PIAA proposal to force 2-time state champions into higher class lacks support from WPIAL board

By: Chris Harlan
Monday, July 15, 2024 | 2:04 PM

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The WPIAL doesn’t favor a potential PIAA rule that forces two-time defending state champions into a higher classification.

The proposed change to the competitive-balance rule was discussed and disliked by the WPIAL board Monday because it could unjustly punish successful programs that didn’t use transfers to reload, said WPIAL president Brian Geyer. The proposal is one of several changes to the competitive-balance rule on the agenda for the PIAA board meeting Tuesday and Wednesday in State College.

If approved, teams that win consecutive state titles automatically would move up, regardless of whether any transfers joined the roster.

“Our board is supportive of keeping transfers in the rule,” Geyer said. “Our board is not supportive of moving up a class automatically if you win two state championships. The idea was, ‘Why, if you did everything the right way and you have a good program?’ ”

The rule change likely wouldn’t take effect until the 2026-27 school year, so no current champions would be impacted. In the future, however, the rule could target a team such as Southern Columbia football, a seven-time defending state champion that remains in Class 2A. But it also would impact ones such as Moon girls soccer, which has won three consecutive PIAA titles with far less statewide consternation.

Geyer said the Moon’s success came to mind for some WPIAL board members. The Tigers went 59-5-2 combined over the past three seasons and ended each year with a PIAA Class 3A title.

“They had homegrown kids,” Geyer said, “and were just a successful program for all of those years.”

The competitive-balance rule currently impacts teams that have success in the state playoffs, as measured by a PIAA Competition Formula, and surpass the threshold for transfers in a two-year cycle. The PIAA moves teams that meet both criteria into a higher classification to play against schools with larger enrollments.

Southern Columbia football and Moon girls soccer had the “success points” to move up but not the transfers.

The competitive-balance rule was enacted in 2018 to prevent teams from “reloading” with transfers, said WPIAL executive director Scott Seltzer, who was a PIAA board member at the time. Removing the transfer criteria now would go against the original intent.

“The whole idea was that it dealt with transfers,” Seltzer said. “That’s how we originally saw it. If a school is good enough and not reloading every year, how do you punish a group of kids who’ve been pretty good?”

The WPIAL has three representatives on the 32-person PIAA board. Geyer, the Peters Township athletic director, is joined by Mt. Lebanon athletic director John Grogan and Brentwood principal Jason Olexa.

“It’s always good to get our board’s opinion on what they’d like us to do at the state level,” Geyer said. “We now have a pretty good understanding on some of the hot topic items that the state is going to discuss.”

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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