George Guido: Playoff berths used to be tougher to come by

By: HSSN Staff
Tuesday, May 1, 2018 | 3:33 PM

With the weather finally improving, schools are getting caught up with their WPIAL baseball and softball schedules.

It might be a good time to mention that the top four teams in each section qualify for the WPIAL playoffs in both sports.

That's a far cry from prior to 1979, when only the section winners got in, and there was only one classification. Large schools played small schools: Freeport played Har-Brack, Burrell played Butler, and so on.

But in the six-class era, four advance. If there's a tie for the final playoff spot, the first tiebreaker is head-to-head competition.

If the schools split the season's series, both teams advance.

If more than two schools tie for the final berth, head-to-head is again considered. If one school has a superior record, that school goes. If a tie persists, all schools go.

In the old days, schools tied for first place would have an actual game to decide who gets bracketed.

All softball section games must be finished by May 8 and baseball May 10.

The softball brackets will be unveiled late in the day May 10 and baseball May 11.

The WPIAL playoffs will begin the week of May 14 for both sports.

The WPIAL baseball finals will be May 29 and 30 in Washington at the home of the Washington Wild Things.

The softball finals will be May 31 and June 1 at Seton Hill.

Freeport athletic improvements

Freeport, considered the area's top track and field program for many years, will have a new track to compete on next year.

The school board voted last week to repave its track oval at a $225,000 cost. The current surface is 23 years old, three years beyond its planned life span.

The Yellowjackets boys program owns six WPIAL team titles, bringing home the gold in 1982, 2002, '03, '09, '10 and '16.

The boys also won PIAA titles in 1970 and '73 when points were tallied depending on which places individual athletes finished.

The Yellowjackets girls have titles in 1984, 2011 and '12.

Multi-sport athletes

Now that the NFL draft has concluded, let's give a shout out to Mt. Lebanon grad Troy Apke of Penn State.

He was the first WPIAL player chosen in the draft, picked in the fourth round by the Redskins. Later in the fourth, Central Valley's Jordan Whitehead of Pitt was selected by the Bucs.

But in an interesting point brought out by Mick McCabe of the Detroit Free Press: 29 of the 32 first-round draft picks played multiple sports in high school.

And of the 29, 14 played three scholastic sports.

Concentrating on one sport does not necessarily prohibit one from making the big time.

Leechburg's Mickey Morandini was the Alle-Kiski's leading basketball scorer in 1984, but it didn't stop him from having an 11-year MLB career.

McCabe has covered high school sports for 48 years, so he knows what he's talking about.

McCabe makes a great point when he says: “If a coach or trainer tells you to concentrate on one sport, maybe it's time to get a new coach or a new trainer.”

George Guido is a Valley News Dispatch scholastic sports correspondent. His column appears Wednesdays.

Tags: Burrell, Freeport, Leechburg