Soccer and volleyball fans on the neighbor islands will get a taste of Division I state-tournament action next school year.

As expected, the HHSAA executive board approved a proposal that will include the BIIF and MIL as host sites for the first two rounds in the two sports. With some brief discussion and some minor amendments, the board breezed through all of the proposals that had been approved by the state’s athletic directors at the Hawaii Interscholastic Athletic Directors Association conference over the weekend at the Hilton Waikoloa.

Boys volleyball began a pilot program with neighbor island regional sites this spring. Kamehameha-Hawaii met its counterpart from Kapalama in a quarterfinal that drew a near-capacity crowd, the biggest of the season at that facility. King Kekaulike also had a good turnout for its state-tourney match.

Despite some objections from coaches and fans about the program — particularly the Friday game and fly out Saturday morning setup — the proposal was approved by every league but the state’s largest, the OIA.

It won’t be the entire tourney that plays off Oahu for girls and boys volleyball, and boys and girls soccer. The ILH and OIA champions will continue to host. The semifinals and finals will be played on Oahu.

The fields and gyms used by the MIL and BIIF will be chosen by the respective leagues. All in all, it was a pretty smooth job of building consensus by Chris Chun, executive director of the Hawaii High School Athletic Association, which runs state tournaments.

"When we met throughout the year, every year brought back concerns about the regional," Chun said. "We couldn’t fix everyone’s issue, but we tried to minimize the problems. Now we’re moving to field sports instead of just gym sports. I’m excited to see how it goes. Hopefully, we’ll improve on the process we began last year."

No matter what, it won’t be a perfect process.

"Parents traveling twice, we can’t fix that. I wish we could fix that," Chun said, noting the possibility of teams traveling on both weekends of a state tourney.

Girls basketball, like boys volleyball, was in pilot-program mode the past school year. While Lahainaluna drew a large crowd for its quarterfinal game against Maryknoll, Konawaena didn’t draw a significant audience. That disappointing turnout for Konawaena’s first shot at hosting a state-tourney game may have sealed their future hopes for more home games.

The school opted not to adjust game dates and times on that Saturday night (Feb. 8), in all probability, for financial reasons. BIIF basketball revenue is kept by the home team. HHSAA revenue goes back to the HHSAA.

Chun insists that revenue was not a factor in moving girls basketball out of a regional format.

"The reason why we wanted to bring in soccer is there’s so much stuff in winter. Adding another winter (regional) with soccer would’ve been too much. We wouldn’t know how the regionals would affect TV. At least this way, with only one (winter girls sport) in a regional, we can accommodate TV more," he said.

There will be a set reimbursement for teams that happen to travel twice in the regional format. The new measure reads: "Should one team per tournament travel interisland twice, the HHSAA shall reimburse the team $4,000. Should more than one team per tournament travel interisland twice, the HHSAA shall reimburse each team that travels twice $2,500."

Division II basketball will also make a splash on the neighbor islands. The D-II state tournament will now include the BIIF in its rotation on a three-year cycle, beginning with the 2015-16 school year. The ILH and OIA will host in the other years.

"We’re looking at the past history of the Division II tournament and how well the Big Island has done. Honokaa and Kamehameha (Hawaii) played in the (girls state) championship game. In boys, we almost had HPA and Kohala in the final," BIIF executive director Lyle Crozier said. "At the Hilo Civic, we do pretty well financially over there. It’s a chance for the HHSAA to make money."

Remaining proposals were approved unanimously by block vote to speed up the process

» Air riflery: Increase the number of participants to 64 for each gender.

» Baseball: Allows a fielder to warm up to pitch during a coach’s mound visit.

» Bowling: A slight change in the state tournament schedule and an expansion of state tournament qualifiers to 100.

» Cheerleading: Establishes clarification of range vs. target before the season.

» Cross country: Expand the field at the state tournament from 160 to 200 qualifiers and move the start time up a half hour from 9 a.m. to 8:30.

» Golf: A school may enter three boys/two girls or fewer participants to compete for individual championship.

» Judo: Changes seeding criteria to include, as a secondary criteria, past finishes at previous HHSAA judo championships for other weight classes.

» Softball: As amended, includes an additional tiebreaker before a coin flip is used when the time limit expires in a consolation game requiring advancement. 1) hits minus errors, 2) total number of runners who reach first base safely, 3) coin flip.

» Swimming: Set standards for state tournament sites and award medals to the sixth-place finisher even though they don’t score points for their teams.

» Wrestling: Allow one coach to be with an athlete in the staging areas and put seeding criteria back in the HHSAA packet. Also changes girls weight classes to 97, 102, 107, 112, 117, 122, 127, 132, 138, 145, 155, 168, 184 and 225 pounds. The change means one less division in the lighter weight classes. The previous divisions were 97, 101, 105, 109, 113, 117, 121, 125, 130, 135, 140, 155, 175 and 220.

» Track and field: Moves the time for running events from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.