How playoff changes may affect paths to stay in the postseason longer

CAPTION: The Marble Falls Lady Mustangs have been the most consistent program to advance to the playoffs during the last two decades, including last season when graduate Lexie Edwards and her team almost pulled off a big bi-district win against Waco Connally. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro

Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series. Read part one here.

The University Interscholastic League will crown twice as many state champions in volleyball, basketball, soccer, baseball and softball as the result of its legislative council passing an amendment to split divisions in those sports.

The council passed that amendment June 11. It has gone to Education Commissioner Mike Morath, who is believed will sign it in time for the 2024-25 school year.

Having Division I and Division II in each of those sports follows the format of Class 6A football. The teams play their district schedules in an effort to finish in the top four of the race. At the end of the regular season, the top four teams that clinch playoff berths have their enrollment numbers looked at by the district chair. The two teams with largest enrollment play in Division 1, while the other two go to Division 2.

“I’ve read people say it’s another way to hand out participation trophies,” Marble Falls High School softball coach Alex Lozoya said. “I’m not talking about participation trophies. This helps teams that have really good seasons and programs or teams that are getting hot at the right time.”

Basketball coaches John Berkman of the Marble Falls High School boys program and Rick Gates, who was the girls athletic coordinator at Burnet Consolidated Independent School District, noted the proposed change means that one round of the playoffs is eliminated.

Gates pointed out another interesting turn of events with this amendment.

Two seasons ago, Waco La Vega looked like the team to beat in Class 4A girls basketball going into the 2022-23 season. The Lady Pirates had been to the state tournament a year earlier. And coaches in Burnet County knew that their district’s champion— District 24-4A — would meet La Vega in the regional quarterfinals or the third round of the playoffs if the games turned out the way they believed they would.

That 2022-23 season La Vega beat Marble Falls and last year the Lady Pirates went 2-0 against Burnet County by beating the Lady Dawgs. La Vega won the state title the last two years.

Now that the UIL is proposing split divisions, will coaches have such a clear hunch about the favorite?

Or what if a district is so evenly matched that playoff berths come down to the final game or a play-in game? And it’s unclear which squad will go in which division because of the enrollment numbers?

Or how to have a clear path to a longer stay in the playoffs?

In 2008-09, the Lady Mustangs were two years removed from their only state tournament appearance and had been to the Class 4A Region IV tournament twice going into that season. But their head coach, Stephanie Gamble, believed Marble Falls, which was the defending District 25-4A champion, wasn’t going to take a step backward.

Motivated by a number of factors that season, the Lady Mustangs won a share of the district crown with Killeen High. So when it came time to decide which team would enter the postseason as the district’s No. 1 seed, Gamble was prepared. She and varsity assistant coach Carrie Grona, who is now the Fredericksburg head coach, knew the region’s top team was Cibolo Steele and that District 25’s No. 1 seed would meet the Lady Knights in the third round of the playoffs.

So Killeen and Marble Falls flipped a coin for the seedings. Gamble won and chose to enter the postseason as the district’s runner-up. The Lady Mustangs returned to the regional tournament. Killeen lost to Steele in the third round.

“It’s tough to predict and look ahead,” Gates said. “You don’t know who your bi-district opponent is going to turn out. Depending on who makes the playoffs, it could go either way.”

Ironically, the proposed amendment eliminates either the area round, the second round, or the regional quarterfinals. And regional tournaments the way they’ve been played for decades will change, too.

Now the four coaches who advance to the regional semifinals have the option of agreeing to meet at the same location and play a doubleheader on the same night and the final the next day or not.

Berkman pointed out that in the last four years, Boerne and Fredericksburg, who finish in the top two of their same district, met in the Class 4A Region IV final in Kingsville, site of the tournament.

The chatter from residents in those two cities was why were the teams going that far to play each other a third time?

“If we played closer, could we get more fans?” Berkman said. “In our region (III), we’d have to drive all the way to Bryan (High School). Three years ago, it would have been Lufkin. So, there are some things like that that make sense in the long run overall.”

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