In prior years, the Dulles District and Catoctin District played in a district tournament to determine the top two teams that would move on to Region play. Due to John Champe leaving the Catoctin District, the tournament is now unnecessary.
Assistant athletic director Anne Gasser said, “That’s a small district to have a four or five team tournament.”
Money also played a role in the decision. Athletic director Darrell Wilson explained, “A lot of it is for time and finances. There weren’t a lot of people who came to those games and so since we were both in those districts and are in the same region, it kind of determined we don’t need to play those games.”
To determine district champion, it will be based off of a team’s regular season play. “For field hockey, football, volleyball, for all those sports where we play all those district teams at least once, and most of them twice, that’s how we determine who’s district champion and that person is designated and can hang a banner that says district champion” Wilson said.
To move onto the regional play, it is based on how regular season went, “Playing district teams twice helps determine the district champion based on that, and then use that to seed it into the regular season,” Wilson states.
Senior volleyball player Megan Hiltner said, “This change didn’t seem to affect our playoff standings too much, but it did encourage our team to play better during the regular season because it could impact our post season standings.”
This new process will be put into place for all team sports, including all seasons starting the 2025-2026 year. “For sports like indoor track and cross country, just those teams run against each other and whoever wins that meet is determined is designated the district champion,” Wilson said.
This change in the post season play will definitely have an impact on our sports for this year and next year. “This is definitely a two year cycle so we’re going to do it this way this year and next year, but there are oftentimes changing the way districts are set up and the way for advancing, so I can’t say it’s going to be like this for years to come,” Gasser said.
As for post season awards, All-District teams will still be named. “We still meet, we will name an All-Dulles District, All-Catoctin District, then the two schools that were one and two out of each of those districts then meet for the region, similar to what it used to be, and name a region team” Wilson said.
