Delaware/Philadelphia, and Chester/Montgomery/Bucks. That leaves a pretty good spread of competitive teams to tournament size in both divisions, while also avoiding too many small regionals. Yeah we have an 8-team B regional, but that's not too different than CE B (and it's not nearly as top-heavy).EastStroudsburg13 wrote:It's just not something they've done in the past. Perhaps there are logistical benefits to allowing school districts to only need to plan for one date instead of two. But I think that is my preferred option, in my opinion.TheCrazyChemist wrote:Why would splitting by division not be something PASO would want to do? Logistics of tournaments? Anyways, that map is really cool and it really helps anyone who is not familiar with SEPA specifically see why it's a bloodbath. At least it did for me. But those regions all are regionals, right?EastStroudsburg13 wrote: My concern with that split is in Division B. If you draw those geographic lines, the Montco/Phila region has only 7 teams. It would have Bala Cynwyd and Welsh Valley, but it lacks the same depth of schools as Chester/Delaware. If you put Chester in with Montco/Phila, then you get a region of 13 teams, with 10 in Delaware County, which is theoretically fine. But you also end up with a 10-team Delaware County region in Division C, which would be the smallest C regional by far. And trying to add Bucks back into the mix makes essentially no difference, as only 1 Bucks school competed in Division B this year.
Now, it is possible to split a region geographically in one division and not the other. Western Long Island did that in NY, splitting in C but remaining intact in B. If splitting by division is not a route PASO wants to go in, this may be the next best bet. Keep SEPA intact for B division, but split apart SEPA C division into two (roughly) balanced regions, each with 4 bids. It wouldn't have the same cache in SO circles as a giant region of death, but it would at least not change the competitive balance too significantly.
PS: Shameless plug for my map, which was really helpful in figuring this out
And yes, each region is its own regional in that map.
I agree that splitting only in C is probably an easier way to do this though.
