A policy change championed by high school wrestlers in Western Pennsylvania will now apply to all sports recognized by the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League following a vote Monday by the WPIAL board.
As reported by Trib HSSN, the WPIAL voted 8-6 to make in-season “conference championships” exempt from the contest limits set by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association. The change was requested by wrestling coaches, yet the WPIAL board chose to adopt the policy for all sports.
A policy change championed by high school wrestlers in Western Pennsylvania will now apply to all sports recognized by the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League following a vote Monday by the WPIAL board.
As reported by Trib HSSN, the WPIAL voted 8-6 to make in-season “conference championships” exempt from the contest limits set by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association. The change was requested by wrestling coaches, yet the WPIAL board chose to adopt the policy for all sports.
“I think it’s a big deal for a certain number of kids,” WPIAL executive director Scott Seltzer said. “… I think wrestling will really appreciate this.”
Wrestling teams raised the issue because the WPIAL is organized differently than the other 11 PIAA districts. Some are a collection of separate leagues, and the PIAA lets each league hold an exempt tournament to decide a champion. That means those teams are exempt for separate league and district tournaments.
Per PIAA bylaws: “With District Committee approval, Contests that are required to be played in order to determine qualifiers to District Championship Contests and/or Contests that are required to be played to determine a conference or league champion do not count toward the maximum number of Regular Season Contests in that sport and must be played by the District Deadline in that sport.”
According to Trib HSSN's Chris Harlan, wrestlers are limited to 22 contests in a 12-week regular season under PIAA rules. A tournament with nine or more teams counts as three contests. But now events held by the Midwestern Athletic Conference, Tri-County Athletic Directors Association or other conferences will no longer count toward those 22.
To be exempt, however, conferences must receive approval from the WPIAL, which set a Nov. 11 deadline for requests.
There are a number of annual wrestling tournaments each year, including for Allegheny County and Westmoreland County titles. But not every association or grouping of schools is guaranteed to qualify for exempt status, Seltzer said.
"The WPIAL board on Monday briefly debated that question: What is a conference?," Harlan reported.
“That’s a great question that the board is going to have to figure out,” Seltzer said.
A WPIAL team can be exempted only from one conference tournament.
“If you go to MAC and TriCADA, one of them is going to count,” Seltzer said. “You can’t just waive all of them.”
The new policy will have an immediate impact on sports with established conference championship events, Harlan reported, adding that Seltzer said he expected other sports, such as baseball, would show interest in adding an in-season conference championship.
“You can set that up,” he said. “But you’ve got to get approval.”
