PIAA adopts slimmed-down state playoff brackets for fall sports

By: Chris Harlan
Wednesday, September 23, 2020 | 5:27 PM

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The state playoffs are now a win-and-get-in scenario.

The PIAA board approved slimmed-down state playoff brackets Wednesday that include only the champion from each district. Championship events for individual sports also were reduced to smaller fields.

The brackets are a positive sign the PIAA plans to crown state champions this fall despite coronavirus concerns, but the new format will reduce travel for state qualifiers and end football season a couple of weeks earlier.

All fall sports seasons will finish by Thanksgiving weekend.

“We’re cautiously optimistic that we’re going to have able to get a regular season, a shortened district playoff and a state playoff in,” PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said. “By following the guidance of our sport medicine committee … we feel we’ve made some prudent strides to give people the opportunity to compete and yet be safe in doing it.”

The state football finals were moved up to Nov. 27-28, two weeks earlier than scheduled. They’ll be condensed to two days. The championships were originally spread over three days Dec. 10-12.

Now that the PIAA has set its football playoffs, WPIAL administrators can finalize theirs. That PIAA schedule leaves the WPIAL with two available weeks for Class 6A football playoffs and three weeks for all other classifications.

As a result, WPIAL Class 6A will have a four-team playoff bracket and the other classes will have eight teams.

State championship dates for other team sports remain the same but will include fewer rounds since only the district champion qualifies. Football already was a winners-only tournament.

Updated brackets will be posted online Thursday, Lombardi said.

The early finish for football season is intended to help prevent the spread of covid-19. The PIAA Sports Medicine Advisory Council recommended having a “two to three week break that will serve as a buffer between the fall and winter sports seasons.”

Among the changes to individual sports, every district will send one cross country team and five individual runners to the PIAA championship meet. The Class A boys and girls would run Nov. 6, with Class 2A and 3A on Nov. 7.

In WPIAL girls tennis, only one team in each classification, the individual champions and the double champions would advance to the state tournaments.

The PIAA individual golf championships are Oct. 19-20, with the team tournament Oct. 26. The number of individual qualifiers will be reduced based on a proportional representation across the districts, Lombardi said.

Championship competition will be one 18-hole round.

“This reduces travel. It reduces overnight stays,” Lombardi said. “It reduces the number of qualifiers, so we can get it (completed) in a timely fashion without going outside normal tee times and the normal run of play.”

The PIAA also amended a section of its rules that required teams to play a certain number of games to be eligible for postseason play. Now, district committees have the discretion to decide qualifiers.

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.