Mars’ title latest validation for PIAA lacrosse expansion
WEST GOSHEN » Austin Cote and his Mars Area teammates had plenty to play for Saturday afternoon.
A year after falling to Allentown Central Catholic in the PIAA Class 2A final, the Fightin’ Planet’s 2022 mission was to alleviate that sting, to get back to the final and never experience that sinking feeling again. It was, as Cote said, an all-encompassing, circle-the-calendar kind of quest.
But tucked into the triumph of adding to their trophy cabinet with a 9-6 win over Marple Newtown at West Chester East was a broader distinction: Mars is the first team from District 7, boys or girls, to win a state lacrosse title, a label that means even more in one of the state’s most fiercely proud regions.
“It feels incredible, just to be the first team from the WPIAL to win a state championship ever,” said Cote, a senior midfielder and Loyola signee who scored twice. “It just shows that this is a special group. It shows that we worked hard after coming short last year, and it’s an amazing feeling.”
The latest first is also a vindication for the PIAA’s plan, starting with the 2016-17 season, to split the state into two classifications. The effect of that decision has bifurcated PIAA lacrosse history, not just into “one class” and “two class” eras, but from a period monopolized by Districts 1 and 12 to the current landscape, where access to state championships is much more widely shared.
From the start of PIAA lacrosse tournaments in 2009 until the split in 2016, only teams from Districts 1 and 12 appeared in finals. The finalist spots were dominated to a ludicrous degree: From 2009-16, for instance, only one nonCentral League team (Downingtown East in 2011) made a girls final.
Achievement from other corners of the state took time. The first boys state finals in the twoclass setup in 2017, for instance, featured four District 1 teams. But Archbishop Carroll broke through for District 12’s first girls title in 2017, the same year that Kennard
Dale made the girls 2A final in a monumental step for District 3. Manheim Township’s boys won the 3A title in 2018 on behalf of District 3, with the Kennard Dale and Manheim girls teams joining them in the finals.
The 2021 Class 2A final brought the first finalists from District 11 and District 7, with Allentown Central Catholic taking home its area’s first crown. Mars added District 7 to the championship ledger this year. And Twin Valley and Manheim making girls finals has become routine for District 3. Even as championship weekend has moved geographically east, from HersheyPark Stadium to West Chester East, power has diffused westward.
It’s important to separate the chicken-or-theegg causation. The PIAA expanded to two classes in 2015 explicitly because the state hit the benchmark of 200 varsity programs. For the 2022-23 and 2023-24 classification reports, there are 233 girls teams and 206 boys squads.
There are more PIAA trophies because the sport is growing in Pennsylvania; there aren’t suddenly an abundance of kids in Lancaster or Altoona who discovered lacrosse because the PIAA doubled their chance for a medal.
But a path to state titles seems to be encouraging growth that was under way. A common trait of teams that have excelled — Manheim, Mars and Twin Valley in particular — is robust community youth programs, like those that powerhouses like Springfield and Radnor fostered for decades. Lacrosse remains, per an Aspen Institute study in 2019, one of the more expensive youth sports, so it makes sense that success clusters around suburbs of comparatively larger urban areas, where a critical mass of interest can sustain pricey and specialized club teams. The sport may not be penetrating some of the state’s more remote corners yet, but the level across the state is rising. Mars, for instance, has three Division I players in its class of 2022, while ACC has two. Shady Side Academy, which lost to Radnor in the 3A boys quarterfinals, has a pair of 2023 players bound for Marquette.
The construction of the tournament still permits the best teams to advance. The boys Central League had a spectacular 2022, even by the standards of Pennsylvania’s perennially most consistent league. Consequently, it produced five of eight semifinalists and three of four finalists. But that still left room for a team like Mars to prove itself in the 2A final.
The gulf in the middle of the state means that promising teams west
of Harrisburg can’t, logistically or financially, schedule many eastern teams during the regular season. The PIAA tournament exists to provide those challenges, to compel teams out of their comfort zones, either geographically or talentwise, with the lure of a state title.
That the PIAA tournaments over the last five years have allowed established powers and emerging regions to coexist is a sign that it has gotten something right.