Road to a PIAA championship got much tougher
The goal of every Pennsylvania wrestler is to qualify for the PIAA championships.
That goal has become much more difficult for wrestlers in the 2020-21 season.
On Wednesday, the PIAA board of control adopted a proposal for its postseason wrestling tournaments that includes a “super regional” round in Class 3A and Class 2A that will be held the week before the state tournament.
The proposal also cuts the number of qualifiers for the PIAA tournaments from 20 individuals per weight class to eight.
The proposal is in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and PIAA recommendations that include avoiding tournaments that require overnight stays.
“This format is in line with what the PIAA did for its fall sports,” said WPIAL wrestling committee chairman Frank Vulcano Jr., who is also a member of the PIAA wrestling committee. “Our goal was to limit each tournament to eight individuals in each weight class and have tournaments that would be completed in one day.”
The super regional round will combine qualifiers from multiple regional tournaments.
The process of combining regions in Class 2A was much easier because there are only four regions.
The West super region will include qualifiers from the Southwest Region (Districts 5/6/7) and Northwest Region (Districts 9/10).
The East super region will include qualifiers from the Northeast Region (Districts 2/11/12) and Southeast Region (Districts 1/12/3/ 11).
In Class 3A, there are five regions, which made the process more difficult.
“The goal was to set up two super regions that fairly distribute the number of schools in each region,” said Vulcano, who drew up the proposal. “With that in mind, we had to move the South Central region into the West super region.”
The West super region will include qualifiers from the Southwest Region (District 7), Northwest Region (Districts 4/6/8/9/10) and South Central Region (District 3).
The East super region will include qualifiers from the Northeast Region (Districts 2/11/12) and Southeast Region (District 1).
“The West super region is going to be a pretty intense tournament,” Vulcano said. “When I was first looking at this, I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to put these three regions together?’ That’s going to be an unbelievable tournament itself. If you can get through this meat grinder, you’re a pretty darn good wrestler.”
The regional tournaments will be held Feb. 27. The super regional tournaments will be held March 6 with the top four finishers in each tournament advancing to the PIAA tournament, which will be held at Giant Center in Hershey.
The PIAA Class 2A tournament will be held March 12 with three sessions. The first session will include quarterfinals, semifinals and first round of consolations for weight classes 106 to 138. The remaining weight classes, 145 to 285, will follow in the second session. The third session will include the second round of consolations, finals and consolation finals for all weight classes.
The PIAA Class 3A tournament will be held March 13 with the same format.
Vulcano has a unique way of looking at the postseason changes adopted by the PIAA.
“We are actually splitting the state championships into two weekends,” he said. “The super regionals can be considered the first two rounds of the state tournament. With that in mind, anybody who qualifies for the super regionals should be considered a PIAA qualifier.”
Sites for the regional and super regional tournaments have not been determined yet. The same is true for section and district tournaments.
The next step is for the WPIAL wrestling committee is to determine the format it will use in section and district tournaments.
“We couldn’t do anything until the PIAA announced its format,” Vulcano said. “Now we can start looking into drawing up the format for our section and WPIAL tournaments. Those decisions will be announced in January.”
More changes
The PIAA also changed the format of its team tournaments, as only the district champions qualify and only semifinalists and finalists wrestle at Giant Center.
The first round and quarterfinals of the PIAA team tournament in Class 2A and 3A are scheduled for Feb. 8 and Feb. 10, respectively, at host sites.
The semifinals, finals and consolation finals in Class 2A will be wrestled Feb. 12. In Class 3A, those matches will be wrestled Feb. 13.
The PIAA has yet to determine whether spectators will be allowed to attend the individual and team championships. That decision will be made at a later date.