Jackson's Talk: The IHSA State Series Dilemma

The IHSA state series is designed to pit the strongest runners against each other to see who is truly a state champion. Teams will go through regionals and sectionals to make it to the state meet in hopes to come out with a trophy or a title. Obviously, whenever you get a championship bracket, no matter what sport you play, there is going to be inequity. Some sectionals will be harder than others, it’s just the way that the cookie crumbles. The IHSA has stated, time and time again, that they are looking for geographical representation as well as an even number of schools in a regional more than anything. For the most part, we get a fair state meet with a fair representation of the state. Most teams have learned to roll with the punches, and they have created programs to compete with the teams around them. However, there are flaws that come with this design, and this year highlighted some of those glaring flaws. In this article, we are going to talk about how the sectional assignments were so unbalanced and if we can avoid it in the future. 

A Map of the State Series

If you are knowledgeable on how to qualify to state, feel free to skip this paragraph. Before we get into where things went wrong, we must first know where we’ve been. The state series is the central point of the cross country season, it’s the entire reason teams train hard day in and day out. The idea behind a state series is simple: give schools the chance to compete on the biggest stage the state can offer. We pool the best talent across three classes of institutions and see who comes out on top. In the beginning of Illinois cross country, there was 1 class for all schools. The IHSA realized that this wasn’t fair to smaller schools so they split into AA and A, until eventually they split into 1A, 2A, and 3A. The three class system has provided equal opportunity for schools of all sizes to stand out, and most people agree that it’s a fair system. Within each class, there are different regulations to qualify for the state meet. For both 2A and 3A, there are 12 regionals and 4 sectionals, with 3 regionals assigned to a sectional. In order to qualify out of the 12 regionals, you must either be a member of the top 6 scoring teams at the regional, or a top 5 individual not on a scoring team. Those who qualify will race at their assigned sectional. To qualify to the state meet, you must either be a member of a top 7 team in the sectional, or a top 10 individual who is not on a qualifying team. In 1A, there are 15 regionals and 5 sectionals, with 3 regionals assigned to a sectional. In order to qualify out of regionals, you must be a member of a top 7 team in your regional, or a top 5 individual not on a qualifying team. Those qualifiers will move on to sectionals, where they need to be on a top 6 team in their sectional, or a top 10 individual that’s not on a qualifying team. Because of the survive and advance nature of the state series, only the best teams make it to the state meet, which creates the heightened level of competition we see every year. But with that, if there is any unbalance at all, the survive and advance nature doesn’t benefit the state series in the slightest. What happens when there are more than 7 teams in a sectional that deserve to be at the state meet. The better question is how does that even occur? 

The Flaws of the State Series

One of the other things that the IHSA focuses on when creating the state series is geographical representation. When assigning teams into regionals and sectionals, their main goal is to put teams against teams that are close by. Their method of divvying up the different teams into regionals and sectionals is not known by me, but usually, they do a pretty good job of keeping teams close to home. The geographical method is decent, but it does mean that certain areas are at a disadvantage to others. There are anomalies in the state of Illinois, where certain areas are just stock full of incredible talent. The schools in these areas have a much harder time qualifying out of their assigned regional and sectional than others, simply because of who they are surrounded by. It’s not by any mechanism of the IHSA that makes these areas good or bad, it’s simply how things end up. An example of an area like that would be the northern suburbs of Chicago or the small towns around Peoria. The northern suburbs are full of incredible cross country programs, and they often have the hardest sectional in the midsize classification, 2A. The small towns of Peoria are home to some of the best 1A teams in the state, so their sectional is equally as difficult. Part of it is because of the size of the schools in the area. The northern suburbs are home to some of the biggest 2A schools in the class, and you see the same thing with the Peoria area 1A schools. Because of how these teams are laid out, we usually get 1 sectional per classification that is much more difficult to qualify out of than any of the others. Many people have names for it, I call them the super-sectionals. Normally, the super-sectionals aren’t so difficult that excellent teams legitimately aren’t given a chance, but this year had one of the worst instances of an unbalanced sectional we have ever seen. 

