PIAA asking Commonwealth Court for emergency stay to force Aliquippa football to Class 5A

By: Chris Harlan
Wednesday, July 3, 2024 | 2:27 PM

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With football season only weeks away, the PIAA has asked the Commonwealth Court for an expedited hearing that could force Aliquippa into a higher classification.

The PIAA wants to promote the Quips from Class 4A to 5A under its competitive-balance rule, but that move was blocked in May by a Common Pleas judge who granted the school district a preliminary injunction. The PIAA has asked the Commonwealth Court to put that judge’s decision on hold while it appeals.

The Commonwealth Court on Wednesday scheduled a hearing for July 16 to consider the PIAA’s emergency application for a stay. PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi declined to comment on active litigation.

Football teams statewide start heat acclimatization Aug. 5, and the first day of practice is one week later. Week Zero openers are Aug. 23.

As it stands, Aliquippa will compete this fall in Class 4A, where the Quips are defending WPIAL and PIAA champions.

The WPIAL already has released two separate sets of schedules. The first, released in March, put Aliquippa in the Class 5A Northeast Conference. However, after Common Pleas Judge James Ross granted the injunction, the WPIAL in early June released updated schedules with the Quips remaining in Class 4A.

The PIAA competitive-balance rule targets football teams that had success in the state playoffs, as measured by a PIAA Competition Formula, and also added three or more transfers in a two-year span. The PIAA said Aliquippa has met both criteria.

However, the school district filed a lawsuit challenging the rule as flawed and unfair, saying the Quips shouldn’t be forced to play against opponents with three or four times as many students. After three days of testimony in a Beaver County courtroom, the judge granted Aliquippa’s request for a preliminary injunction.

The PIAA appealed to Commonwealth Court.

Aliquippa in 2022 avoided a similar promotion to Class 5A, in part by raising health and safety concerns during its appeal hearing with the PIAA. The PIAA later specifically removed health and safety as grounds for an appeal, a decision the judge criticized in his ruling in May.

Lombardi had testified at the hearing that the PIAA eliminated those as grounds for an appeal because only teams with exceptional on-field success can be moved up, and therefore they wouldn’t face an increased risk of injury playing larger schools.

Aliquippa was voluntarily playing up two classifications — from Class A to 3A football — before the PIAA adopted the competitive-balance rule in 2018. The school’s current enrollment qualifies the football team for 2A.

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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