PIAA votes down shorter grid season

The PIAA board yesterday voted against proprosals that would reduce the length of the football season by a week and increase the number of classifications for schools to as many as six following recommendations from its planning committee, but the two issues may not be dead.

In going to a 15-week football season instead of 16, PIAA officials had hoped to eliminate an overlap with the winter sports season. The PIAA football championships are set for Dec. 18 and 19. The winter sports season starts Dec. 11. That could cause some football players to miss time with their winter sports teams. Increasing the number of classificastions from four to five or six would offer more opportunities for teams to make the playoffs.

In a late Thursday vote, the planning committee turned down the proposals by a 15-13 margin then voted to keep the current setup of a 16-week season and four classifications: AAAA, AAA, AA and A.

"I think its incumbent on the board to [continue] to discuss this," Rod Stone, the District 1 president, said of the overlap of seasons. "There may not be a perfect solution."

The board's next regularly scheduled meeting is in October.

The board also voted to sanction only a fall championship in girls' soccer beginning with the 2010-2011 school year. A separate championship in the spring will be eliminated.

Stone said that move was prompted largely by the Suburban One League's decision to move its girls' soccer season to the fall in 2010. Twenty-four of the 32 District 1 schools playing spring soccer are from the Suburban One League. The Public League also plays in the spring.

The PIAA schools in Chester and Delaware counties have been playing girls' soccer in the fall, as the boys do, for years.

New Hope girls' coach Chris Shank is happy to see the move to the fall, but "it could have an impact on our field hockey program, which has been coming along," Shank said. Field hockey is also played in the fall.

Also, Shank serves as the Lions boys' assistant coach in the fall. So, with the girls playing in the fall, too, he may find himself with too much work.

Contact staff writer Don Beideman at 610-696-2652 or dbeideman@phillynews.com.