D1 3A 2025-2026 Post season alignment

The D1 AAA post-season changes have been approved by District 1, and will be in place for the 24-25 season.  There will be 3 sections instead of 4.  Each section (with 20 or 21 teams) will run full consolations and send 6 per weight to the SE AAA regional tournament.

The SE AAA regional will then feature 18-man brackets with 2 pigtail matches per weight.  The losers of those pigtails will be eliminated.  Top 5 per weight will qualify for states.

I believe the AA post-season hasn't been finalized yet.  There's a chance that D1 and D12 will have separate District tournaments or could still be combined.  Whenever a decision is made there, I'll post about it.

The 3 AAA sections and the AA district will still be 1-day tournaments.  The committee got clarification on the rules, and there is no maximum number of bouts in a day for the post-season, as long as there is 30 minutes of rest between bouts.  So in the unlikely event that someone would need 7 matches in a day, that would be allowed.  If I'm not mistaken, you'd have to lose the pigtail match and then come all the way back to place to have 7 matches.

I'm not aware of many, if any, coaches and wrestlers who have been asking for the regional to go to a single day.

The AAA section alignment is looked at every 2 years when the classifications are updated.  This year there was some interest in looking to see if there was a better alignment.  I believe one factor in going from 4 to 3 sections was running 3 tournaments would cost the District a little less.  The coaches on the committee also generally liked the idea of going to 3 and making the small change to the regional bracket (more qualifiers per section) as well.

Coaches should have been aware that changes were coming.  The coaches on the steering committee are suppose to keep the other coaches in their leagues updated on what's going on.

As far as the regional schedule, all the regions in the state (for the boys) are 2 days.  I highly doubt any of them would move to a 1 day event.  Though it would be an interesting question for the wrestlers.  Would they prefer wrestling the most important, and likely the toughest, matches of their season up to that point in a single day or spread the matches out a bit over those 2 days?  I'd think most want that extra time, but that's just a guess on my part.  It might be slightly easier to get a host site for a 1 day tournament than a 2 day tournament.  Overall though, I don't expect there to be much interest in making that change.