George Guido: Wrestlers now limited in number of matches per day

By: George Guido
Saturday, December 4, 2021 | 5:09 PM

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As wrestling and other winter sports prepare to take center stage starting Friday, the only real change in wrestling rules regards matches in one day.

Now, wrestlers cannot represent their school in more than one weight class in any meet or wrestle in more than five matches in one day (championships or consolations), excluding forfeits.

The exception is a limit of six matches per day of a tournament conducted by the state association — such as the PIAA — to determine qualification for a state championship of the championship meet itself.

There has been a growing concern recently by the National Federation of State High School Associations centered around “the extreme number of matches wrestlers accumulated over the course of a season.”

Some states had no limits on matches per day, per wrestler.

Increasing the number from five to six would allow postseason tournaments with more than eight competitors in a weight class to finish the tournament in one day.

This would allow schools to forego the costs of an overnight stay.

The Tennessee State High School Association experimented with the new limits and passed on the results to the NFHS.

Five for the finals

For the first time, the WPIAL will send five teams to the PIAA football finals in Hershey.

With Mt. Lebanon’s victory over State College on Saturday afternoon, the Class 6A Blue Devils will join Class 5A Penn-Trafford, Class 4A Aliquippa, Class 3A Central Valley and Class 2A Serra Catholic this coming weekend at Hersheypark Stadium.

The only WPIAL champ not advancing was Bishop Canevin, which lost to Redbank Valley.

More on Redbank later.

Several times, four WPIAL schools went to the finals. In 2014, Pine-Richland lost to St. Joseph’s Prep,Central Valley lost to Archbishop Wood, South Fayette defeated Dunmore and Clairton lost to Bishop Guilfoyle.

Of course, it wasn’t possible to have that many schools in the finals until the PIAA went to six classifications in 2016.

Redbank Valley

Finally, in the 34th year of the PIAA football playoffs, Armstrong County — kind of — has a team going for a state title.

Redbank Valley defeated Bishop Canevin, 23-14, on Friday night.

Redbank Valley’s High School and administrative offices are located in New Bethlehem, Clarion County. But most of the 165-square-mile school district is in Armstrong County with South Bethlehem Borough and Mahoning, Madison and Redbank townships as part of the school system.

As for Clarion County, no school from that county has gone to the finals since Keystone in 1989.

Football merger

Yet another football merger is in the works.

United High School of Armagh, Indiana County will be merging with Blacklick Valley from the Nanty-Glo area of Cambria County for the 2022-23 football seasons.

The schools will be consolidated for football only under the banner of the United High School Lions and will be part of the Heritage Conference.

United was 0-9 this past season.

Home games will be divided between the United and Blacklick Valley stadiums, and Blacklick will be able to maintain the tradition of a senior night and homecoming.

This move comes on the heels of the recent merger between Blairsville and Saltsburg where that school district merged its two former high schools and is being called the River Valley High School Panthers.

River Valley was 8-3 overall in its maiden football season.

River Valley’s boys and girls basketball teams will debut this coming weekend as part of the Leechburg Tip-off Tournament.