Moving makes title defense tough
The following is one in a series of reports looking at the WPIAL’s realignment for the 2016-17 school year. This week’s focus: boys and girls soccer.
Tri-State Sports & News Service
A year ago, South Fayette won the school’s first WPIAL Class AA boys soccer championship with an overtime victory against South Park.
This season, though, the Lions will have a chance to win a second title, but it won’t necessarily be a repeat.
Earlier this year, the PIAA underwent its biennial realignment and expanded both boys and girls soccer to four classifications from three. It was the first time the state governing body has augmented soccer with an additional classification since it added Class A prior to the 2000-01 school year.
Because of the expansion, South Fayette is now a Class AAA team and will not have the opportunity to defend its Class AA crown.
“The way we look at it is that a lot of the competition we competed against the last couple of seasons was moved up to Triple-A as well,” South Fayette coach Rob Eldridge said. “We try to clean the slate after each year. We’re proud of our accomplishments the last five years being title contenders, so we just want to come out and be competitive at this level, too.”
With the move up, though, there comes a new challenge. No team has ever won a WPIAL boys soccer title one year and repeated in a higher classification the following season, but there is a school of thought that the four-classification expansion was overdue.
“I was a huge proponent of it because football did it right when they took a look at their numbers and their classifications, but with soccer, at the state level, we were still in Double-A soccer when we were in single-A in other sports,” Eldridge said. “Now we’re competing against very big schools and we are [one of] the smallest Triple-A schools in the state. We know that we’re going to be competing with schools bigger than us.”
Mars girls soccer team will also have an opportunity to move up in classification and win a title as the Planets, who won the Class AA championship a year ago, were vaulted into Class AAA as well.
“I think it’s healthy for the kids and I think it makes for a lot more parity,” Mars coach Blair Gerlach said. “Now you might not have just one or two front-runners in each section, but you might have four or five teams fighting for those playoff spots.”
It also might give some teams that might have been on the outside looking in an opportunity to taste the postseason. It also might have closed a disparate competitive schism between teams in the highest and lowest classes.
There were 15 teams that qualified for the 2015 WPIAL boys Class AAA playoffs and every one moved up to Class AAAA this year. By the same token, of the 16 Class A teams that made it to the tournament, Charleroi was the only one that was bumped up to Class AA.
“I think in that sense, it put the other playoff teams against each other and should make it, overall, a little more competitive,” said Seneca Valley coach George Williams, who took his team to the Class AAA state finals last year. “Traditionally there have been some sections with very strong teams and some with a bunch of weaker teams, which changes from year to year, but with the realignment, there’s definitely not a lot of that.”
By the same token, there were 18 teams that made the Class AA playoffs. Of those, 10 moved up to Class AAA, including South Fayette, while South Park and McGuffey were the only two quarterfinalists to stay in Class AA.
“I think it will separate things to where you will have four or five top teams and I think there will be a pretty significant gap between the top and the bottom, especially in the playoffs,” South Park coach Jon Cantwell said. “You’ll have 16 teams in the playoffs and the separation between one and 16 will be by a significant degree, at least in Double-A, than it has in past years.”
While the schism was obvious for the boys, the girls was a bit more subtle. Of the 16 Class AAAA teams that qualified for the playoffs, 14 moved to Class AAAA, while Oakland Catholic and Franklin Regional stayed put.
In Class AA, 11 of the 15 playoff teams moved to Class AAA, while five of the 16 teams in Class A went up to Class AA.
“I think it definitely makes it more competitive and I know, after looking at our schedule, we have a much more difficult schedule this year,” said Norwin coach Lauren CzaporKarcher, who guided her team to 24 consecutive wins and the WPIAL Class AAA title last season.
“We’re definitely looking to take on more challenging teams and seeing some of the teams that we normally wouldn’t have seen until the playoffs. It will be a really exciting year for everyone.”