AUGUSTA – New Englands stay, but some playoff teams will have to stay home.

The Interscholastic Management Committee of the Maine Principals’ Association voted Monday to reduce the number of teams who qualify for its tournaments but will continue sending the state’s top athletes to New England competitions.

Most of controversial recommendations from an MPA ad hoc committee that said they were intended to save schools money while keeping athletes on a level playing field were voted down or changed. On Monday, the 10-member management committee consisting of Maine principals, assistant principals and headmasters, reviewed the proposals one-by-one and voted:

• 7-3 to reject a proposal to reduce the number of countable games by two if the present number is 12 or more or by one if the present number is 10 or fewer.

• 9-1 to reject reducing the ice hockey and swimming seasons by one week.

• 8-2 to limit all teams to five non-countable dates (exhibitions, scrimmages, holiday tournaments, etc.). The ad hoc committee proposed only two. Conference championships and pre-playoff scrimmages are not included.

• 9-1 to allow 50 percent of teams in heal point sports to qualify for the playoffs. Currently, the top 67 percent qualify.

• 9-1 to continue to allow Maine athletes to compete in the New England Secondary School Principals’ Association competitions.

The reduction in tournament teams and limits on non-countable games will start with the 2009-10 school year. The tournament policy will be reviewed in two years.

The committee also voted unanimously to urge a two-year freeze in fees and travel reimbursements for officials.

“I think coming in it probably went the way I expected it would go, but I never expected that it was an all-or-nothing proposal,” said Oak Hill High School assistant principal Bob Birmingham, a member of the Interscholastic Management Committee. “I think people worked in the best interest of interscholastic sports and co-curricular activities in general.”

Many of the proposals met strong resistance from high school athletic conferences, athletic directors, coaches and athletes. Over two dozen administrators attended the meeting, while about a dozen athletes lined an outside walkway leading to MPA offices and held signs urging the committee to reject the proposals.

“They listened to what the leagues had to say about it. I think they were very fair in what they did,” Oxford Hills athletic director Jeff Benson said.

“I’m so thrilled,” said Lewiston High School junior Kris Gagne, a football and lacrosse player, one of the students who waited outside during the 2 and 1/2 hour discussion. “We thought it was going to get passed and we were going to be out a game or two in the regular season.”

Benson and other athletic directors in the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference didn’t want countable and non-countable games reduced, either, and argued the ad hoc committee’s recommendation to implement any changes for the coming spring season would be unfair to spring sports.

“They recognized the fact that those were money-makers for schools, and they afforded the spring (sports) the same opportunity the fall and winter had. You get your full complement of games, you get your two-thirds into the tournament and so on,” Benson said. “I think they certainly listened to what we had to say as a group from our league.”

“Now we’re going to put in our budget and the process will be in place. We will have to make some tough decisions, obviously, based upon what the state is going to give, but they still leave it up to local control to do that,” he said.

MPA executive director Dick Durost said the ad hoc committee was formed after the state’s superintendents raised concerns about increasing travel costs, dwindling state subsidies and the overall economic climate. The committee forwarded its recommendations to the 155 MPA member schools to solicit feedback from administrators before the Monday’s vote.

“I got feedback that ranged from those recommendations not going far enough to rejecting the entire proposal, and everywhere in between,” Birmingham said. “The one trying to eliminate New England competitions was a huge one, and I think people felt very strongly that the locals should be able to dictate how much competition their individual communities would participate in.”

“I feel very good in our particular case at Oak Hill that our athletic administrator and our administration is doing whatever they can to keep those costs down as best they can and still make a great experience for our student-athletes as well,” he added.

The proposals prompted Maine House Republican leader Josh Tardy of Newport to introduce a bill to limit the MPA’s jurisdiction over Maine high school sports

Durost said that Monday’s vote “proves that the process that this organization uses works,” while athletes said that it showed their concerns were heard.

“I’m really overwhelmed,” said Melody Lam, a Mt. Blue High School junior who competed in the cross country New Englands last fall and helped organize protests against the proposals on her blog. “I think we had a big impact with all the things we’ve been doing. Even though they say that they haven’t been taking our opinions … I’m really glad that we got out there and spread the word.”