You seem to be in the minority of people I’ve heard comment on the regions. I’m curious what others think.
Twins why do you feel the way you do?
Mostly travel time/costs, but because it's not as big of a deal as (the eastern side of the state?) makes it.
Play the teams in your local area for subdistricts, then travel for district title game to make state.
Why force teams to travel 3-4 hours to play in subdistricts? In my experience, some teams are really bad and have no chance in hell to win a game in subs, so why make that team travel 3 hours just to lose right away when they could've done that close to home?
Why make the fans travel that far just to watch the bad team lose? Yes they want to show their support, but it's not exactly cheap to travel 3 hours one way.
The wildcard is there for a reason. If you had a great season, but are stuck with locally great teams, and you lose your subdistricts, you can still get a wildcard spot at district finals for a chance to go to state. I think there are up to 4 wildcard teams in Class D?
It happens often in my area as there have been 3 good teams in a 5-tean subdistrict. The high-ranking losing teams can still get the wildcard chance at going to district finals to compete for a chance to go to state.
This year for Class C volleyball, there was a region that had 4 teams travel anywhere from 2hr 50m - 4hr 6m for subdistricts. That subdistrict was scheduled over a 3 day period. One team played 3 nights in a row Monday - Wednesday and was 3 hours away. How is that fair to those parents and fans?
Everyone thinks they need to fix everything, even if it's not broken. They want to "get the best teams to state" but at what expense to the kids, parents, and fans? It's not fun riding a bus 4+ hours one way, knowing you don't stand a chance to beat the top team you have to play. Been there. Done that.
If you don't make it to state, maybe you weren't one of the best teams. If you couldn't win your sub
District and weren't high enough in the wildcard points to make district finals, were you really one of the best 8 teams in the state and going to win state?
Not everyone can make it to state every year and sometimes it's nice for the 'normally bad' teams to have a tiny chance to make it once in awhile, or to at least make a district finals during what they think is a great year for their school.