COVID-19 will bring some changes to high school sports playoffs in Western PA.
WPIAL Executive Director Amy Scheuneman told the KDKA Radio Morning Show that Heinz Field will not be used for football championships this year.
"Our playoff finals will be at high school venues," she said. However next year, if all is back to normal, she hopes to get back to a premiere venue like Heinz Field for the finals. "That's always been a marquee feature of our league is trying to provide opportunities to kids that are beyond just the experience of the game."
The rest of the football playoffs will be at the higher seeded home stadium.
"Some of the major changes that we're going to have to allow for the safe happening of our tournaments is going to be home site playoff rounds and only one contest at an event. We've typically done double-headers at a nuetral site for a lot of our sports throughout the whole year. This will just be one match, one game at a host site based on the seeding of a committee."
Determining who gets into the playoffs will also be done a little differently this year. Scheueneman said making the playoffs may not be based strictly on a team's record. A committee may have to look at the entire body of work for a team to determine whether or not they get into the playoffs.
Pairings are expected to be announced October 24 or 25.
WPIAL sports committees will also set playoff teams for football, boys and girls soccer, girls volleyball and field hockey in cases where games had to be canceled due to COVID-19.
