Kaua‘i, St. Anthony present DII dilemma
May 10th, 2008 by WesWatching the Division II baseball state championship game between Kaua‘i and St. Anthony right now, and as expected, it’s pretty high-quality competition. No surprise, because these two teams were impressive in the Division I state tournament last year, with many of the same players back.
Which kind of presents a dilemma of sorts: On the one hand, this is the ideal DII final matchup, with two schools of smaller enrollments from smaller backgrounds, yet playing great baseball.
There’s no “paper mismatch” with tiny St. Anthony playing giant Punahou, for example.
On the other hand, because Kaua‘i and St. Anthony are so good, out of curiosity it makes you wonder how they would have fared in the Division I tournament. After all, Kaua‘i reportedly beat several DI teams in nonleague action and St. Anthony went 11-2 against mixed competition in the MIL, including a victory over league champion Maui High.
Today’s two pitchers — Michael Jahns of St. Anthony and Kaua‘i’s David Jordan-Buster — each were named Player of the Year in their respective leagues last season and I could see either of them winning a DI state tournament game.
And don’t forget, twice in the past 10 years, we had a small DII-type school (Moloka‘i) win the whole shebang.
I don’t know how the coaches and players think, but I would understand their feelings either way. Playing for a state title, against a school of relatively similar makeup and resources, has to be a thrill and satisfying. But there’s also a thrill in being the giant-killer, the small Neighbor Island underdog who knocks off the big-city juggernaut.
When you have a talented, veteran team like Kaua‘i or St. Anthony, the desire might be there to play the best of the best, and see how far you can take it.
Anyway, this year, it is what it is and what we have is a great Division II title game between two great smaller programs. Can’t ask for much better in the inaugural year of DII.
May 11th, 2008 at 9:21 am
With Punahou winning it’s fifth straight D-1 state title, maybe St Anthony and Kauai are ahead of the curve. Maybe more schools would want to compete in D-II and let Punahou, St Louis and Mid Pac have D-I all to themselves. Doesn’t Iolani and Pac-5 have small school enrollments?
May 12th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Your entry simply revisits the question of whether D-I and D-II rules make any kind of sense. I’m for having an enrollment-based classification system with a school in the same classification for all sports. A D-1 school would have no options, but a D-II school could elect to play in any sport at D-I by making a commitment of at least two years (there’s a part of me that prefers four).
Seeing Campbell, with its enrollment, as a D-II boys volleyyball school makes no sense.
Under this system, though, Kauai and St Anthony’s would have options for next season (again, for a two year commitment): would they prefer to go the giant-killer route or compete against schools with similar resources?
May 13th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Kauai High is the 19th largest public high school in the state with 1,271 students. St. Anthony has something like 235 students in grades 9-12. Just for the record, per DOE enrollment figures for the current school year.
Yes, both play like D-I programs — because both are.
At least if you accept the flawed basis for determining D-I and D-II teams (and not SCHOOLS) in our not so fair Islands. Your assumption that D-II teams are children of a lesser god is flat wrong — from the common sense end of the spectrum to the morality end of the spectrum.
In fact, why can’t a D-II team be better than any other team in the state? As long as the HHSAA pushes losing teams towards D-II and elevates winning teams to D-I, Hawaii’s high school athletic reputation will soon become a joke nationwide. (I was trying to explain it to a high school coach in Texas this past weekend, and all he could say was, “That’s stupid!”
And if anyone can tell me which teams at which schools are D-I or D-II in which sports, and which teams have been D-I or D-II at which schools in which sports the past, say, three years, then I’ll stop my “whining.” And I’ll give you until Friday morning to do it. Good luck.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Has anyone ever done an example of how a population based system would look like? What schools would be D-II? I think some people would be suprised.
May 14th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I agree with K-Tom that most people outside Hawaii would be shocked or confused by our DI and DII classification systems.
A mock classification per what Mr. Mathews could be undertaken, though the following are some of the questions that would need to be answered:
1. Should the dividing line between larger and smaller schools be the average (median or mean) of school sizes in each league or the average statewide? A statewide ranking would have almost all of the OIA “traditional” schools in DI–there would be some exceptions but not many. Does having almost all the OIA in division I make sense? I’d create a hybrid that is largely, but not purely, population based.
2. Can Kauai have one D1 team and two D2 teams (which would give KIF two spots, one in each division, in state tournaments)? This is sort of the other side of the coin to the OIA question. My thought is that the league be all D2.
3. How many years of enrollment should be used? Should we average the last two years, three years, four years? Or just use the most recent year? If re-classification happens every three years (as an example), then I would average the last three years.
4. There are many small ILH schools that play independently in some sports and as part of Pac-Five in other sports. In what classification does a Pac-Five team (Pac-Three still exists on Maui, too, I believe) play and how is it determined? How many sports does a school have to participate in, independently, before it is listed in the statewide enrollment rankings? There ought to be a minimum, or really small schools at the “tail end” of the size distribution will dominate Division II while not fielding teams in many sports. Meanwhile, the disparity in size between Division I schools will likely get larger and larger, I don’t know what that number would be, but there ought to be some number. Any school with fewer than the required number of teams would not be listed in the state enrollment rankings for computing Division I and Division II; these schools would automatically be Division II.
Where would one get the basic data–does anyone know?
May 15th, 2008 at 1:20 am
Iolani has won 8 state championships in baseball, the second most behind Punahou’s 11 and twice as more as the third most, and just as recently as 2007 finished second to the Buffanblu, nearly putting them on the brink of missing the state tournament. They are not DII material and would need several bad years to make a case for DII classification. Damien is more suited to play DII, as well as Pac-Five. Those schools haven’t won in years or maybe at all and don’t field teams any larger than Iolani. Three teams (Maryknoll, Pac-Five, Damien) would be enough to represent the ILH’s potential DII qualifiers, but you’ll need a team with less history than Iolani to put in DII if you need four teams in DII.
May 16th, 2008 at 8:00 am
I agree with Scott Mason, Iolani has too much history in baseball (recent success, too, not just history) to want to be classified as Division II. An enrollment-centered classification system might put Iolani there, but that’s why I believe Division II schools should have the option to move up. If Iolani was classified as Division II, they would surely opt for Division I in baseball, just as Kahuku would in football.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:41 am
Is Pac Five allowed to play in state tourney’s? I heard that they are not allowed because they have players from different schools. Is this right?
May 27th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Pumps, Pac Five just WON the Division II softball tournament. So yes, they may. I’m not sure what the rule is for Pac Five to qualify–the sports for which they can qualify and so on. I’m also not sure of the rule for other teams. Didn’t a male volleyball player from Academy of the Pacific play with Maryknoll during the ILH season, but have to skip the state tournament?
August 12th, 2008 at 4:13 am
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!