HIGH SCHOOLS Changes may be ahead for PIAA

The changes would affect athletes in basketball, wrestling and swimming.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Major changes could be ahead for the PIAA's basketball, wrestling and swimming and diving championships.
The steering committees for the respective sports have recommended the changes, which will be forwarded to the PIAA board of directors for action at its next scheduled meeting May 26-27 in Chambersburg.
In basketball, there will be 32 qualifiers in each class, as there have for years. But the brackets will no longer be divided into 16-team eastern and western brackets.
In Class AAAA, 23 of the 32 spots will be taken by teams from Districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 11 and 12 -- the latter being the Philadelphia Public League schools. The Philadelphia teams don't start PIAA play until the 2004-05 season.
Previously, 16 spots were reserved for teams on a geographic basis, but that resulted in some odd qualifying procedures. The last two seasons, District 7 (the WPIAL) qualified 10 teams in Class AAAA basketball, primarily to fill out the western bracket.
Now, with teams from the Harrisburg-area District 3 moving into what essentially is the western bracket, District 7's entries will be reduced to six.
Wrestling
In team wrestling, the steering committee approved an expansion from the current 10 qualifiers in Class AA and nine in Class AAA to 16 qualifiers in each tournament.
Previously, the PIAA permitted only its district champions to advance to the team tournament, but now several districts will also advance their second-place teams. That includes District 11, whose teams have won the last five Class AAA titles (four by Easton, one by Northampton).
Swimming and diving
Swimming and diving will move from Penn State, where it has been contested for more than three decades, to Bucknell University. Because Bucknell has a smaller seating capacity (500 seats) than Penn State (990), the PIAA was forced to expand the championships from three to four days.
If approved by the PIAA, the Class AA meet will be contested on Wednesday and a Thursday and the Class AAA meet will be on Friday and Saturday next year.
According to the proposal, one-half of the Class AA swimming events will take place on Wednesday, the second half on Thursday. The diving will take place in between the preliminaries, consolations and finals, with Class AA girls on Wednesday and Class AA boys on Thursday. The same format would be repeated on Friday and Saturday for Class AAA.