Potential WPIAL Postseason Disaster Scenarios

As the WPIAL season draws to a close, potential “disaster” scenarios exist in half of the six classifications. Depending on the results of the games over the next two weeks, the WPIAL may enter the Playoff Pairings Meeting with egg splattered on their faces. The WPIAL PR machine may try to deflect and spin the blame onto the PIAA and the six classification model, but it was decisions made by the WPIAL that put them in this position and the disaster scenarios are clearly the WPIAL’s fault.

With the PIAA’s change to six classifications this season, there were always going to be some growing pains. The PIAA forced the WPIAL’s hand in regards to championship games by slotting the 4A, 5A, and 6A Champions from District 7 into the State Quarterfinals while the Champions from 1A, 2A, and 3A enter the state bracket at the semifinals. This resulted in the WPIAL having to break their Championships up into two weekends and host the Class 1A and 2A Championships at Robert Morris University rather than Heinz Field. Fewer teams in each classification meant more travel time between games, which also prompted some schools (specifically Apollo-Ridge) to play up in classification.

Over the last decade, the WPIAL cracked down on allowing schools to schedule their own non-conference games and took complete control of the scheduling for the 9 weeks of the regular season and the playoffs. Schools regained some autonomy this year with the addition of “Week 0” games, but the WPIAL still determined the rest of the non-conference games during the season. For some teams, this was not a big deal as Class 4A and 5A teams only play one non-conference game during the season. For other teams, it could make a world of difference as the 1A Wild Card team may be determined by which non-conference opponents the WPIAL decided upon by luck of the draw.

The non-conference scheduling is the primary cause of the “disaster” scenario in Class 6A, which is comprised of 14 teams divided into two conferences. In typical WPIAL fashion, the top four teams from each conference make the playoffs. Each team plays 6 conference games and 3 non-conference games which do not count towards the conference standings. The conference standings are the sole determiner of playoff spots. Entering Week 8, 7 of the 8 playoff spots in Class 6A have been clinched. The four spots in the Southeastern Conference were locked up by Bethel Park, Mt Lebanon, Hempfield, and Norwin. In the Northern Seven Conference, Central Catholic, North Allegheny, and Pine-Richland have clinched and the last spot will either go to Seneca Valley or Penn Hills. Seneca Valley has the inside track for the spot with a head-to-head win over Penn Hills and just needs to beat 0-7 Shaler on Friday night to secure a spot.

The 6A “disaster” scenario for the WPIAL involves Penn Hills, who will miss the playoffs unless winless Shaler beats Seneca Valley and Penn Hills tops undefeated Central Catholic. Penn Hills just beat Hempfield by 18 and faces Mt Lebanon this week. It is very possible that the Indians could miss the playoffs while two teams they beat head-to-head (Hempfield and Mt Lebanon) both make the postseason since only conference games count towards the standings. Furthermore, Penn Hills could end the season with a 5-4 record in WPIAL play (with a win over Mt Lebanon and a loss to Central Catholic) while both Mt Lebanon and Hempfield could end the season with losing records (Mt Lebanon is 4-3 and plays Bethel Park in Week 9 while Hempfield is 3-4 and faces North Allegheny and Norwin). It would look extremely bad for the WPIAL if a 5-4 Penn Hills team missed the playoffs while a 3-6 Hempfield team (that Penn Hills beat 55-37) made the postseason.

The “disaster” scenario in Class 5A is another byproduct of a ridiculously antiquated WPIAL policy. For years, the WPIAL has had a tiebreaker system in place involving head-to-head results, Gardner Points and “WPIAL Points Tiebreakers” (based on a point differential system) to determine the order of teams in the standings. The one exception to that is if two (or more) teams finish tied atop the conference with the same record, the WPIAL names them both “Conference Co-Champions,” regardless of head-to-head or other tiebreakers. In the Big East Conference in Class 5A, a very realistic scenario exists where five teams could finish tied for the conference title. Like Class 6A, only 4 teams from each conference will make the postseason. Currently, in the Big East Conference, Armstrong, McKeesport, and Gateway sit at the top with 5-1 conference records with Franklin Regional (5-2) and Kiski Area (4-2) closely behind. If Armstrong beats Connellsville, Gateway beats McKeesport, and Kiski beats Penn-Trafford this week then Kiski beats Armstrong, McKeesport beats Penn-Trafford, and Franklin Regional beats Gateway next week, all five teams would finish with 6-2 conference records. The five teams would all be 2-2 in head-to-head games and be tied in Gardner Points so the WPIAL Point Differential Tiebreaker would be used to break the tie.

