A total of 10 District 2 championship teams, including two each from Delaware Valley, Wyoming Seminary and Hazleton Area, will have a chance to take advantage of a Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association policy change for this season and open state tournaments at home Tuesday.
The PIAA reversed earlier policy and went with home sites during 2019-20 state tournaments as one of its adjustments to continue conducting championships during pandemic conditions.
The state high school organization returned many of its events to normal conditions for this school year, letting non-district champions into various team brackets and returning the size of fields to their previous numbers of qualifiers in, for example, cross country and tennis.
With COVID issues lingering, for this fall’s state tournaments, however, the PIAA is sticking with letting teams host games in the first round rather than ask other schools and other facilities to let multiple schools come to their sites for what would often be doubleheaders. Neutral site use will begin with the weekend quarterfinals when there are less events.
In the first round, teams that appear on the top line of the PIAA bracket normally would know in advance that they would get to open the state tournament within the boundaries of their home PIAA district. Now, those teams get to use their home fields, as long as they are sufficient for hosting a state event. For example, the PIAA is not allowing schools to host field hockey games on natural grass fields because of how poor November conditions on those fields can impact the game.
In addition to the two teams at Delaware Valley, Wyoming Seminary and Hazleton Area, one each from Crestwood, Blue Ridge, North Pocono and Dallas have home state tournament events Tuesday. Some District 2 champions – those on the bottom line of their brackets – are playing at their opponents’ home fields.
Delaware Valley is hosting inside and outside with its girls teams qualifying in volleyball and soccer.
Wyoming Seminary has fields a block apart for its field hockey team to play at Klassner Field the same time its boys soccer team plays as Nesbitt Stadium.
Hazleton Area will have a night field hockey game and a boys soccer game, which, as of Sunday afternoon, is being listed as “TBA” for a starting time.
Crestwood is home in field hockey, Blue Ridge in girls volleyball, North Pocono is boys soccer and Dallas in girls soccer.
MORE TO COME
Return to this website this afternoon for the full listings of all first-round matchups for District 2 teams, including opponents, sites and starting times in field hockey, girls volleyball and boys and girls soccer.
