HSSN May Madness: Vote for the WPIAL’s best of the century

By: Don Rebel
Wednesday, April 29, 2020 | 9:37 PM

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The NCAA college basketball tournament has grown over the decades to become one of the top sporting events on the calendar.

Hardcore hoop fans, casual supporters and even folks who don’t watch a single game the entire season love to take part in March Madness, as people across the country fill out their brackets before the tournament begins.

The annual ritual was one of many events that became a victim of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.

While we don’t pretend to match the excitement generated by March Madness, the TribLive High School Sports Network will try to tickle your high school sports competition void with our version of May Madness.

Over the course of the next month and a half, May Madness will determine who you fans believe is the WPIAL Athlete of the Century.

With the completion of the fall sports season at the end of 2019, the first 20 years of this century were in the books with plenty of stars having shined bright in those two decades.

It was not easy, but we have put together two 32-player brackets, one for the boys and one for the girls of WPIAL alums.

Outside of a few exceptions, the field is made up of former district players who excelled in more than one sport.

Each weekday, starting on Friday, we will have one matchup each on the boys and girls bracket with a little background info on each athlete.

Then, it falls into the hands of you fans. You can take to the HSSN twitter and vote for which athlete you want to advance in each bracket.

Check the website the next day for matchup results.

There will be 16 first-round matchups, eight in the second round, four quarterfinals and two semifinal showdowns to set up the championship final to determine which WPIAL athlete is No. 1 through the first two decades of the 21st century.

Feel free check out the HSSN website and twitter feed every day to be a part of the HSSN May Madness.