Philadelphia Catholic League teams no longer block WPIAL’s path to PIAA basketball finals

By: Chris Harlan
Thursday, October 13, 2022 | 7:30 AM

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The marquee matchup of state championship weekend became an all-Philadelphia Catholic League affair when Roman Catholic and Archbishop Wood met in Hershey last winter for the Class 6A boys basketball final.

It was the third time in eight years that the PIAA’s big-school boys championship included two teams from District 12. But the PIAA board on Tuesday approved updated playoff brackets that grouped all District 12 boys teams on the same side of the bracket, meaning they can’t meet in the state finals in 2023 or 2024.

That’s good news for the WPIAL and much of the state.

District 12 teams often became road blocks on the way to Hershey. Archbishop Wood ended Fox Chapel’s state championship hopes in the semifinals last season, setting up the all-Philly final.

Having two teams from the same PIAA district meet in the state finals is usually unpopular, PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said, whether they’re from the east or the west.

“I don’t think anybody, unless it’s a really odd circumstance with upsets, upsets, upsets, likes seeing the same district in a championship game,” Lombardi said. “It has happened over the years. One year at Bryce Jordan we had two District 6 teams in the final. It was a terrific crowd and it was good for that area and that district, but not for the other 11 districts.”

That was in 2010, when Bishop Guilfoyle defeated Northern Cambria in the Class A girls final at Penn State.

The PIAA has had philosophical debates over the years about whether the state finals ideally should include the two best teams in the state (even if they’re from the same PIAA district) or should the state championship have teams from two different districts?

Since 2015, there were seven finals that matched teams from the same district. Six of those seven games involved two teams from District 12, which includes the Philadelphia Catholic League and Philadelphia public schools.

The PIAA took a bit more of a regional approach to the brackets for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, Lombardi said, with an overarching desire to reduce travel where possible. There’s maybe some added geographic balance to them, but by no means has the PIAA returned to a traditional east-west divide.

And there still could be championships this winter that feature two teams from the same district.

Among them, the Class 6A boys and girls finals could have two teams from District 1 (suburban Philadelphia), District 3 (Harrisburg area) or District 11 (Allentown area). But those districts can’t match the recent dominance of District 12, which won 10 of the 24 state titles awarded in the past two season.

The only classification that could produce an all-District 12 final this winter is 4A girls, where the third- and fifth-place teams from D12 are seeded on the “west” half of the bracket.

Class 2A girls is the only bracket where the WPIAL has teams on both sides. However, it’s the last qualifier, the eighth-place team from the WPIAL, that’s seeded on the “east” side.

WPIAL qualifiers

The WPIAL will send 36 boys teams and 37 girls teams to the state playoffs in each of the next two seasons. Those totals each increased by one from the past two years.

In the boys brackets, the WPIAL will have three spots in Class 6A, seven in 5A, 4A, 3A and 2A and five in Class A. In the girls brackets, the WPIAL has four in Class 6A, seven in 5A, six in 4A, seven in 3A, eight in 2A and five in A.

The PIAA uses a formula to calculate the percentage of schools each district has in every classification. For instance, in Class 2A girls, there are 125 teams statewide and the WPIAL has 31 — which equals 24.8%.

The PIAA then calculated that 24.8% of a 32-team bracket is 7.93, so the WPIAL receives eight spots in 2A girls.

First-round opponents

In the smaller classifications, the WPIAL mostly draws first-round opponents from neighboring districts 6, 9 or 10. In Class 5A and 6A, some WPIAL teams are matched with opponents from Harrisburg-based District 3.

One quirky first-round matchup has the WPIAL Class 4A boys champion starting the state playoffs against the seventh-place team from the WPIAL. It’s the only first-round matchup between teams from the same district.

City League qualifiers

The City League doesn’t have enough teams to automatically earn first-round qualifying spots. Instead, City League teams play their way into the 32-team brackets via regionals. As an example, the City League combines with Districts 5 and 9 to compete for two spots in the Class 3A girls bracket.

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.