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Could someone please explain to me how the playoff system works in Ohio? In particular DIII. I understand that sectionals are broken down into the teams in each district, right? But then the district championship is determined by the top 2 winners in SE district playing the top 2 in the East district (right?) Then the top 2 go to regionals? Is this correct? If so, why? Why doesn't the SE district have a winner and the East have a winner and those 2 teams advance to regionals? I am really confused. Is there no such thing as a SE district winner?

There are 2 districts the SE DIII boys are involved in. In 1 district it will be SE vs SE for the district championship. In the other it will be SE v E for the championship. So it is possible to have 2 SE champions. This is due to the large number of dIII schools in our area.

what about girls?

I assume you are talking about girls soccer, because that is not the way the boys district tournament is set up as socman mentioned. The big reason for this is because there are so few girls teams in the southeast and east districts as compared to other parts of the state. For example, the SE District has 15 DIII girls teams and the east district has 7 DIII girls teams. Out of these 22 teams, 2 advance to regional play. Compared to SW District with 51 teams and 5 teams will advance to regional play.

Of course, this gets changed slightly every 2 years when the enrollment counts are made and teams can move up or down a division and could change every year when the competitive balance formula goes into effect after next year.

Thanks guys, I didn't know how it was set up. Seems to me the logical step would be to make the districts more balanced numeric wise. In other words move some of the more northern teams into the East district. I now understand how seeding for sectional tournaments is so important. It seems silly sometimes that for sectionals teams have to travel so far.

Back in the "old days" most of the sectional and district games were held in New Boston. That was before they gave home field advantage in the sectionals. I remember Cincinnati Indian Hills travelling all the way to New Boston to play Minford in a sectional final or district semi game.

socman wrote:There are 2 districts the SE DIII boys are involved in. In 1 district it will be SE vs SE for the district championship. In the other it will be SE v E for the championship. So it is possible to have 2 SE champions. This is due to the large number of dIII schools in our area.

You're right. The East District in DIII is also small. There have been years in the past where teams from the East don't even play a sectional game.