The Failures of the 2025 Season

The super-sectionals hit the state hard this year and it was across all 3 classes. In 1A, the Elmwood sectional featured an absolute entourage of talent on the boys side, with #1 Eureka, #3 Elmwood, #4 El Paso Gridley, #6 Illini Bluffs, and #7 Clinton. That’s 5 of the top 7 teams in 1A, and they instantly fill up 5 of the 6 qualifying spots. That leaves 1 spot left between #20 Downs Tri-Valley, #22 Williamsville, #23 Delavan, #24 Pleasant Plains. That’s four ranked teams all going for 1 single spot, and it ended up going to #24 Pleasant Plains. That means that there are 3 teams who are contending for a top 25 spot in 1A that won’t even see the state meet. In 2A, the super-sectional was at Lakes, and both genders saw some unbelievable teams. The girls side, however, was the least fair by far, with #2 Wheaton St. Francis, #3 Prairie Ridge, #4 Crystal Lake South, #5 Wheaton Academy, #6 St. Viator, #8 Deerfield. That’s 6 of the top ten teams in 2A that take up 6 of the 7 available qualifying spots. When you look at the competition for the seventh spot, you would absolutely lose your mind. #15 Cary Grove, #19 Belvidere North, #20 Crystal Lake Central, #21 Boylan Catholic, #22 Grayslake Central and #23 Lakes were all looking for the final qualifying spot. The real kicker is that any of these teams would’ve been in prime position for qualifying if you put them in the Bensonville (Fenton) sectional. There are other examples, like the Lake Park 3A girls, or the Lakes 2A boys, but the examples that I showed you already paint the picture. The sectionals were very unbalanced this year, but it’s not exactly anyone’s fault. The IHSA doesn’t create sectionals to make it fair and easy to qualify, so there’s not really a way to place any blame. However, geographic representation wasn’t exactly achieved either, so let’s take a closer look at the sectional assignments this year to see where this imbalance is coming from. 

Driving Past Fenton to Get to Lakes…

I’m going to use the 2A Lakes sectional because it was (in my opinion) the most difficult sectional to qualify out of. When you take a look at the list of teams that are placed into Lakes, you’ll notice a large variety of schools. Dixon has traditionally been placed in the northern sectional, even though they typically drive close to two and a half hours to compete. If they were put in the Geneseo sectional, they would only have to drive 1 hour. When looking at the trip that the Aurora schools have to take (Marmion Academy and Central Catholic), it’s much more manageable, only an hour and thirty minutes. However, when you look at the route they take, they literally drive through Bensenville on the way to Lakes. It would be a thirty minute trip instead of an hour and a half if they were placed in the right sectional. As far as geographic representation goes, this was not an ideal year for it. However, with a few swaps to the regionals, you can see a more accurate view of where teams should be.

A Three Way Swap

There are three regionals that aren’t exactly in the right place. The Sterling regional, geographically, is closest to the Geneseo sectional, but it feeds into the Lakes sectional. The Dolton Thornridge regional feeds into Geneseo, but it’s on the south side of Chicago which makes no sense. It should feed into the Bensenville Fenton sectional instead. And then you’ve got Bensenville Fenton itself, they shouldn’t even be hosting the sectional for the Chicago schools considering that BF is close to an hour outside of the city. BF hosted both a regional and a sectional, but their regional had a ton of teams that should’ve gone to Lakes instead of the Chicago sectional. If you swap these three regionals and put them where they are supposed to be, you get an accurate geographical representation of 2A. 

Bensenville (Fenton)	Geneseo	Lake Villa (Lakes)
Chicago (Latin)	Bartonville (Limestone)	Grayslake (Central)
Chicago (De La Salle)	Metamora	Woodstock
Dolton (Thornridge)	Sterling	Bensenville (Fenton)

This regional-to-sectional assignment gives us a more accurate representation on a map than the original assignments. However, with these regionals swapped, we run into another problem.

Better, but not perfect

If we were to make the changes I listed above, Lakes gets deflated a ton, meaning some really good teams now get to compete at the state meet. However, on the boys side, the super-sectional is now Geneseo, because moving the Sterling regional moves 5 ranked teams from Lakes into the Geneseo sectional. So how does this keep popping up? Well, the answer lies in the regional assignments. If you look at the teams that are assigned to the Sterling regional as well as the teams that are assigned to the Bartonville Limestone regional, there are a few names that jump out. The first two names are Aurora Central Catholic and Marmion Academy, two schools from the western suburbs. These teams are travelling an unreal distance to compete in their regional, when they could go to the much closer regionals, either Bensenville Fenton or Dolton Thornridge. The second name is Kaneland, who isn’t driving quite a distance, but still has closer options. Kaneland is much closer to Woodstock and Bensenville Fenton, so why not just have them assigned there? The final name is Morris, they currently compete at the Bartonville Limestone regional. They are much closer to Dolton Thornridge than any other regional, but Morris is kind of in an unfortunate place because they have to drive over an hour for any regional assignment. If you paid attention to the schools I just mentioned, you’ll notice they all have something in common. They are all located west of Chicago, and are in the awkward place where every section is equally distant from each other. The closest sectional is the Bensenville Fenton sectional, but it can still be close to an hour away for Kaneland and Morris depending on traffic. This leads to the next point that I want to talk about, which is concentration of schools in an area. 

