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PLAINS TWP. &mdash; District 2 plans to once again hold its basketball championship games at Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre Township, provided there are no setbacks because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Attendance, however, will likely be limited.
				District 2 chairman Frank Majikes said during Thursday night&rsquo;s meeting that under the current state guidelines that a maximum of 500 people could be in the arena during a game. That total includes teams, officials, media and others necessary personnel.
				The dates for the District 2 basketball championships are March 11-13.
				&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t stress enough the meeting we had with (arena general manager) Will Beekman and his staff,&rdquo; Majikes said. &ldquo;They were just phenomenal.&rdquo;
				The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins also flipped home-and-away dates with an opponent to accommodate the basketball playoffs.
				The March 11 schedule will be: Class A girls championship, 3 p.m.; Class 3A boys championship, 5:30 p.m.; Class 4A girls championship, 8 p.m.
				The March 12 schedule will be: Class 2A girls championship, 3 p.m.; Class 5A boys championship, 5:30 p.m.; Class 6A girls championship, 8 p.m.
				The March 13 schedule will be: Class 2A boys championship, 10 a.m.; Class 3A girls championship, 12:30 p.m.; Class 4A boys championship, 3 p.m.; Class 5A girls championship, 5:30 p.m.; Class 6A boys championship, 8 p.m.
				Forest City is the only D2-A boys basketball team with MMI Prep electing not to play. It is in a subregional with District 11.
				The arena will be emptied between games to allow for sanitation.
				The District 2 athletic committee met earlier Thursday with athletic directors from the Wyoming Valley Conference and the Lackawanna Interscholastic Athletic Association to set the parameters for the district basketball and wrestling.
				&#8226; District basketball will remain open tournaments in classification where there are eight or fewer teams. Where there are more than eight teams &mdash; Class 4A and 5A boys and Class 4A girls &mdash; the top eight teams and any others with at least a .500 record will qualify.
				There will be no specific number of games that must be played in the regular season to qualify for the district playoffs. However, The District 2 athletic committee could change that if a team only plays a few games compared to the rest of the teams in the classification.
				All games will be played at the higher seed until the finals at the arena. The district tournament will start March 2 if play-in games are needed or March 4 if they&rsquo;re not.
				&#8226; Qualifying for the District 2 wrestling individual tournaments will start Feb. 13 with sectional tournaments. These will essentially be separate tournaments held by the WVC and LIAA.
				The top eight wrestlers in each weight class will advance to the district tournament on Feb. 20. However, the qualifiers might not be split evenly with four each from the WVC and LIAA in Class 2A because the WVC has five Class 2A schools while the LIAA has nine.
				The top four wrestlers in each weight class will move to the Northeast Regionals on Feb. 27. The Class 2A meet will be at Williamsport High School. The Class 3A meet will be at Bethlehem Liberty.
				The Super Regionals will be March 6 and the state championships March 12 (2A) and March 13 (3A) at Giant Center in Hershey.
				&#8226; The District 2 diving championships will be Feb. 27 and the swimming championships March 5-6 at the Wyoming Valley CYC.
				Majikes said the PIAA is looking at alternative sites for the state championship should Bucknell University be unavailable.
				&#8226; If two teams can&rsquo;t agree on a mask policy for a regular-season game, then it will be declared a &ldquo;no contest.&rdquo;
				The LIAA is requiring its teams to wear masks for all sports except swimming. Three WVC schools &mdash; Holy Redeemer, Wyoming Area and Wyoming Seminary &mdash; are doing the same. Tunkhannock was set to make a decision at its board meeting Thursday night.
				All other WVC schools are following the state guidelines where a mask isn&rsquo;t required if it poses a health issue. However, all players must wear masks if they aren&rsquo;t participating in the contest.
				The host school will be in charge of enforcing the mask policy. Game officials will have no involvement.
				At the state level, the home team will set the mask policy and if the visiting team doesn&rsquo;t agree then it will be a forfeit.
				&#8226; The brackets for the PIAA state basketball championships were also announced. The PIAA, like it did in the fall, will only have district champions qualify. All games will be play on the home court of the team on the top part of the bracket.
				Here are the first play dates for District 2 champions.
				March 16: Class 2A girls, D2 champion at D3 champion; Class 3A girls, D2 champion at D4 champion; Class 4A boys, D4 champion at D2 champion.
				March 17: Class A girls, D2 champion at D3 champion; Class 2A boys, D2 champion at D4 champion; Class 3A boys, D2 champion at D3 champion.
				March 19: Class 6A girls, D2 or D4 champion at D3 champion; Class A boys, D4 champion at D2 or D11 champion; Class 5A boys, D2 champion at D1 champion.
				March 20: Class 4A girls, D4 champion at D2 champion; Class 5A girls, D2 champion at D1 champion; Class 6A boys, D2 or D4 champion at D3 champion.
				&#8226; District 2 is looking at sponsorship opportunities for its website as well as for its medals, trophies and plaques.

H.S. Sports: District 2 planning to hold basketball championship at Mohegan Sun Arena