Going back even further, in the 70's, the AA and AAA classification (there were only four classifications in those days) played a 4 team, 12 team, or 16 team state tournament, depending on how you look at it.  They played two regional rounds, and then two rounds in one place, the U of Puget Sound for the AA tournament and Hec Edmundson at the U of W for the AAA tournament.  Four teams played in each region.  The format was something like this for each region:  There were two games played in round one of each region.  The second round looked like this:

Game 3:  L1 vs. L2 (Winner #3; loser out)
Game 4:  W1 vs W2. (Winner #1, loser #2)

The winner of game 3 of each region as well as both the winner and loser of game 4 went on to play in the third and fourth rounds at each site. In round 3, there were four loser-out games:  Two between  #3 seeds and two between #2 seeds.  Then, the two games between the #1 seeds were played. In the final round, the two # 3 seeds played for 5th and 8th, the two #2 seeds played for 4th and 7th, the losers of the #1 seed games played for 3rd and 6th, and the two winners played for 1st and 2nd.

Clear as mud now???  What it amounted to was when the teams met under one roof, at either UPS or UW, 8 teams were playing for trophies and 4 were playing for the championship.