Concentration

One thing that can be difficult for the IHSA to work out is how to get the numbers even. What I mean by that is that there’s supposed to be an equal number of schools in a regional. I’m going to continue to use 2A as an example, so with 144 member schools in 2A and 12 regionals for those 144 schools, you get roughly 12 schools in a regional. Because the IHSA wants to keep the numbers even while also keeping geographic representation a priority, sometimes schools get grouped into a regional that isn’t convenient or representative of their area. I will use the western suburb schools that I used in the previous section as an example here. There are few schools that have the enrollment size for 2A that reside in the western suburbs. If you look at where the majority lies, it’s actually in the Chicago Public Schools. Out of the 144 schools in 2A, over 30 of them are CPS member schools. This means that there is a large concentration of 2A schools in the city of Chicago, which requires there to be a sectional specifically devoted to city schools. If you look in the western suburbs, there are only 14 2A schools in the area (and I was generous because I counted Sycamore and Lemont as western suburb schools).

1. Aurora Central Catholic

2. Marmion

3. Illinois Math and Science Academy

4. Hinsdale South

5. Timothy Christian

6. Joliet Catholic Academy

7. Montini Catholic

8. Lemont

9. Kaneland

10. Morris

11. Providence Catholic

12. Sycamore

13. Wheaton Academy

14. Wheaton St. Francis

Because there aren't enough schools in the area, these schools get spread out into the various regionals, and don’t get represented geographically. This is all due to the concept of concentration; the IHSA creates a sectional where there are more schools, and splits up the areas with less schools. However, this list is actually bigger than it usually is. Aurora Central Catholic, Timothy Christian, and Montini Catholic were all in 1A last year, but due to the reclassification that the IHSA went through over the summer, all three got bumped up due to a multiplier in enrollment. This means that the original number of west suburban schools in 2A was actually 9 (if we’re not counting Sycamore or Lemont), which is not enough for a regional. So this might actually be the first year ever where a regional was necessary for the western suburbs. 

Can it be Fixed?

The simple answer is not really. I genuinely believe that the system of qualifying for state is as good as it can get, even though it is unfair at times. There is not really a way the IHSA can order schools around to places that they can’t easily get to, and schools will protest if the IHSA tries. There are a few potential solutions that I had thought of, each solution has its pros and cons. The first solution would be having permanent assignments, with no yearly change. This solution creates a sense of security in a way because schools know exactly who they will go up against each year. It allows them to prepare for the competition better and it means there isn’t as much uncertainty going into the sectional meets. However, the cons are bigger, because if you don’t create the sectionals even from the start, then there will always be one sectional that is harder than the rest and it’s not subject to change. The other solution I had thought of was creating a football-esque playoff bracket. The IHSA could operate on a rankings system, much like the college AP poll, and could facilitate a seeding to each member school. Then, they could set up sectionals evenly by splitting up the seeds evenly. The pros here would be a fair competition at the sectionals, since the competition is divided equally. The cons are that the schools hovering on the border of the top 28-30 teams in the state would not even be given a chance to compete in the state series. The third solution I’ll mention (though I have many more), is the bid system. The IHSA would change the automatic qualifying teams from 7 to 3, which still guarantees geographic representation, but then the other 16 spots are handed out based on a point pooling system. Basically, whichever the next best 16 teams are, based on whatever metrics the IHSA would choose to use, would get their spot at the state meet. These are just a few ideas, but in my opinion, the system we have now is better than all of them. However, this is the only place in this article where I will openly criticize the IHSA, because this year did see a problem. Last spring, we saw a huge change in classifications, lots of schools moved up and down the ladder. 2A got a plethora of new schools, and a number of them were in the western suburban area. I believe that the IHSA should’ve created a regional to represent these western suburban schools, but they didn’t for reasons beyond my comprehension. It would solve nearly all of the issues that the super-sectionals create, and it upholds their value of geographic representation as well. Instead, these schools were spread out into the other various regionals where they made it much harder for other schools to qualify to state. So, can it be fixed? Not really, because all possible solutions would need major fine tuning before being made official. Could it have been made more fair this year with the system we already have? Yes, it absolutely could’ve been. But that’s just the hand we were dealt this fall, and we will still saw one of the greatest state meets in history in spite of it. So, in all honesty, the best solution to this problem is to just get over it and roll with the punches. The more you understand the challenges in front of you, the better equipped you will be to overcome them. If you prepare yourself for the sectional of doom as best you can, then you shouldn’t have to worry about it being full of good teams. At the end of the day, the teams that didn’t qualify should end their season knowing that they did everything they could to make it as far as they could. Here at Illinois Running News, we want to extend a congratulations to those teams, because we know just how fast you were and we think you all had an incredible season. Thank you for toughing it out, and we will see you all next year!