Teams can compete in additional regular season contests under WPIAL policy change

By: Chris Harlan
Monday, October 14, 2024 | 9:17 PM

WPIAL wrestlers can compete in more matches than usual starting this winter, and teams in other sports might see their regular season schedules increase as well.

The WPIAL board on Monday voted to make some in-season “conference championships” exempt from the contest limits set by the PIAA for regular season play. The change was requested by wrestling coaches to copy what some other PIAA districts already allow, and 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.”

Wrestlers are limited to 22 contests in a 12-week regular season under PIAA rules. However, a tournament with nine or more teams counts as three contests. But tournaments held by the Midwestern Athletic Conference, Tri-County Athletic Directors Association or other conferences might no longer count toward those 22.

If so, teams could add additional events to their schedules, increasing the number of matches their wrestlers compete in each winter. To be an exempted event, conference organizers must receive approval from the WPIAL.

The guidelines approved Monday said:

• Requests must come from established organizations (conferences or leagues) that are governed collectively by the member schools in that organization.

• WPIAL member schools can only be exempt from one event per season (Teams may attend multiple events that have applied for waivers, but must count the second or third events).

• Organizations must apply for a waiver each year by Aug. 1 prior to the school year.

• WPIAL will evaluate these guidelines each year.

The policy change took effect immediately, so the WPIAL set a Nov. 11 deadline for requests for this school year.

There are a number of annual wrestling tournaments each winter, 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?

“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. But Seltzer said he expected other sports, such as baseball, would show interest in adding an in-season conference tournament.

“You can set that up,” he said. “But you’ve got to get approval.”

Among upcoming winter and spring sports, basketball is limited to 22 regular season contests, baseball and softball are capped at 20 and lacrosse is allowed 18. Boys volleyball teams are allowed 22.

But volleyball, like wrestling, uses a formula for multi-team tournaments, where a one-day event counts as two contests and a two-day event is four.

The WPIAL board voted 8-6 to adopt the proposal. The split vote wasn’t necessary a sign of opposition to the idea, but rather a disagreement over whether to implement the change now or wait until next school year.

Guidelines for the new policy were recommended by a WPIAL board subcommittee that met Friday.

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.

The WPIAL is the only league in District 7, so they’re one and the same.

According to 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.”

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.