PIAA denies request to add games to baseball regular season

By: Chris Harlan
Friday, July 19, 2019 | 1:10 AM

The high school baseball regular season will continue to have a 20-game limit after the PIAA denied a request to add more contests.

The PIAA board on Wednesday rejected a recommendation from the PIAA baseball committee that would have increased the regular-season maximum to 24 games next season.

“The board felt that if we were going to look at adding games, we shouldn’t do it piecemeal,” PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said. “We should look at all of the sports. If that’s something that has merit then we should try to do it evenhanded across the board.”

The PIAA board met Wednesday in State College.

The baseball committee’s proposal wouldn’t have made the season longer, but instead the change would have allowed teams to schedule more games in the same span.

Proponents, including North Allegheny athletic director Bob Bozzuto, noted that schools in some neighboring states play more baseball games than PIAA teams. For example, the Ohio High School Athletic Association allows 27 regular-season baseball games.

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.