Due to the WPIAL’s policy of naming co-champions, this would mean that all five teams would be crowned as “Co-Champions” by the WPIAL and receive Conference Champion plaques. However, despite being names a “Conference Co-Champion,” one of them would not make the playoffs since only four teams from each 5A conference qualify for the postseason. It is also worth noting that North Hills (who is 4-3) has clinched the fourth playoff spot in the Allegheny Nine Conference. North Hills faces Franklin Regional and winless Hampton the next two weeks so the possibility exists for a 7-2 Franklin Regional team to miss the playoffs while a 5-4 North Hills team that they beat would make it.

The biggest decision that the WPIAL made in the spring that may come back to bite them is in regards to the Class 3A playoffs. With the bigger schools in 4A, 5A and 6A entering the state playoffs in the quarterfinals (the weekend on November 25/26), the WPIAL Championship for those schools had to be held the prior weekend (November 18/19). The WPIAL wanted to keep their tradition of having four championship games at Heinz Field (because they need more games to recoup the cost of the stadium rental and bigger schools bring more attendees). Therefore, the WPIAL decided to add Class 3A into the mix as the fourth classification, moving their Championship to November 18/19 as well. This meant two things: the WPIAL 3A Champion would get a bye week on the week of November 25/26 because their PIAA semifinal wasn’t scheduled until the weekend of December 2/3, and only 8 teams from Class 3A would make the playoffs.

In typical WPIAL fashion, they structured the 3A playoffs as they have typically done with all of their other unbalanced classifications. The top two teams from each of the three conferences make the postseason then two of the three third place teams receive Wild Cards. Unfortunately, geography dictated that the alignment of four powerhouse schools (Aliquippa, Beaver, Beaver Falls, and Central Valley) into one conference, meaning one of these four teams would miss the playoffs. (It should be noted that the WPIAL has essentially ignored geography before in putting teams like Burgettstown and Derry in the same conference in 2014 and 2015.) In creating this powerhouse conference, the WPIAL was setting themselves up for disaster. Aliquippa entered the season with a WPIAL-leading 21-year playoff streak. Beaver and Beaver Falls had both made the playoffs each of the last 9 seasons. Since being formed by the merger of Center and Monaca in 2010, Central Valley had reached the AAA semi-finals in all 6 seasons and gone to Heinz Field 4 times. These were clearly four of the top programs in the new 3A Classification, and the WPIAL purposefully created a system to exclude one of them from the playoffs.

Currently, Central Valley and Beaver sit atop the Beaver Valley Conference with 4-1 conference records while Aliquippa and Beaver Falls are closely behind with 3-1 records. Head-to-head, all four teams are currently 1-1 with Central Valley topping Beaver, Beaver beating Aliquippa, Aliquippa beating Beaver Falls, and Beaver Falls beating Central Valley. Assuming both Beaver Falls and Aliquippa beat Hopewell, this means that the Aliquippa-Central Valley game this week and the Beaver-Beaver Falls game next week are basically play-in games for the playoffs. The winners will likely finish first and second in the conference, while the losers of the two games will probably finish tied for third with the head-to-head result of their game determining who goes to the playoffs and who goes home.

The Beaver Valley Conference teams have dominated their opposition in non-conference play and several have scored big wins over likely playoff teams from other conferences. Not only did Beaver become the first WPIAL team to beat Aliquippa outside of Heinz Field since 2009, but they also scored a convincing 77-49 victory over Allegheny Conference leader Keystone Oaks and face Mt Pleasant this week, who currently sits second in the Interstate Conference. It would certainly be a point of contention if a 7-2 Beaver team misses the playoffs while Keystone Oaks and a 6-3 Mt Pleasant team make it. Similarly, it would certainly burn the Aliquippa faithful if the Quips miss out on the postseason and Freeport (who they beat 21-3) or South Park (who they beat 52-14) manages to play themselves back into playoff position. Central Valley could be sitting at home watching an Elizabeth Forward team they dismantled 56-13 play in the playoffs. Beaver Falls scored an early-season 40-14 victory over Apollo-Ridge (who was without star player Duane Brown) and the Vikings are currently in the Wild Card hunt. In fact, the seven Beaver Valley Conference teams are a combined 9-2 against other Class 3A opponents. The only Beaver Valley Conference team that has lost to a non-conference 3A opponent has been winless Ellwood City.

