The Maine Principals' Association

HEAL POINT SYSTEM
(Taken from Appendix K, Pages 33 and 34 of the
2009-2010 MPA Handbook and Directory)

The Heal Point System is designed to select teams for tournament play on the basis of athletic strength as demonstrated through the regular season schedule. The athletic strength of a team is determined by a two-step process.

In the first step, the preliminary index of the school is ascertained. This is computed by assigning forty points for each Class A victory, thirty-five points for each Class B victory, thirty points for each Class C victory and twenty-five points for each Class D victory. These points are added and the total divided by the number of scheduled games. In all cases a minimum divisor is established by the appropriate sports committee. A team with no victories is assigned a preliminary index of 1.0. [Example: If a school team had two victories over a class B school, two victories over a class C school and two victories over a class D school, they would acquire a total point rating of 180. If the school team had played an 18 game schedule, the 180 points would be divided by 18, giving a preliminary index of 10.]

The tournament index for the example school team would be determined by adding the preliminary indices of the schools from which it had won a victory. This total would be divided by 18 (the number of games in the schedule). If the two B schools had preliminary indices of 8 and 5; the two C schools 6 and 5.4; the two D schools 4.4 and 4.2; the total of these credits would be 33. Thirty-three divided by 18 (the total number of games on the schedule) would give the school team a tournament index of 1.83. For the purposes of comparing one school with another, the tournament index is always multipled by 10; in other words, the tournament index of the school would be 18.30.

In those sports where tie contests are allowed, each participating school team is awarded one-half of the points of the opposing school. For example, a tie with a class A school team results in twenty points being awarded to the opposing school team; a tie with a class C school team results in fifteen points being awarded to the opposing school team. No team may have a preliminary index less than 1.0000, including a team with a season's end record of no wins and one tie with a Class D team. Soccer example: 25 divided by 14 divided by 2 = .8928571. In the final Heal points, this figure will be manually increased to 1.0000.

The official Heal Points are maintained by the MPA. Periodic releases of the Heal Point standings will be made by posting them on the MPA website (http://www.mpa.cc). During the season, the preliminary and tournament index of each team will be determined by using a divisor of the total games to be played that season. (The exception to this is when the season for all classes in a particular sport does not end on a common date.)

For purposes of computing the Heal Points, the preliminary index is carried out to ten (10) places and the tournament index is carried out to twelve (12) places. For reporting purposes, these indices are rounded to three (3) places and four (4) places, respectively.

A tie in the final Heal Point standings will be resolved by each standing committee for their sport. The resolution may vary from committee to committee but will have some variation of using head-to-head competition, a coin toss, or a lottery to determine seeding placement, and/or a play-off game if to determine tournament participation.

The Heal Point System is used in Baseball, Basketball, Field Hockey, Ice Hockey, Lacrosse, Softball, Soccer, Tennis, and Volleyball.

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