IMHO: Time to crown some true state champions

Deep inside, we cringed. Everyone’s got pet peeves and one we’ve got here is the phrase state champions.

With all due respect to all the teams that won a championship this winter – and in years and seasons past – there are only a handful of sports in which the NHIAA crowns a true state champion. And the only reason for that is that such sports – girls hockey, boys volleyball, bowling and gymnastics – only have one division.

In wrestling, track, skiing, swimming and cross country, individuals who have qualified at the division meets move on to the state competition known as the Meet of Champions. While the individuals who win are then state champs, no team scores are recognized by the NHIAA. Team scores are kept in wrestling, but that’s not official.

In bowling, gymnastics and tennis, individuals compete against everyone else in the state, and again an individual champion is crowned. Or in the case of tennis, a doubles team is crowned.

Concerns with depth, and the potential for injuries, would preclude sports like football and ice hockey teams from playing in a true state championship tournament.

But what about the other sports, specifically basketball, soccer, baseball and softball? It’s not outside the realm of possibility for a team that’s in Division IV to compete with one that’s in Division I in any of those four sports. (The same is true for field hockey, lacrosse and volleyball, but for today’s argument, we’re sticking with sports that are broken into four divisions.)

Here’s the plan: Take the eight teams that reach the championship game from each division. Reseed them for an eight-team tournament, with the Division I champion being the No. 1 seed and the Division IV runner up the No. 8.

How you seed the rest of the teams is debatable, but giving the champions the top four seeds, and then the runners-up the next four seems most logical. That does run the risk of a rematch of championship games in what would be the state semifinals, but it also means the champions from the top two divisions – the teams that are often presumed to be the best by default – wouldn’t meet until the championship game.

Time wouldn’t be a factor, at least not for the fall and winter sports. An eight-team tournament can be played in a week (Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday for boys, Monday-Wednesday-Saturday for girls). Thanks to football, there’s plenty of time between the fall and winter seasons. This year, there was an extra week between the winter season and spring tryouts, but in most years, teams can’t even get on their fields until the first week of April anyway.

The spring season would be a challenge, but since there’s often times a lot of down time between the division semifinals and the championship game – sometimes as much as week – it can be worked out.

To give you a visual, here is what the state tournament would have looked like using the results from this year’s boys and girls basketball division championship games. Division champions are seeded first, going from D1-D4, then second-place teams, again going D1-D4.

Boys Basketball

• No. 8 Sunapee (D4 runner-up) vs. No. 1 Manchester Central (D1 champion)
• No. 5 Merrimack (D1 runner-up) vs. No. 4 Epping (D4 champion)
• No. 7 Campbell (D3 runner-up) vs. No. 2 Pembroke (D2 champion)
• No. 6 Portsmouth (D2 runner-up) vs. No. 3 Conant (D3 champion)

Girls Basketball

• No. 8 Sunapee (D4 runner-up) vs. No. 1 Londonderry (D1 champion)
• No. 5 Bedford (D1 runner-up) vs. No. 4 Hinsdale (D4 champion)
• No. 7 Fall Mountain (D3 runner-up) vs. No. 2 Merrimack Valley (D2 champion)
• No. 6 Coe-Brown (D2 runner-up) vs. No. 3 Campbell (D3 champion)

Is this going to happen in the near future? Probably not, but just like the NHIAA’s planned Super Saturday for football, it would be a major draw.

Editor’s note: IMHO is going to be a weekly feature on the site where someone will express his or her thoughts on a topic involving high school sports, either in New Hampshire or in general.