WIAA VB Playoffs: Fixing The “Pre-Determined” vs. “Neutral Site”

There are always things we learn over the course of the season. For 2025, we learned that “Pre-Determined Site” does not mean “Neutral Site” when it comes to post season volleyball. This was the year where a top seed found themselves playing at a predetermined site that coincidentally was the home gym of their opponent who was a lower seed. 

We will take a deeper dive into some of the sectional finals, the distance teams had to drive, and even some bizarre situations that in hopes will allow the WIAA to rethink some of the postseason decisions. Again, “Pre-Determined” is not “Neutral”.  

A coaches survey was sent out to coaches this past week in regard to this issue, along with electronic seeding.  Coaches - make your voices and thoughts known! 

I know sectional balance and some sections having multiple top ten teams beating each other out (some in regional play) while other sections having unranked teams make it to the state tournament is a major point of contention as well.  We are going to tackle that issue on another day. That is too much to discuss in this article. Oof. 

Here were some scenarios for the 2025 WIAA Postseason that stood out to me: 

*These are travel logistics only, not in the imbalance of sectional strength. 

D1 

#1 River Falls vs. #3 SPASH @ SPASH 

Drive Time - River Falls to Stevens Point - 2 Hours 52 Minutes

Drive Time - SPASH to Stevens Point - Home Game

Hamilton vs. Menomonee Falls @ Neenah

Hamilton to Neenah - Drive Time 1 Hour 22 Minutes

Menomonee Falls to Neenah - Drive Time 1 Hour 14 Minutes

Hamilton to Menomonee Falls - Drive Time - 15 minutes (7.4 miles) 

D2

Rice Lake vs. Waupaca @ Altoona

Rice Lake to Altoona - Drive Time - 57 Minutes

Waupaca to Altoona - Drive Time - 2 Hours 21 Minutes

D3 

Grantsburg vs. Barron @ Eau Claire North 

Grantsburg to ECN - Drive Time - 2 Hours 7 Minutes

Barron to ECN - Drive Time - 51 Minutes

Grantsburg and Barron are 60 miles from each other and both head South to Eau Claire

D4

Fennimore vs. Blair Taylor @ Arcadia

Blair-Taylor to Arcadia - Drive Time - 26 Minutes

Fennimore to Arcadia - Drive Time - 2 Hours 22 Minutes

Montello vs. Wabeno/Laona @ Wabeno

Montello to Wabeno - Drive Time - 2 Hours 45 Minutes

Wabeno - Home Game

#1 Heritage Christian vs. #2 Waterloo @ Waterloo 

Heritage Christian to Waterloo - Drive Time - 57 Minutes

Waterloo - Home Game

D5

Prairie Farm vs. Rib Lake @ Frederic

Prairie Farm to Frederic - Drive Time 59 minutes

Rib Lake to Frederic - Drive Time 2 Hours 33 Minutes

Newman vs. Highland @ Riverdale

Newman (Wausau) to Riverdale - Drive Time 2 Hours 50 Minutes

Highland to Riverdale - Drive Time 17 Minutes

Florence vs. Central Wisconsin Christian @ Northland Pines

Florence to Northland Pines (Eagle River) - Drive Time 1 Hour 4 Minutes

Central Wisconsin Christian (Waupun) to Northland Pines (Eagle River) - Drive Time 3 Hours 30 Minutes

Key Take Aways

I know the WIAA has a process for their postseason sites.  Schools have to apply and meet a criteria in order to host matches like this.  I am not faulting these schools or even the WIAA for this, I think there has to be a common sense middle ground.

SPASH (Stevens Point), Kimberly, Oconomowoc, Wabeno, and Waterloo were pre-determined sites where their teams were able to play on their home court in a sectional final.  SPASH hosted top seed River Falls who traveled nearly three hours for a state tournament berth on the line on their “Pre-Determined” site's home court.  Kimberly and Ocon were top seeds in their section and won their sectional final matches.  Wabeno and Waterloo were not top seeds, were hosting as a pre-determined site, but were defeated. 

I know with some of the Northern and Western schools where traveling two hours is “normal”, but when we have schools like Central Wisconsin Christian out of Waupun driving over three hours to Eagle River, Montello driving to Wabeno's home court to go to state that is 2 hours and 45 minutes away, and Newman driving nearly three hours compared to their opponents traveling down the road doesn't really make sense. 

