Expansion may spur PIAA to realign playoff format

ASSOCIATED PRESS
The PIAA was expected to take an important step toward determining its team sports playoff format during a meeting today in Mechanicsburg.
The PIAA's policy review committee was scheduled to meet for the final time before its Oct. 4 deadline to implement a new team sports playoff system for the 2004-05 school year.
Sometime after that date, the PIAA's board of directors will vote on whether to accept the plan as recommended.
Several ideas have been discussed in previous meetings, including brackets that would erase the traditional East-West division and a change in the starting dates for fall sports.
A change is necessary because of the addition of 39 Philadelphia public schools, which have joined the PIAA as District 12 but are not eligible for the postseason football playoffs until next year.
All 21 Philadelphia schools that sponsor football are Class AAAA in size under the current four-class format. As a result, more than two-thirds of the state's Class AAAA football schools are located in the Eastern region.
One solution would be for schools in District 3, for example, to switch to what currently is the Western region. That would create the possibility of schools from Harrisburg and suburban Philadelphia meeting in the Class AAAA title game -- a matchup that currently cannot take place.