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The PIAA said Wednesday it remains on track to start winter sports on time despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
				&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to tell you what I told you in August and you&rsquo;re going to smile,&rdquo; PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said after the Board of Directors meeting. &ldquo;Cautiously optimistic.&rdquo;
				The first official day for winter sports practice is Nov. 20.
				The PIAA brought the same attitude into the fall sports season and was able to forge ahead to the point where they have completed some state championships and are on target to hold them in other sports.
				Lombardi said the PIAA Sports Medicine Committee recommended having winter sports.
				&ldquo;They felt as long as people have health and safety plans and there&rsquo;s strict adherence to those plans and they&rsquo;re enforced locally and that we can continue to keep an eye on what&rsquo;s going on in the commonwealth as far as cases, we could take a step-by-step cautious approach and we could get winter started and see how far we can go,&rdquo; Lombardi said.
				&ldquo;If something comes up and we need to adjust or shut down or those type of things, we&rsquo;ll do it. Part of their commentary we had the other night was just take the fall. If we arbitrarily shut down and didn&rsquo;t take the step-by-step approach, we wouldn&rsquo;t have gotten anything in. And we would be coming here and say &lsquo;Look at all the weeks we missed.&rsquo;&rdquo;
				That doesn&rsquo;t mean winter sports of basketball, wrestling, swimming and competitive cheer will look the same as last year. The PIAA steering committees in those sports presented proposed changes because of the pandemic.
				Among the numerous changes were cutting the number of state qualifiers in swimming for each event from 32 to 16, possibly reducing the number of teams in the state team wrestling championships and adding several health and safety measures for all winter sports.
				None of the recommendation of the steering committees are official. However, no board member voiced opposition to any of the proposed changes. The board has another meeting scheduled for Nov. 18.
				Here are some other items from the Zoom meeting:
				&#8226; The PIAA will allow spectators at the state cross country championships Nov. 7 in Hershey on a limited basis.
				Each school will be given four colored wristbands per runner to distribute to spectators. The colored wrist band is good for that particular race only. Different colored wristbands will be used for each race to prevent spectators from staying at the site for more than one race.
				&#8226; The PIAA Class 5A state football playoff bracket will be changed if District 2&rsquo;s Wyoming Valley West doesn&rsquo;t participate.
				The Wyoming Valley West school board will meet Thursday morning to decide whether to resume sports after shutting them down last week when two students contracted COVID-19.
				If Wyoming Valley West resumes sports, all its teams eligible for the District 2 playoffs will play. The football team would play Nov. 13 or 14 against either the District 6 champion or District 10 champion.
				If Wyoming Valley West sports remain shut down, then the District 1 champion and District 3 champion will play in one 5A semifinals. The District 7 champion would play either District 6 or District 10 in the other.
				&#8226; The board also cleared up some confusion regarding the number of games that can be played in the fall.
				The PIAA is allowing teams to continue playing until the weekend of Nov. 27-28 whether they qualify for the postseason or don&rsquo;t.
				Using football as an example, football teams can play a maximum of 10 games unless they are still alive in the postseason. If a team is eliminated in the playoffs before reaching 10 games, it can schedule more games. If a team is eliminated in the playoffs and has reached at least 10 games, its season is over. Any team not making the postseason can play a maximum of 10 games.
				Same goes for other sports such as soccer, which can play a maximum of 18 games including playoff games or exceed that number if still playing in the postseason.
				&ldquo;The board felt this was an opportunity to give people the opportunity to get participation in and games in up to the maximum number in that sport,&rdquo; Lombardi said.
				&#8226; The team on the top portion of the state football brackets will be the home team unless it would result in a long road trip for the visiting team or the stadium is considered not sufficient to host the game.
				For example, if Wyoming Valley West does play in the Class 5A state football playoffs, the Spartans wouldn&rsquo;t have to travel to District 6 or District 10. Instead, a neutral site between the two teams would be selected.
				Lombardi, though, acknowledged finding neutral sites has been a task since some schools have been cautious about allowing two outside teams into their facilities because of COVID-19 concerns.
				&#8226; The board voted unanimously to allow any schools which didn&rsquo;t play fall sports to play them in the spring, but with no postseason. An alternative fall season would run between the winter and spring seasons.
				The board also approved a request from District 1 that any current team playing in the fall which didn&rsquo;t complete at least 25% of its schedule could play the sport again in the spring.
				&#8226; Lombardi released the number of supplemental disqualifications for football and soccer so far.
				The supplemental disqualification rule is for any coach or player ejected from a game for confronting, contacting or addressing a coach, player or official using foul or vulgar language, ethnic or racially insensitive comments or physical contact. The player or coach would be ejected from the game and then suspended for the next two games.
				Those ejections not considered a supplemental disqualification results in a one-game suspension.
				Lombardi said there have been 229 soccer disqualifications with 66 falling under the supplemental rule. For football, 54 of the 78 disqualifications violated the supplemental disqualification rule.

PIAA believes winter sports season will be able to start on time