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Another Round: Area track meets added for 2012-13 season
BY Andrew Snyder, asnyder@starlocalnews.com
Texas high school track athletes will be putting extra miles on their legs starting next year when UIL-mandated area meets are added to the postseason schedule. The new meets will add an extra qualifying round between the district and regional meets.
Extending the track postseason is the latest in a new set of rules for track and cross country athletes. The distance for Class 4A and 5A girls cross country district, regional and state qualifiers has also been increased from two miles to 3.1 miles.
"It will get more kids involved, which will be good for us," said Christopher Lillie, Plano East head girls track and cross country coach, about the adoption of area track meets.
"It came out of nowhere for me," Lillie said.
Area meets will include competitors from two districts aligned in ascending numerical order (1-5A with 2-5A, 3-5A with 4-5A, etc.) and will take place during the week in between the district and regional meets, but no later than April 20. Four athletes from each district will qualify for the area meet in each event, which will then send four qualifiers per event to the regional meet.
Previously, the top three finishers in each event at the district meet qualified for regionals. The new format will allow more athletes to advance past district, though weaker districts could end up placing fewer qualifiers at the regional meet.
As part of District 10-5A, McKinney, McKinney Boyd and Allen will be paired up with 9-5A, which is made up of Dallas and Richardson schools.
As part of District 13-4A, McKinney North will be paired up with 14-4A at the area meet, which includes Hallsville, Longview, Pine Tree, Marshall, Mount Pleasant, Sulphur Springs and Texarkana Texas.
Districts have the option of canceling either the district or area meets, but they must hold one or the other and the decision must be unanimous. If the districts disagree, both the district and area meets will be held. There are incentives in place to help encourage the adoption of area meets, as canceling it limits the number of athletes any individual district can send to the regional meet. Under that scenario, each district would send its top two qualifiers to the regional meet rather than the top four from the area, which could all conceivably come from one district.
Extending the track postseason is just one of several rule changes the UIL has recently put in place, which also include limitations on the number of preseason practices coaches can hold and the introduction of penalty kicks as the ultimate tiebreaker in soccer matches.
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