PIAA NOTEBOOK Mid-Penn Conference grows by 4

The largest league in District 3 now will have 35 football schools.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Mid-Penn Conference, already the largest league in PIAA District 3, has gotten a little bigger.
Four Class AAAA schools from District 6 -- Altoona, Central Mountain, Hollidaysburg and State College -- were accepted as football-only members beginning next season.
Conference members voted 31-0 to admit the schools, the first time in the conference's 22-year history it has admitted members on a single-sport basis.
The Mid-Penn will have 35 football schools. The conference currently has 34, but Adams County schools Bermudian Springs, Biglerville and Fairfield are leaving next year for the York Area Interscholastic Athletic Association.
Fairfield had club-level football for four years and just became a PIAA football program this year.
Good for scheduling
Adding the District 6 schools will relieve the scheduling difficulties many of the league's Class AAAA schools have had in recent years. The District 6 schools had the same problem, with some traveling as far as Erie to regularly schedule games.
"We're so excited, we can hardly sit still," Altoona athletic director Vince Nedimyer said. "Traveling just an hour and a half or two hours for a football game just thrills us. This gives us a home."
The District 6 schools will join a division with nine Class AAAA schools from the Harrisburg area: Bishop McDevitt, Carlisle, Cedar Cliff, Central Dauphin, Central Dauphin East, Chambersburg, Cumberland Valley, Harrisburg and Red Land.
The 13-school division, named the Commonwealth Division, will begin play next season with all schools eligible for the division championship.
The same four District 6 schools approached the Mid-Penn Conference about joining in 2001, but were rejected over constitutional and travel concerns.
But the issue was revisited when the scheduling concerns for both groups became a problem.
Basketball tournament
The Mid-Penn Conference also has approved a league-wide basketball tournament to begin in the 2004-05 season.
The conference has four divisions based on classification. Although the format remains incomplete, it appears the conference is leaning toward qualifying the top two teams in each division and playing an eight-team, three-game playoff during the final week of the regular season.
Off to Nevada
Easton Area High School, which has won the last three PIAA Class AAA wrestling team championships, had its Monday match with District 1 power Upper Perkiomen postponed due to a staph infection involving several wrestlers.
Easton also had its traditional season-opening dual meet with neighboring Wilson Area wiped out because of last weekend's snowstorm, so the Red Rovers will open their season with two tournaments in Nevada.
Easton will travel this weekend to the Las Vegas Invitational, one of the top national-caliber tournaments in the country.
Next week, the Rovers return to Nevada to compete in the Reno Tournament of Champions.