WPIAL reveals postseason plans, awards home games to higher seeds

By: Chris Harlan
Wednesday, October 14, 2020 | 4:38 PM

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If playoff qualifiers can’t be determined from the standings, the WPIAL steering committee for each sport will decide who makes the postseason this fall.

That surely will be the most scrutinized change the WPIAL board approved Wednesday while finalizing plans for an unprecedented postseason under covid-19 conditions. Among its other decisions, higher-seeded teams in football, soccer, volleyball and field hockey will host home games in the playoffs through the WPIAL semifinals.

But the decision to empower the committees will draw the most scrutiny.

That’s because identifying playoff teams will be harder than usual after virus-related shutdowns canceled a number of regular-season games. In football for example, the math formulas traditionally used as tiebreakers — Gardner Points and margin of victory — don’t work with unbalanced standings.

The simplest fix was to trust the committees’ opinions.

“We did talk about other ways, but you come back to the same way,” WPIAL executive director Amy Scheuneman said. “You could break it down into winning percentage, but that’s not fair. Every way you break it down, it turns into: ‘Well, that’s not fair and that’s not fair.’

“There are other people who have other opinions, but we thought this was the best way.”

Scheuneman met last week with each sport’s steering committees, and they unanimously endorsed this approach, if needed. Since then, the number of covid-19 cancellations has risen, with four more football games canceled this weekend alone.

Now, the committee’s involvement seems almost certain.

“It wasn’t as bleak as it looks right now,” Scheuneman said. “It wasn’t as apparent that this was going to be used.”

When the steering committees reconvene later this month to seed the brackets, they’ll use head-to-head records, common opponents, strength of schedule or other factors to fill in the blanks. At a minimum, the committee will need to decide all 12 football wild cards.

“The whole point is to use it for the ones that can’t be determined,” Scheuneman said.

The top four teams in each section qualify in field hockey, soccer and volleyball.

In Class 5A, 4A, 3A and A football, the top two teams in each conference and two wild cards qualify to fill eight-team brackets. The WPIAL approved a different formula for Class 2A, where now only the top team from each conference and four wild cards qualify.

Multiple wild cards can come from the same conference, unlike in years past.

The WPIAL switched the formula for Class 2A because its four conferences have an uneven number of teams. The largest has eight and the smallest five.

Class 6A football has a four-team playoff bracket.

Scheuneman said the football brackets will be revealed online Oct. 24 or 25 via the TribLive High School Sports Network. The date wasn’t set. The WPIAL previously canceled its in-person pairings meeting in Green Tree.

The WPIAL board met online and Scheuneman laid out a playoff guide with measures meant to mitigate coronavirus spread and protocols for when a team forfeits. Any playoff game missed because of covid-19 will be forfeited and previously eliminated teams won’t be allowed to reenter the tournament to fill the void.

Among other decisions, the WPIAL cross country championships will be run in two heats per classification Oct. 28-29 at White Oak Park. The cross country committee will seed the races.

“We’re going to try to put the top teams in that first heat to allow for the fastest teams to run against each other,” Scheuneman said.

The WPIAL hasn’t chosen championship sites for football, volleyball or soccer. Fox Chapel will host the field hockey finals.

The decision to give home games to higher seeds was meant in part to reduce travel and potentially prevent coronavirus spread, Scheuneman said.

“We know the schools have the best knowledge of their own facilities and hosting a team,” she said. “They’ve been doing it all season.”

Host schools will decide how many fans are admitted. However, the WPIAL wants equal numbers of tickets made available to home and away teams, Scheuneman said.

To host a football game, a school must be able to admit at least 250 people — players, coaches, officials, spectators, etc. — under the latest state restrictions. The other WPIAL minimums are 200 for soccer, 125 for field hockey and 120 for volleyball.

If those minimums can’t be met, the school can find another facility or the WPIAL will choose an alternate site.

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.