track vs. Baseball

[kaching]

Thought I'd try this again since State is over --

I know a number of the Class 1 and 2 track programs share their athletes with the school's baseball team. The baseball districts start on the same Saturday as the track sectionals so often the dual sport athletes are forced to choose which to attend. I would like to see the track sectionals moved to Friday afternoon. The one class sectionals only run for about 4 hours so timewise it would be feasible.

I am interested if anyone shares the same opinion and whether it is worth talking to MHSHAA about.

 

[BRAYC]

I think it's a great idea. Many of us face the same problem in the Class 1 and 2 world. What we did was schedule our district baseball playoffs to begin on Monday so as to not have the conflict. Fortunately this worked out. However, if the weather had turned bad we would have had to try to jam all district games into 1 or 2 days. With most district and sectional track meets run on all weather tracks, running the sectionals on Friday would be an excellent opportunity to keep the two sports from overlapping at the end of the year. In most small schools the only chance of competing at the district level comes from having your best athletes (usually track people) available. A perfect example out of our area would be Logan Kirchoff of Santa Fe. An All-State pitcher, Logan was also a multi event qualifier in track and field this year for the state track meet. If both sports had fallen on the same day, either the baseball team loses a great player or the track coach loses a major point producer. Either way the kid and all fans miss out on seeing him in one sport or another. Unfortunately for everyone MSHSAA does not usually take common sense into consideration when they plan anything.