DIAA Competition Committee Unanimously Votes to Separate Team Sports Including Basketball, Soccer, Volleyball, Lacrosse and Field Hockey

The Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association (DIAA) Competition Committee has voted unanimously to eliminate open high school basketball tournaments and restructure all team sports into two divisions based on performance metrics.

According to reports from WDEL and confirmed by multiple sources, the DIAA Competition Committee was formed and voted unanimously to separate all team sports—including volleyball, soccer, basketball, lacrosse, field hockey, softball and baseball—into two divisions. This change ends Delaware’s status as one of the few states where all high schools compete for a single state basketball championship.

The new classification system will rely on a formula that ranks teams using three criteria: two-year winning percentage (40%), four-year winning percentage (40%), and enrollment (20%). The weighted average of these rankings will establish a cut line for a two-year scheduling cycle, with the top half of teams in each sport placed in Division 1.

Currently, soccer and field hockey are already divided by enrollment, but the remaining sports operate under open tournament formats with varying qualification methods. Many of these formats incorporate opponents’ winning percentages to assess strength of schedule, but the new approach will focus solely on the performance of Delaware schools.

Reports from Delaware Online indicate that the realignment impacts 11 sports in total: boys and girls soccer, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls volleyball, boys and girls lacrosse, field hockey, softball, and baseball. The change aims to create greater parity in sports that have historically been dominated by a small number of schools.

A previous report from Pressreader noted that while the restructuring affects numerous team sports, it does not include a public-private school split. The current list of affected sports includes those where both boys and girls teams compete, excluding football, which already uses a different classification method.

WDEL’s analysis projected potential Division 1 and Division 2 placements for boys basketball in the 2027–2028 season using 2025 enrollment data, noting that figures would need updating to 2026 numbers before final implementation. The DIAA has not yet announced a specific timeline for when the new structure will take effect, but the change is being implemented as part of a broader effort to standardize competition across all team sports.