Speaking of some common sense.  Neenah has a beautiful gym - please go check it out. However, the two high schools playing there are seven miles apart traveling and instead going 1 hour and 20 minutes to play each other make this inefficient.  I know Neenah put in a bid to host, I know they have a beautiful facility, but is this the best thing for the athlete experience?  Explain this to someone who is not involved in the sports world and they would laugh at this situation. 

Potential Fixes

Division 1 - Highest Seed Hosts The Sectional Final 

In the D1 sectionals, teams are seeded from number one to last in their section.  There truly is a top seeded team.  In some of these D1 sectional finals with neutral sites (even home games), the crowd is pretty sparse in some of these large gym spaces.  These teams have earned the top seed, they can host the sectional final to go to state.  At least they can guarantee one team is going to bring fans (maybe).  This would significantly help the gate for this match.  I cover the Iowa high school volleyball team and teams in the three largest classes all get to host the game to go to state at their home gym if they have the higher seed (the gate has to be rewarding).  This allows the home team to find workers for the game and they know there is a potential for them to host the game as well. 

Multiple Matches at One Site

Here would be an example: 

UW-Eau Claire - Sonnetag Center

1:00 - River Falls vs. SPASH

4:00 - Prairie Farm vs. Rib Lake

7:00 - Rice Lake vs. Waupaca (This is still a trip for Waupaca)

*or we could just let everyone watch any match and have matches at 2:00, 4:00, 6:00

The Sonnetag at Eau Claire is one of the top facilities in Wisconsin, is better than most D1 facilities.  There are a lot of beautiful complexes in our state where they could provide an experience for these athletes.  UW-Eau Claire or UW-River Falls in the West, the Madison area has plenty of high schools who could host an event with multiple teams, and the same could be said for other areas in Wausau, La Crosse, Green Bay/Fox Valley, the Lakeshore, and Milwaukee area down to Kenosha. Make this feel like a big event with multiple schools coming together (We did this for the Covid seasons in 2020 and 2021).  For teams to drive two to three hours for a sectional final in a mid tier high school facility isn't much for an experience. At least combine resources with a higher level facility to make this big, an experience for the kids. This could also help improve the gate with more neutral fans attending these matches as well. 

Use If/Then Scenarios With Sectional Finals

I know this all comes down to planning.  The further out in advance events can be planned the better, however at what cost of the experience? With post season soccer and football being played at the same time, I know this puts stress on plenty of schools. 

Let's take a look at the Fox Valley.  Kimberly is the predetermined site, they can plan with an asterisks (*If Kimberly is playing, site TBD).  They don't have to advertise, but the state could send out information to schools like Appleton North or Kaukauna that neighbor Kimberly to be a back up site if Kimberly is playing.  Same could be said for Oconomowoc (*If Oconomowoc is playing, site TBD) and the state can give notice to schools like Kettle Moraine or Pewaukee - you get the point.  

Sectional Semifinals on Wednesday

Moving the sectional semifinals to a Wednesday would give teams two days to prepare for the sectional semifinal and two days to prepare for the sectional final. This would also give administration and the state to make any adjustments to changing a sectional final site. This could also alleviate conflict, especially with some of the smaller schools who are hosting post season boys soccer and volleyball

What About The Higher Seeds? 

This might be my own opinion and I could be wrong, but I think Wisconsin is trending towards electronic seeding. This would take away the debate of the seeding meetings which could be running its course.  Most states use electronic seeding from the early regional rounds all the way to the state tournament.  I think this could help when determining post season sites, especially when it comes to sectional semifinals and sectional finals. 

Lastly, Football Has Shown It Can Be Done…

In football, until the final four in each division, the top seed gets to host.  There were some wild matchups going on in the first round of football playoffs. I'm not saying Westosha Central needs to play Hudson in a regional semifinal for volleyball, but there seems to be a bit of a double standard.  In D2 for football, they were able to find DC Everest and Neenah to host pretty quickly for a final four football game at a neutral location.  If a lower seeded team upsets someone, they seem to find workers for the next Friday when they weren't planning to host.  This leads into what the next issue would be and that is play the regional tournament out and then seed the sectionals.  I mean, why not? 

And last hot take…can we not have a Friday morning semifinal game start at 8 AM?  Eww.