George Guido: PIAA forcing football teams to move up causes social media storm

By: George Guido
Tuesday, December 17, 2019 | 4:16 PM

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The smoke and fire seen burning up Twitter and Facebook on Tuesday centered on the announcement from the PIAA that Aliquippa and a number of other schools are being moved up in classification under a new rule.

The rule, designed to discourage transfers that could form a veritable all-star team and to quell the movement to have separate public and nonpublic school playoff brackets, assigns success points to teams that go far in the PIAA playoffs and to those taking in a noticeable amount of transfers.

The school most affected is Aliquippa. The Quips, a Class A school, has opted in the last four seasons to play Class 3A football and has made the WPIAL finals each season.

The PIAA office reportedly said Aliquippa needs to move up to Class 4A because of success points and allegedly taking in some 30 transfers and move up from the “class where they had the success.”

Aliquippa plans to appeal, and the PIAA really should take a look at exempting schools that voluntarily play up in class.

Seven overtimes

The most remarkable high school basketball game this season has been the seven-overtime instant classic played Saturday night in Warminster, outside of Philadelphia.

Archbishop Wood played St. Paul VI of Fairfax, Va., losing 130-128 in a game that took four hours to complete.

A marathon night looked unlikely because Archbishop Wood led 66-50 with 6 minutes, 5 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

It got to the point where Archbishop Wood coach John Mosco called a time out and asked those who hadn’t fouled out to gather around him so he knew whom he could and couldn’t play.

Paul VI had only one starter, Tyler Coleman, who hadn’t fouled out by the end of the game.

As if that wasn’t enough, the Archbishop Wood team had to board a plane to Hawaii at 6 a.m. to play in the Iolani Classic.

Believe it not, it wasn’t the longest game in Pennsylvania high school annals. In 1972, Plymouth-Whitemarsh defeated Springfield-Montco in eight overtimes.

The national record for overtimes in a game is 13 set by Boone (N.C.) in a relatively low-scoring game, 56-54, over Angier on Feb. 29, 1964.

What a way to celebrate Leap Day.

The WPIAL record is six overtimes.

The first was on Dec. 29, 1968, when Latrobe outlasted Greensburg Salem, 57-56, in the Norwin Holiday Tournament..

Also, Ellwood City won in six overtimes against neighboring Riverside, 74-72, on Feb. 19, 1985.

The Alle-Kiski Valley’s longest game was a girls contest that lasted five overtimes between Valley and North Hills on Jan. 15, 1981, won by the Vikings, 62-61.

There have been several four-overtime contests locally.

On Feb. 9, 1988, Knoch beat Hampton, 69-68.

Another was Dec. 9, 1989, when Valley knocked off Highlands, 61-54, in the old A-K Tip-off Tournament at Highlands High School.

Most recently, Burrell defeated Ford City, 66-62, on Jan. 26, 2014. The game started at 7:33 p.m. and ended at 9:57 p.m.

Newtown wins

For those of you who missed what might be the feel-good story of the year, Newtown won the Connecticut State high school football title over Darien, 13-7, on the last play of the game Saturday night.

The victory occurred seven years to the day when Sandy Hook Elementary School of Newtown suffered the tragic loss of 26 students and adults by gunfire.

With 3 seconds to go and the score knotted at 7-7, Jack Street threw a 36-yard touchdown pass to Riley Wood. With time expired, an extra point was not attempted, and the Nighthawks began their celebration at foggy Trumbull Stadium.

The team was featured at halftime of the Steelers-Bills game Sunday night on NBC and on the “Today” show Monday morning.

In a show of sportsmanship, Darien Football’s twitter account said “while a defeat is never easy to swallow, the joy brought to the entire Newtown community is numbing our pain.”