Sectionals 2016: What does it take to qualify?

by Norm Ramil, 8 Count Audio creative.director / chief.music.officer / dance.fan

 

What does it take to get in the top 6 at sectionals?

When I first tried tackling this question, I looked at all of the 3A qualifiers since 2013. I soon realized that these numbers are a little misleading.

Here’s why: each year has more qualifiers who danced at least a 90 at their sectional. But these numbers also remind us how far we’ve come since IHSA’s early scoring experiments in 2013 (I’m guessing we won’t see a state qualifier with a score of 56.87 ever again). With the huge jump in teams with 90s in 2015 (over half the field), you could assume that 2015 marked the start of a more stable scoring era. For that reason, I’m thinking we won’t see a big increase (or any increase) in teams with 90s. So if your dance has spent all season in the upper 80s, you’re definitely not locked out.

But this list ranks the sectional scores of all the 3A state qualifiers; it’s not a ranking of the top dances that the judges scored at sectionals. Case in point: an 89.93 came in 7th at one of the sectionals last year, and they stayed home for state weekend. That 89.93 was the 13th-highest score given out by the judges at all the sectionals.

The take-away? Using 2015’s 3A results as a guide, it looks like a 90 gets you downstate, but there’s a chance that even a high-80s score isn’t enough—even one that’s the 13th best of the day around the entire state. It’s a function of the sectional system, where the scores of your sectional’s top 6 might look insanely different from another location’s top 6.

Now let’s zoom into each of last year’s sectionals. The 3A groups had 1st place qualifiers mostly in the mid and upper-90s, though note that 93.13 score at Lake Park. This sectional also had the tightest range from 1st to 6th (5.73 points). The other 3A sectional at Lake Park, oddly, had the widest range from 1st to 6th (11.50 points), plus had a 7th place team score an 86.73, which would have been top 6 in the earlier 3A group. Long story short, on that day and on that same gym floor, the two 3A sectionals were wildly different in terms of scoring and qualifying.

Next check out the 7th place scores versus the lowest qualifying scores. There’s that 89.93. DeKalb’s sectional also had an 88.43 not qualifying, and this dance outscored 6th place routines at 3 other sectionals. Based on 2015, it’s likely that a few 7th place teams will earn a higher score than some 6th place dances.

Then there’s the stat that gets to the heart of the matter—the gap between 6th and 7th. Four out of the five 3A sectionals had a 6th-7th gap of 0.67 or less. These really good routines missed out on going downstate by 2/3 or even just under half a point.

Looking at last year’s 2A numbers, the trends are similar even though the scores are shifted lower. You start to see fewer 1st place scores in the 90s, with more 6th place scores in the 83-85 range. 7th place scores were all over the map, but that 84.46 would’ve gotten downstate at 3 other sectional sites! Again, a good dance could end up 7th and with a higher score than other state qualifiers from other sites.

The margin between getting in and staying home was bigger for the 2A teams last year when compared with 3A. Still, you had 2 of these 7th place dances roughly only a point behind the last place qualifier at their sectional. Most of the time, a mid-80s score gets you in, and anything over 87 looks safe.

The 1A teams tell the same kind of story. All of last year’s 7th place routines scored under 80, but two dances in the upper 70s got in, joined by that 66.27. But it’s hard to ignore the 83.27 and 80.80 that barely got in at 6th place. Anything over 80 looks pretty secure, though it’s clear that 7th place teams had scores that beat 6th place dances elsewhere. What’s really interesting is how close some 7th place dances were to getting downstate—they missed qualifying by 0.03, 0.64, and 1.50.

Nothing’s really set in stone with scoring, and the sectional qualifying system has plenty of frustrations built in. But the trends from last year are likely to continue, and the best thing to do is to dance strong.