High school cross country in Indiana is thriving. Runners and teams are nationally ranked. The state meet draws large crowds.

So if it’s not broken, why fix it?

Because the sport could be improved. Four ways to do so:

1. Expand state field

The tournament eliminates many of the best teams before the state meet. For instance, the Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 girls teams are all in Saturday’s Carmel Semistate. With six advancing, that doesn’t leave much for everyone else.

“All that matters to me is the word ‘fair,’ " said Scott Lidskin, girls coach at Westfield. “We’re not afraid to run against good teams. We do it all year.”

The rest of the state probably doesn’t care that so many Indianapolis-area teams are prematurely eliminated. That hardly improves the series.

“You want your best people there,” said Mike Holman, boys coach at Lawrence Central.

Coaches voted down a proposal to the Indiana High School Athletic Association that would have divided the state into the eight regionals used in track and field, advancing three teams per regional. Approval would have intensified inequities. For instance, track’s Lafayette Jeff Regional features six of the top 21 teams in boys cross country.

A solution would be to eliminate semistates and employ a sectional/regional format in which the top four teams — plus four or five individuals not on advancing teams — qualify for state. Phil Gardner, an assistant commissioner of the IHSAA, said there was concern about “the caliber you’re going to get” with a 32-team state meet.

Terre Haute’s LaVern Gibson Championship Course could easily accommodate that many runners. Also, in some regionals outside the Indy area, small schools would have a better chance to break into the top four and advance to state.

“It’s not a dead issue,” Gardner said. “It’ll come again.”

2. Reduce to 3 rounds

There is dissatisfaction with running sectionals on a Tuesday and regionals four days later.

“Especially if you’re in a tough sectional,” said Lawrence North’s Ken Browner, president of the coaches’ association.

Sectionals have so few teams that many are not meaningful. Noblesville’s Kent Graham, who formerly coached at a small school, Pioneer, countered that it is meaningful to advance.

“This can be a big deal in a small school in getting kids to participate,” Graham wrote in an e-mail. “By reducing the number of levels, the smaller schools will not advance as far in the tournament.”

If runners from non-advancing teams were allowed to advance, however, small schools would have a better chance to be represented at regionals and state.

Graham said he did not favor a multiclass tournament, and there appears to be little impetus for it. Two schools with enrollments of less than 900, Silver Creek (1990) and New Prairie (1994), have been state runners-up.

3. End the season later

None of the contiguous states ends cross country season as early as Indiana. The early finish necessitates an early start — August races, in other words.

If the state meet were the first Saturday in November — Nov. 7 in 2009 — and the tournament reduced to three rounds, this would be sectional week.

“That would make a big difference, I think,” Carmel boys coach Erhard Bell said. “The August heat in Indiana is brutal.”

A revised calendar would benefit elite and developing runners. Those training for national meets would not go as long without a race. At some schools, the junior varsity is done before Oct. 1. A new timetable would keep them around longer.

4. Shorter races early

A 5,000-meter race is a grind, especially for those new to running or in a new season.

Why not run two miles or 4K for a few weeks? In college cross country, teams never run the full distance (10K) until late.

That is achieved in some meets with “hokum karums,” in which pairs of runners alternate miles.

Two or three weeks of shorter races “may assist the runners,” Graham said. Other coaches said the 5K distance is not an issue.