Wisconsin Soccer Central

The WIAA state soccer tournaments will continue to feature 16 teams.

But starting next fall, those teams will be playing for four state championships rather than three.

At its monthly meeting Wednesday in Stevens Point, the WIAA Board of the Control unanimously approved a plan to add a fourth division of competition for boys and girls soccer beginning with the 2013-14 school year.

Essentially, the plan turns the current Division 3 into Division 4, the current Division 2 into Division 3 and splits current Division 1 teams into two divisions. The 64 largest schools to offer the sport will remain in Division 1, while the next 64 schools in the enrollment charts will play in a new-look Division 2.

Each division will have a four-team field at state – that will be a change for Division 1, which has had eight-team state tournament fields since the inception of WIAA competition in the 1982-83 school year.

The idea behind the change is that under the current setup, smaller Division 1 teams are at a disadvantage playing against the state's largest schools.

The WIAA boys tournament had only one division for its first 10 years, from 1982 to '91, with a second division added in 1992. On the girls side, two-division play started in 1997. The three-division format for both boys and girls started in the 2002-03 school year.

The Board passed three other soccer items:

• Adjusting participation limits to allow individuals to play 48 halves during a season
• Mandating 4 p.m. kickoffs for WIAA postseason matches on fields without lights, and 7 p.m. for those with lights
• And ruling on the color of tape players can place on their socks. Players on teams wearing white jerseys and socks are only allowed to use white tape on their socks, while players wearing dark jerseys are required to use dark tape.