OPINION: It’s time for MHSAA to adopt playoff seeding in volleyball
Last May, the Representative Council of the Michigan High School Athletic Association decided to make changes to the postseason for football, basketball, and soccer.
Notably, the council decided it was time to begin seeding districts for both basketball and soccer, wherein the top two teams in each district would be seeded in opposite sides of the bracket in order to keep them from playing until a potential district championship contest.
My question is, why wasn’t volleyball included in that?
Volleyball is no different than either of those two sports in regards to how the postseason is formatted. Each year, districts are put together and the teams in each district are randomly placed into the bracket.
Because of that, we get a lot of instances where the top two teams meet before a championship is at stake. In the case of Lake Orion and Clarkston, the two met up Monday in a pre-district match.
Clarkston ended the regular season as our fifth-ranked team in Division 1 while Lake Orion, the 2018 state champs, was ranked No. 15.
The two are in a competitive district, but there’s not much argument that they would be No. 1 and No. 2 in said district if seeding was done.
I had the pleasure of watching the Wolves and Dragons battle it out last night and the environment was that of a district championship, because many in the gym probably believed the winning team would be the eventual champion.
Lake Orion won in four sets, including an incredible 31-29 fourth set. Clarkston, which was 42-6 after the loss with a league championship to its credit, saw its season come to an end in the blink of an eye.
“You play all season long and you work hard all season long, to have this be your first round of playoffs while a lot of other teams get a bye, it’s a tough pill to swallow,” Clarkston coach Kelly Pinner said when asked about seeding. “I know you have to beat the best to be the best eventually, but we should probably face each other (in the finals) rather than (the district opener). It’s definitely something that should be looked at.”
Before you go and say that Clarkston is just crying over spilled milk, Lake Orion coach Tony Scavarda agreed.
“There’s a lot of teams that are just going to walk to the quarterfinals that aren’t going to have to do anything like (beat a top-10 team),” he said. “Every year, sometimes first match of districts, we have to do something like this. I would like to see them come up with a little better format where the top teams don’t face each other right out the gate.”
If I had to place a bet, I would bet that most coaches in the state agree with these two. On Monday alone you had Stoney Creek and Utica Eisenhower meet in D1, Corunna and Mt. Morris meet in D2, Country Day and Lutheran North meet in D2, and Harbor Beach and Unionville-Sebewaing meet in D3. Maybe all of these matches wouldn’t be district finals, but seeding the top two teams would give the opportunity for the best championship matches possible. At Lake Orion alone, Oxford and Holly aren’t easy victories, but neither has had the season the Wolves have.
I reached out to the MHSAA about volleyball and postseason seeding and they indicated that it’s seemingly a matter of “when” and not “if”. It’s simply a matter of the volleyball community coming up with a consensus plan and going through the appropriate process.
I personally don’t think the seeding should stop at the district level either. There’s really no reason that regional brackets and semifinal brackets can’t be re-seeded.
The teams that make up a district can’t really be altered much due to location. But the regional fields are all pre-determined. Once the four teams qualify, they could easily be seeded by a trusted panel that was in cooperation with the MHSAA. The same can be said for the semifinals. After the quarterfinal stage, re-seed the remaining four teams.
This really isn’t a ground-breaking idea. Wrestling takes the eight quarterfinal teams and seeds them 1-8 before they compete in Kalamazoo for finals weekend every year.
The whole point of the postseason is for the best teams to meet up to compete for a championship. The current format allows for a level of luck to determine just who competes for those titles. While not all luck can be removed from the equation, why not take out as much as you can? Give the regular season a little more value and reward the teams that have played a competitive schedule and been successful.
I don’t have all the answers as to who would determine the seeding, but a panel of 10 people located around the state would be a good start. There’s plenty of knowledgeable volleyball minds out there. I will be happy to volunteer my services right now.
It’s about making the sport the best it can be and evolving with the times. Seeding is the next step volleyball needs to take and it’s something that can be easily done.
Drew Ellis is a contributor to PrepDig Michigan and can be contact via email at drewaellis1982@gmail.com