Commissioner Blake Ress announced today that the IHSAA has an agreement in principle approving Fort Wayne as the host site of the 2010 IHSAA Girls Basketball State Finals.

That decision was among several state tournament measures that were recently voted upon during the IHSAA Executive Committee’s final meeting of the 2008-09 school year.

The agreement is for one year and calls for the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum to host the 35th Annual IHSAA Girls Basketball State Finals and its four state championship games on Saturday, March 6, 2010.

“The proposal submitted by the Fort Wayne business community to host our girls basketball state finals in 2010 was simply too attractive to pass over,” said Ress. “Even though this decision may create some additional travel for some schools, I think the reception they will receive in Fort Wayne will outweigh those issues. We are excited about hosting this event in Fort Wayne.”

“As a community, we are delighted at the prospect of hosting the IHSAA girls basketball state finals next March,” said Randy Brown, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. “Memorial Coliseum is an outstanding venue to host this great event and I’m confident our community will fully embrace this opportunity to make it a great experience for the teams and fans of high school basketball.”

In addition to Fort Wayne, the IHSAA received bids from Ball State University and Indiana University.

Neither Indianapolis venue used in recent years -- Conseco Fieldhouse, which hosted the girls state finals from 2001-2008, nor Lucas Oil Stadium, which hosted in 2009 -- was available for use on next year’s date.

NEW SOFTBALL TOURNAMENT FORMAT

A new format was passed for the softball state tournament beginning in 2009-10 that eliminates the Friday state semifinal games and replaces it with a semi-state round on the prior Saturday. The start of sectionals (May 24-29, 2010) will remain the same in the new format, but a one-game regional on Tuesday (June 1,2010) would be followed by a four-team semi-state on Saturday (June 5, 2010) and four state championship games one week later (June 12, 2010). The previous format, including this year, allowed 64 sectional champions to advance to four-team regionals on Saturday with those 16 winners moving to the Friday state semifinals followed by the four state championship games the next day.

TRACK & FIELD FINALS EXTENSION

The current contract with Indiana University in Bloomington as the host site of the annual girls and boys track and field state finals was extended for another five years through 2014. This is the second extension from the original agreement that approved Bloomington as the host in 2004 in commemoration of the tournament’s 100th year. Following that event, both parties agreed to an extension for five years through 2009.