.r. at 5:46 when it's 5:17, but has my high-schooler correct.

Then Milesplit had a "vote for the girl of the week" poll, and included Justin Evans (a boy from Little Miami) in the poll (and he's still in the poll).

oh.milesplit.com

Ohio Girls Performer of the Week (Apr. 20-26)

MileSplit Staff

Vote now for who you think had the top performance this past week.

Open link

Fun times.

There's a lot going on in Ohio! Is D1 the smallest school division? That would make sense to cut out the District qualifying in that case. The Middle School thing makes sense too as I suspect most Middle Schools don't have budgets to travel far so keeping it geographical would be best.

MileSplit has certainly fallen on hard times. At least half of the meets I look at these days the results are simply text pages with no links to athlete profiles, so the profiles don't get updated with PR's. I wonder if this was done on purpose to push meets to use their live results service (which is also terrible, by the way.)

Utah - All of the above. There is a qualification standard set based on 8th place finishes averaged over several years. The top 2 finishers at region or more based on region size. And there is a performance list to fill out the rest of the available spots determined by classification size. Does this water down the state meet? Probably, but you certainly don't miss any of the best athletes because of an off day.

Well the middle school state meet is still at the same location; Hilliard Darby High School in Columbus, so people are still going to have to travel to Columbus. Division A is going to race first, then B, in each event. I think the main idea was just to give more MS kids a chance to get to state instead of just taking the top 24 overall (now it's 16 from each Division that get to go).

And as far as D1 in Ohio, that's the largest schools but yes it's also the smallest Division, with about 75 schools, Divisions 2-5 each have roughly 150 schools in them.

And one more change which I personally find the most interesting; Day 1 of tournament track always had prelims and the 4 x 800. New this year Day 1 includes the 4 x 800 but also the 3200 (about 2.5 hours later) at districts, regionals, and state. So now with the 3200 and 1600 on separate days you're going to see a lot more athletes going for a double in the 32 and 16. On the flip side a lot of your best 3200 runners are probably also on a good 4 x 800. Drama.

"Athletes can do four events."

This is truly bizarre. A seventh grade girl can run the 3200, 1600, 800, and 4x8 (and likely a prelim or two) but a high school senior boy who throws the discus and javelin, and puts the shot, as well as triple jumps, is forbidden from high jumping or long lumping. Who is the rule trying to protect?

A slight counter argument is that those kids don’t have the competition to push them to run faster. In Illinois we have some 1A sectionals where a 4:50 will win. In IL the top two kids from each sectional race go to state, plus anybody else who hits a qualifying time. The prelim heats Thursday-Friday weed out the slower kids and then the finals on Saturday are the fastest kids. I think it’s a good system because kids who otherwise wouldn’t face much real competition at least have that experience at state.