‘Focus, eyes forward’: After rule change snafu, Allderdice boys soccer set for PIAA tournament

By: Chris Harlan
Tuesday, November 5, 2024 | 10:33 AM

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When the WPIAL released its brackets for the boys soccer playoffs, Allderdice wasn’t included. The Dragons had learned weeks earlier that they weren’t eligible, but it still stung.

Their motivation was to compete for a WPIAL title, until that was taken away with a few games left in the regular season.

Now what?

“It was really tough to see the brackets come out and not be a part of it,” Allderdice coach David Thyberg said. “We really had big goals and aspirations. We performed to a level where we were going to be in the mix.

“But at the end of the day, that was out of our control. So, we’re focused on the state playoffs and trying to make some noise there.”

The PIAA boys soccer tournament starts Tuesday. City League champion Allderdice (13-4-1) hosts District 10 champion General McLane (16-3) at Cupples Stadium in a first-round game at 6 p.m.

The Dragons qualified for the state tournament by defeating Obama Academy, 5-0, for the City League title and later District 9’s DuBois, 2-1, in a PIAA subregional. It wasn’t the playoff path they’d expected to follow a few weeks ago, but they capitalized on the only one they had available.

Against DuBois, junior Niv Friedman scored the first goal unassisted, and Ethan Voight-Cherna scored the second with an assist from senior captain Jacek Piekut.

“The message has been, ‘Focus, eyes forward,’” Thyberg said. “Make every game a statement game, whenever we can.”

Allderdice is a member of the City League but competed for years in the WPIAL as a so-called “associate member.” A change in PIAA bylaws made that impossible this fall, but the players and coaches were unaware.

The WPIAL shared the bad news Oct. 3.

“I’m very proud of the boys and our team,” Thyberg said. “They really showed great character. Within a day or two, they flipped the switch and came right back to business.

“We would’ve loved to play in the WPIAL championships. That’s what every western Pennsylvania soccer player wants to do when they’re in high school.”

Now, they’ll settle for a quarterfinal matchup with WPIAL champion Moon (22-0), which faces Lampeter-Strasburg (16-2-3) in another first-round matchup Tuesday. If Allderdice and Moon both win, they’d meet Saturday.

“We’re not getting ahead of ourselves,” Thyberg said. “We’ll have to earn our way there. … Nothing is granted, but that is a goal we’re trying to work toward.”

The team’s original goal was to play last week at Highmark Stadium, where the WPIAL crowned its champions. A series of administrative decisions made that impossible, starting with a PIAA rule change adopted two summers ago.

The PIAA decided teams can only compete in the postseason in their district. The WPIAL is PIAA District 7 while the City League is District 8. The new rule came shortly after Butler took the PIAA to court over a related matter in football.

However, the change wasn’t implemented until this fall, since the PIAA schedules on a two-year cycle. This year’s state brackets, unlike those in the past, had separate spots for District 7 and District 8 qualifiers.

The PIAA offered one caveat: If the City League had only one team in a specific classification, that team could continue to compete in the WPIAL playoffs. But the City League had three boys team in 3A — Allderdice, Brashear and Obama Academy — and only two were in the WPIAL.

So there had to be a three-team City League playoff to crown a District 8 champion.

“We could not have the same district qualifying, in essence, through two separate regions,” PIAA administrator Mark Byers said.

In theory, the Allderdice girls could’ve continued to participate in the WPIAL playoffs, since they’re the only 4A team in the City League. But the City League administration months ago requested otherwise.

“They said, ‘We want to treat all of our teams the same,’ which I think is the correct choice,” Byers said. “They didn’t want to set it up where one gender potentially had a harder road to the (state) playoffs than the other.”

So no City League teams can enter the WPIAL playoffs.

But that change caught teams by surprise in early October when the WPIAL said they were ineligible for the postseason and reclassified their section games as exhibitions.

Byers said the PIAA board discussed Allderdice’s situation at last month’s meeting and “reaffirmed the process for determining qualifiers and bracketing for the fall championships,” meaning there would be no last-minute change.

In a letter to City League athletes and their parents, Pittsburgh Public Schools athletic director Karen Arnold apologized for not providing timely updates about the change.

“We understand that this information may be confusing or concerning for some families, as it represents a significant change in how our student-athletes will compete,” Arnold said. “However, I am confident that these adjustments will create more opportunities for our students to advance in their respective sports and, in many cases, participate more fully in the state tournaments.”

Arnold said the policy was in effect for this school year and next.

Thyberg has served two seasons as Allderdice’s boys coach after years as an assistant. A former City League player himself at Schenley, he has concerns about the program’s future.

It’s still unknown what the team’s schedule will look like next season. Allderdice might continue to play a WPIAL schedule as before, but those contests would be considered nonsection games.

Vying for a section title and a WPIAL playoff berth were always motivational goals. Thyberg said the best-case scenario would see Allderdice competing in the WPIAL again someday.

“I hope that something comes around as a solution so that our program can survive long term,” he said. “Other programs in the city have died off. We don’t want to be an intramural or a rec league. A City League with three teams is not a league.”

Allderdice could’ve finished second in Section 3-3A. In fact, the Dragons twice defeated section champion Latrobe, 3-0 and 1-0. But they didn’t let their exclusion from the WPIAL playoffs ruin their season.

“At first the news is devastating, but we had to turn the page and focus on what we could control,” Thyberg said. “That’s playing each game like it means everything and competing like it’s a final, no matter what.”

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.

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