cabbagedad posted:Too many schools and too big geographically, PA... For most, winning your CIF Section Division is the end of the road. The Southern Section is one of ten California sections and has roughly 600 schools. It is the biggest and those schools are typically spread across seven divisions (D1 being the top) for baseball. It is not uncommon to see a Southern Section division 3 school nationally ranked.
There are over 1500 schools total in CA that are registered CIF HS's. It is a 15 hour drive from Crescent City in the north to San Diego in the south. Travel/accommodations would be a logistical and cost nightmare for HS's to participate in true state championships requiring multiple rounds of elimination.
Just curious as CA is one of the only states where their wrestling state tournament is a single class. One state champion at each weight class for the entire state. Wasn't sure if it worked that way for baseball as well. I figured they might have a neutral site picked out on a specific weekend that way different regions could play and have one state champion for division. That is how ours does it, but we also only have 4 regions with single elimination, 10 is a lot.