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A letter sent out from the RIIL is below on updates for next weekend's RIIL State Championships. Due to new state regulations, the RIIL had to make a change to the safety regulations put in place for the RIIL State Championships next weekend at Ponaganset.
Because of new regulations passed down to the Rhode Island Interscholastic League, we are forced to make adjustments to the state meet next Saturday at Ponaganset. We are required to keep the numbers below 150 at all times on the Ponaganset campus. Because we will have a minimum of 130 runners in each race, count in the officials and facility personnel, press, and others we would top the 150 number without even adding in coaches never mind spectators. So the track/cross country committee met last week and worked out the following schedule. I know it is not going to be perfect and there will be some concerns but this is the fairest we could agree upon.
Each varsity race will be divided into two heats. The second heat will have the top two teams (or ties) from the dual meet season for a total of 8 or 9 teams. The remaining teams that were either the third place finishers in the league or the six team qualifiers from Saturday will be in the first heat. The committee gave me discretion in placing individuals in each race in order to have fairly equal sized races. We will also have a few extra individuals besides the 15 announced yesterday. There are a few appeals going on for individuals that we are allowed to review and decide to add to the mix or not. Once both heats of a gender are completed, we will combine the times (like we did at the boys junior varsity meet last week) and score it as one meet. Awards will be presented later in the week.
We know this is not perfect but we feel it is a fair plan. There may be some small fine-tuning but I have included the starting line assignments. Thank you for working with us on this matter.
This is the planned schedule:
9:30 AM - Boys First Heat
Barrington, Coventry, Mount Saint Charles, South Kingstown, Pilgrim, Cranston West, Westerly, Portsmouth, Narragansett, Prout
(70 runners)
11:15 AM - Boys' Second Heat
La Salle, St. Raphael's, Bishop Hendricken, East Greenwich, Cumberland, Smithfield, North Kingstown, Chariho
(70 runners)
1:30 PM - Girls' First Heat
Barrington, Burrillville, Chariho, Pilgrim, Cranston West, Westerly, Ponaganset, Prout, Moses Brown
(75 runners)
2:45 PM - Girls' Second Heat
LaSalle, Portsmouth, East Greenwich, Cranston East, Classical, Coventry, Cumberland, Smithfield, North Kingstown, South Kingstown
(78 runners)