Trending
By Michael Boytim
mboytim@altoonamirror.com
The PIAA passed on a first-reading basis supporting taking over jurisdiction of high school girls wrestling Wednesday afternoon at its board meeting.
"We met in the media center in the capitol (with senators)," PIAA executive director Robert Lombardi said. "We had a presentation of the 101 schools that have worked really hard with Sanction PA to sponsor girls wrestling. We had given them the 100-school benchmark as is our policy, and as of yesterday they exceeded that to 101."
The board will need to pass Wednesday's motion two more times and then get board approval from two thirds of its present board to make it official. During that period, Lombardi stressed that he would like to see the total number of schools continue to increase.
"We made sure everyone was aware that we are very hopeful that the strength and energy we have abound in 101 schools doesn't stop there," Lombardi said. "We want to continue to include as many as possible. Currently we have 472 schools sponsoring boys, we would like to have a similar number for girls."
Schools in District 5 or 6 that are among the 101 schools under Sanction PA's list of official teams include Central Mountain, Bald Eagle Area, Chestnut Ridge, Northern Bedford, Bishop McCort, Central Cambria, Bedford, United, Claysburg-Kimmel and Philipsburg-Osceola.
North Allegheny girls wrestling coach Daniel Heckert was applauded during Wednesday's meeting for spearheading the effort by the PIAA.
"It's an honor to reach this milestone so quickly," Heckert said. "From everyone at North Allegheny and Sanction PA, we'd like to thank everybody at the PIAA. We don't take this lightly. One hundred wasn't the end. It was merely a benchmark. We intend to keep pushing forward and want to see these numbers grow. We're looking forward to the next step of eventually putting PIAA medals around our girls' necks."
The goal, at least in Lombardi's eyes, is to make the number of girls weight classes as close to the boys as possible.
"In a perfect world, we would have the 13 weight classes that are in the NFHS rulebook," Lombardi said. "That would make it the cleanest. But that's where we need some research and to get some details on where we're falling. We don't want to start this and put ourselves in a position where participation is down. The idea was to catch as many as we possibly can, but 13 would be a good starting point."