After Covering IA, IL, and WI HS Events – What’s The Difference?

I’ve written this before, but I am in a very fortunate position where I get to see high school volleyball across multiple states.  I am able to gain perspective not only on the game, but how things are managed, what teams do for tournaments, and the various rules that teams are working with.  This high school season I have covered tournaments in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin (and coached a JV team in Wisconsin this season).  I have been able to gain a lot of insight and have found plenty of positives from each state in their high school volleyball seasons.  However, in true education with how knowledge is power, it is only appropriate that I share some of my observations from other states where today I’m going to focus on Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin. 

In Iowa…

As far as I know, they do not have any Friday-Saturday tournaments.  I’m not sure if they consider that two days of a contest, but I have not heard of any Friday-Saturday tournaments in Iowa.  Iowa has a lot of smaller schools.  For context, I went to a high school in Iowa with around 500 students.  I thought we were somewhat of a bigger school.  When I started covering schools in Wisconsin and Illinois, I realized that my entire high school was the size of some larger schools graduating classes. 

A lot of tournaments, they will play their sets to 21 with a deciding third set to 15.  This makes for pool play to go a little bit quicker and can save up to an hour in the morning.  Bracket play will flip to 25, but for the most part I see tournaments going to 21. 

The Saturday morning tournaments are a little bit smaller.  A tournament with 12 to 16 teams would be a rather large scale tournament.  Some tournaments will be smaller, but very high level.  Northwest Iowa is a big time powerhouse in volleyball and a lot of those teams will head to Sioux Falls, SD or Omaha, NE to play their tournaments.  Central Iowa/Des Moines is the center point of the state for teams from the powers of Eastern and Western Iowa to collide.  

What Iowa has mastered is the postseason.  Each year it could be different, but the top eight seeds in the state will be in the drivers seat to get to the state tournament.  For example, Northwest Iowa is loaded with volleyball talent where they all could be thrown into the same region.  Instead, the state will split them up and send one team south, another Southeast, and the third team – straight East.  The Cedar Valley (Waterloo/Cedar Falls) is another example where the North Iowa Cedar League is the top small school conference in the state.  There have been semifinals where there will be two teams from the NICL.  Two years ago, Dike-New Hartford played conference rival Denver in the state championship.  In most states, that would NEVER happen. Some areas are tougher to split up than others, but the matches at the state tournament are extremely competitive because its a tournament where they actually have the best teams competing. 

In Illinois…

Context is everything.  Again, I grew up small town Iowa, and we didn’t have a ton of “Big Schools”.  Coming to Illinois, especially the Chicagoland suburbs, I am amazed at the size of these schools.  They are beautiful and looking at their trophy cases, I’m always amazed at their different activities offered.  Some of these schools also have facilities that are comparable (or maybe even better) than a lot of college facilities. 

Illinois plays every match best two out of three which at first I thought was only a Saturday tournament thing, but that’s every match.  When people ask me who will win certain matches, I will sometimes respond with, “They are going to be tough to beat in a three out of five set match.” In Illinois, I think there is a little bit more of an advantage to the underdog in a two out of three set match compared to three out of five. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but for teams in Iowa and Wisconsin there’s a big difference between an upset win at a tournament in two out of three compared to winning a midweek match going three out of five. 

Illinois has a large number of high level tournaments all across the states.  The large high schools have plenty of floor space and there’s also volleyball clubs who can offer eight courts to play at for these larger scale tournaments.  The depth of players in Illinois always amazes me from all across the state.  They can have multiple tournaments on the same weekend where ranked teams can play against other ranked teams. 

In Wisconsin…

The season is fast and furious in Wisconsin.  On day one of the season, programs start out with tryouts which are typically two days, have a scrimmage on Saturday, and then start playing tournaments the next week.  Since most schools do not start until September 1 or after Labor Day, most high schools play in an opening weekend two day tournament the last week of August since there is no class time missed (for most).  Some teams will play double digits in matches before they have had a day of school. 

The top teams usually play against each other in the same tournaments.  I would say the three big tournaments, that are all two day tournaments, are The Joust (opening weekend at Homestead High School in Mequon), Charger Challenge (put on by Sussex Hamilton held at Milwaukee Sting), and the Sprawl (held at the West Bend High Schools).  Oconomowoc and Divine Savior Holy Angels have met in the championship in all three of these tournaments with Oconomowoc going 2-1.  This is no shade to other tournaments across the state, but statistically, these tournaments always have the most depth and ranked teams every year. They all happen before October 1. Some teams will have 30 matches in by this time.

There is not a lot of crossover play between Northern and Southern Wisconsin and Western and Eastern Wisconsin.  The waitlist to get in for some of these high level tournaments gets incredibly long and some have qualifying tournaments to get a spot in the high level tournaments.  Top teams in Western Wisconsin will head into Minnesota in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro to play top tournaments and Southern Wisconsin teams will go into Illinois to play tournaments.  I know teams want to play the toughest competition possible, but I would love to see more teams travel to different parts of Wisconsin.  It’s almost like different worlds between different parts of the state.