At this point, nothing can be done to change how the playoff race will shake out this season. The WPIAL rules have been set. They have dug their grave. The eggs are loaded in the launcher, ready to be shot at Timothy O’Malley’s face. It is worth asking – what could have been done? The WPIAL could have done any one of three things to avert this disaster scenario in Class 3A. First, they could have aligned the conferences differently. This would have greatly increased the travel time for a number of teams but would have given a more “fair” distribution to the classification. However, with Class 3A dividing 23 teams across 3 conferences, there were some natural geographic “nodes” that would have been hard to break up. The natural geographic fit was mostly as it was divided by the WPIAL so while this option would have worked to create a more balanced classification, it may not have been the most feasible.

The second option may have been the simplest. Instead of giving the 3A Champion a bye the week after they win the WPIAL title before they play in the PIAA semifinals, the WPIAL could have kept the 3A Championship on its “natural “date on November 25/26 along with the 1A and 2A Championships. Of course, this would have meant that the 3A Championship would not have been played at Heinz Field, but it also would add another week to the 3A playoffs. This would have enabled the 3A playoff field to be expanded beyond 8 teams. The natural extension would have been to have 16 teams in the 3A playoffs with the extra week. If the WPIAL felt that 16 of 23 teams making the playoffs from a classification was too many, they could have easily structured the playoffs with 12 teams. This would have provided an easy breakdown within the conferences where the top 4 teams from each conference would have made the playoffs. In a 12-team playoff, the three conference champions plus one second place team would get byes through the first round of the playoffs. There is some precedent for this as the WPIAL had 12-team playoffs in all classifications up until 1998 when they moved to 16-team playoffs. Rather than allowing more teams into the playoffs (which was one of the justifications the PIAA used for moving to 6 classifications), the WPIAL decided it was better for the 3A Champion to have a week off after the WPIAL Championship.

The third option would be to allow both the third and fourth place teams from the three conferences to be considered for the Wild Card. This would break with WPIAL tradition as they have not previously permitted two wild cards to come from the same conference. (It is worth noting that if this provision was in place in other classifications it could eliminate the “disaster” scenarios in 5A and 6A.) The current Wild Card standings put Aliquippa and Apollo-Ridge in playoff position with Elizabeth Forward missing the cut. Here is how the Wild Card standings would look if both the third and fourth place teams were included together for the Wild Card:

Team	Wild Card Record	Tiebreakers		Overall Record	PF	PA	Wild Card Wins
		Gardner	WPIAL
Aliquippa	4-1	90	30	5-2	214	117
Beaver Falls	4-1	80	26	6-1	267	107
Apollo-Ridge	4-2	80	17	4-3	208	214
Elizabeth Forward	4-2	60	12	4-3	175	164
Seton-La Salle	4-2	50	27	5-2	204	159
South Park	3-2	40	6	3-4	133	160

If both the third and fourth place teams were included, Beaver Falls would hold the second and final Wild Card spot. The only change in these standings over the current standings involves Beaver Falls moving into the second position. Neither fourth place team from the other conferences has a good enough record at this point to hop one of the third place teams. There are still a lot of variables left to shake out with two weeks of play remaining, but this one change to the Wild Card rule would also have opened the door for all four Beaver Valley teams to make the playoffs. It should be noted that if all 3A teams were ordered and ranked according to the Wild Card procedures, the four Beaver Valley teams would sit 3rd through 6th with Valley (2nd place in Allegheny Conference) 7th and Mt Pleasant (2nd place in Interstate Conference) 8th. Beaver Falls, who would not make the playoffs if they started today because they sit in 4th in the Beaver Valley Conference, has a better profile than both second place teams in the other conferences. The WPIAL had options at their disposal to create a fair playoffs where the best teams made it to the postseason. Instead, they chose to align the conferences so that one was absolutely stacked, shorten the 3A playoffs so they could get a fourth championship game at Heinz Field, and keep with their traditional playoff structure to prevent both Wild Cards from coming from the same conference. The WPIAL made most of these decisions in early 2016 and they are now reaping what they have sown.