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PIAA approves changes to individual and state wrestling championships

Like in the fall, the PIAA decided Wednesday to start the winter sports season on time despite a rise of COVID-19 cases throughout the state. That means games can be played starting Friday, although there will be none locally.
				All but three Wyoming Valley Conference schools decided Monday to push back the start of the winter season until Jan. 4. The Lackawanna League also set Jan. 4 as a start date, but that changed Wednesday when the league&rsquo;s school superintendents moved it to Jan. 11. Other leagues and conferences in the state have also pushed back their start dates.
				Although the PIAA Board of Directors didn&rsquo;t vote on starting winter sports at its meeting, PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said the decision was made to allow more room to complete regular-season schedules.
				&ldquo;The answer to that is the board believes took it very seriously and wanted to give those schools the greatest amount of flexibility they could,&rdquo; Lombardi said. &ldquo;And I think they did it in reverse, meaning we wiped away the regular-season deadline. Now, you can play all the way up to the championship game contest in basketball, which I believe is the 27th of March.
				&ldquo;The second part is the board moved the district deadline for some of those sports, and that also gives districts more flexibility in possibly setting up any postseason they may have. And thirdly, by reducing the (state tournament) postseason to champions only, it also allows districts flexibility on how they want to organize their tournament or whether they want to shorten it or truncate it to fit their needs.&rdquo;
				Lombardi added those changes will allow leagues and conferences about six additional weeks of play.
				The decision came after the board received a letter Wednesday morning from the Pennsylvania Principals Association urging a later starting date. The board also heard from State College Area superintendent Bob O&rsquo;Donnell, who wanted the start date switched to Feb. 1 for competitions while allowing practices to continue.
				&ldquo;Right now, our county and its neighbors are burning up with COVID-19 cases,&rdquo; O&rsquo;Donnell said. &ldquo;In our district schools, we&rsquo;ve had almost 50 cases of COVID among our employees and students in the last 10 days. Our hospital has been at maximum capacity for weeks.
				&ldquo;The delay would allow for the distribution of the vaccine and hopefully see a better outlook as it relates to the spread of the virus in the commonwealth. Our belief is we should shift the winter and spring competition seasons so these student-athletes still have the opportunity to complete, but hopefully in a safer environment.&rdquo;
				O&rsquo;Donnell added if the winter seasons weren&rsquo;t delayed there was a chance his school district would opt out of playing.
				Lombardi said he hasn&rsquo;t had any contact with Governor Tom Wolf&rsquo;s administration. Rumors circulated through social media on Tuesday night that Wolf was going to close down youth sports for the remainder of the calendar year. A Wolf spokesperson denied that to several media outlets.
				&ldquo;What we&rsquo;re really concerned with is if we don&rsquo;t have the ability to host sports in our membership that students are going to go to the outside-of-school programs where there aren&rsquo;t the safety controls and there isn&rsquo;t the oversight and there isn&rsquo;t the plan in place to protect students,&rdquo; Lombardi said. &ldquo;You see it every weekend throughout the commonwealth and every state around us we see it every weekend.&rdquo;
				In other actions by the PIAA administration and board on Wednesday:
				&#8226; The deadline for district basketball championships was moved from March 6 to March 15 to allow extra time to complete regular seasons.
				&#8226; The basketball state playoffs will be limited to district champions only for a maximum of 12 teams in each classifications. Each bracket normally has 32 teams.
				If a district doesn&rsquo;t have a team in each of the six classifications, no additional teams which didn&rsquo;t win district titles will be added to make a 12-team bracket. For example, Districts 5 and 9 don&rsquo;t have any Class 6A schools, so the Class 6A state boys basketball bracket will have 10 teams.
				If a district decides not to participate in states &mdash; as District 8 and 11 did in football in the fall &mdash; no additional teams will be added.
				&#8226; If a regular-season game is cancelled because of a COVID-19 issue or because of a disagreement on wearing masks, the game would be declared a &ldquo;no contest.&rdquo; Schools have differed one whether their athletes need to wear masks while competing.
				Lombardi said the PIAA will issue mask rules for state playoffs at a later date.
				&#8226; The board voted 23-8 to pass a rule concerning teams unable to practice several consecutive days.
				If a team is unable to practice for more than seven consecutive days, it needs two practices before playing a game. If a team can&rsquo;t practice for more than 10 consecutive days, it needs three practices. If a team can&rsquo;t practice for more than 14 consecutive days, it needs four practices.
				Teams would still have to complete 15 total practices before their first competition.
				&ldquo;The purpose and rational is health and safety,&rdquo; Lombardi said. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s in the best interest of someone to be out eight days or more not to be able to run up and down the court or the field a little bit just to get some fitness.&rdquo;
				The vote was supposed to be on a first reading of the rule, but the board suspended protocol and voted it in immediately.
				&ldquo;I was disappointed earlier in the meeting when we went from a first reading to a suspended protocol on the practice interruption,&rdquo; District 3 chairman Doug Bohannon said. &ldquo;Eight of those votes came from athletic directors and we&rsquo;re in the trenches every day, and I think it&rsquo;s going to be very difficult that if we do have closures to get games in.
				&ldquo;It was unfair we went from first reading to suspended protocol. That&rsquo;s just my opinion.&rdquo;
				&#8226; If an athlete loses a mask during competition, play will continue until a normal stoppage. Lombardi used the example of wrestling where the match wouldn&rsquo;t be stopped for the loss of a mask if a wrestler was about to score points.
				&#8226; The board voted unanimously to allow teams which don&rsquo;t qualify for the postseason or are eliminated during the postseason to continue playing games until the date of the sport&rsquo;s state championship. These teams could not exceed the maximum number of games allowed.
				This is the same action the PIAA took with fall sports, and it allowed some local football teams to tack on a game or two.
				&#8226; The board voted unanimously to waive the rule that a team must play 50 percent of its scheduled games in order to qualify for the postseason. Some districts implemented their own rules for the minimum number of games during the fall.
				&#8226; The state swimming championships will have 16 entrants per event instead of 32.

H.S. sports: PIAA pushing on with winter sports, games can begin on Friday