A 2-1A baseball divorce?

If I were a baseball coach at a 1A school in Kansas, I just might rue the day that the eight quarterfinalists in the Class 2-1A state tournament were all from Class 2A.

Uh, your rue is late. What? Yep. It happened already.

Last year, all eight were from 2A. And how about before that? Well, out of the 40 state quarterfinalists in the past five years, 10 have come from 1A.

"I think if you go back in the last 25, 30 years, the state winner has been a 2A school and the majority of the field has been made up of those bigger 2A schools," said Southern Lyon County coach Dalton Laird.

He's right, there hasn't been a 1A state champion in the past 25 years. 2026 1A schools, Elkhart, Spearville and Sedan won championships but as 2A programs.

St. Mary's Colgan owns the classification with 13 state titles in two and a half decades. Its 2025-26 enrollment is 160. The current enrollment ranges are 168-107 for 2A and 106-12 for 1A.

Presently, the numbers are lopsided in 2-1A. Nineteen teams are classified as 1A, while 52 are designated as 2A. The combined classification contains 71 programs. It's the largest baseball classification, with 3A close behind at 65.

The arguments that 1A and 2A need to be separated are compelling.

"I'm an advocate for splitting up 1A and 2A," said SLC baseball coach Dalton Laird. "It's going to get to a point where if we want to give kids a fair shot and have integrity in this, it just makes sense to make the split. There's enough schools to make a split."

Assistant Executive KSHSAA Director Jeremy Holaday agrees that 2-1A is massive, explaining that 24 teams are required to form a single classification.

"So the reason why it is that way is because our handbook rule says you have to have at least 24 in one class to offer a championship or a postseason for that class," he said. "So, unfortunately, we're not there."

That rules out a 2A-1A divorce. For now.

The state tournament scale currently tips in 52-team 2A's favor, and most 1A schools would probably like to weigh out options that could provide more equitable opportunities.

"In my experience, coaching the 1A athlete has unique challenges that upper divisions don't always share," said Lebo-Waverly baseball coach Jason Konrade in an email. "A larger majority of 1A baseball players dual sport with track."

Konrade also said that low 1A roster numbers create a shallow pitching pool situation, "thus less pitching to draw from than 2A."

Laird concurs with this notion, expressing that the enormous 2-1A classification requires 2-1A schools to play three games and potentially four, if a play-in contest is needed, to qualify for the state bracket. He says limited 1A rosters mean fewer pitching arms, which can have significant implications in the postseason.

"In years past, there's been teams that have played a play-in game and then had to go through three more rounds," Laird said. "So just from that standpoint alone, we've got less kids, we have less arms the way it is. Why are we playing more games in the postseason than a school that has plenty of arms?"

Colony Crest coach Roland Weir said he proactively tries to schedule schools in larger classifications for the challenge it presents, but believes a split is warranted from a postseason perspective.

"I've had some teams I think could have won two or three 1A state titles, if we had our own 1A state classification," he said.

Holaday said the split/1A state postseason topic isn't new. It's just a matter of crossing the threshold number.

"The dialogue has been, as soon as you get to 24, we can do it," Holaday said. "And they just can't quite get there. The board is prepared to offer a championship if and when that does take place."

With that said, a proposal with some legs could gain traction: Splitting 2-1A in half.

"I was looking at the classifications, and they could easily split some of the smaller 2A schools down to 1A division and have 36 in each class…to me that would be the easiest and simplest way to do it," Weir said.

Holaday said KSHSAA is open to that possibility, but schools have to actively pursue it.

"I will tell you, probably the last couple of years, there's been further conversation about if we could maybe submit a proposal to essentially split in half 2A and 1A," he said. "So, no matter what kind of school you are, we're just going to take the two classes, and we're just going to split it in half, and the top half will be 2A, the bottom half will be 1A for baseball and softball. I think we're willing to entertain that conversation…I would expect to see something soon come from our schools to really analyze it."

Weir's proposed separation solution calls for potentially dropping the 10 smallest 2A schools into 1A, initially creating a standalone 1A classification.

As new programs join the 1A fold or leave 1A because of low numbers, adjustments can be made. This would mean bringing 2A programs into 1A, or moving up 1A schools into 2A, as needed.

"It's an easily solvable solution to start splitting them," Weir said. "It's a two-year classification cycle. So I think there's a give and take every two years that you can do…I just think for the smaller schools, it needs to happen. I truly believe that's the only way 1A baseball is going to survive."

Laird also sees it as a simple solution.

"I think you could just do a dead even split, whether that be 35 and 35, and you drop one," he said. "You can make a bracket just about any way you want to make it."

Laird doesn't feel the number of teams is the issue, but splitting the classifications in a sensible way, supporting what Weir proposes.

"I'm more with Roland, and I think that it just makes sense to do a split and say, ok, you may have a couple that are technically 2A schools, but they're the lower of the 2A schools where there's only a 10 to 15 kid-size difference in enrollment, rather than being twice the size of the enrollment, if not three times the size."

Holiday said schools need to inform KSHSAA that they'd like to explore the solution, so the governing body can collate the necessary data to analyze its viability.

Laird said he feels confident in KSHSAA's willingness to make changes that better the sport, and Weir said the proposed solutions just need a bit of nudging.

"I think it should happen," Weir said. "I hope the ADs get together and say, ‘Hey, let's do this.' I think they would. So it just needs to be pushed. It just needs a little push."

Change does seem imperative, because to rue the day isn't a solution.

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This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 9:39 AM.