The new school, a merger of Indian Valley and Lewistown high schools that was approved by the Mifflin County School Board last week, will be in place next school year if current Mifflin County School District plans move forward. At current, there is no indication that anything will interrupt those plans, but with school mergers, anything can happen.

But here is what has happened: Indian Valley and Lewistown, both members of the Mountain League, were booted out of the Mountain League in 2012-2013, although the new school will have Mountain League schedules in most, if not all, sports for the next school year.

With the new school, which will be a mid-sized Class AAAA school in football and basketball, thrown out of the Mountain League, it is highly likely that the Mid-Penn Conference will accept the new school as a full member at the start of the next cycle.

On Thursday, the Mid-Penn Conference, as anticipated, accepted State College as an all-sports member; the Little Lions had been a football-only member since 2004. With Mifflin County between State College and Harrisburg, it makes adding Mifflin County a little more palatable to the Mid-Penn.

So palatable, in fact, the conference has included the Mifflin County school in its 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 schedules as a league member, despite the fact that no formal action has been taken on the Mifflin County matter.

In fact, the Mid-Penn, meeting at the same time as the Mountain League and unaware of the ML’s actions, would likely have passed the alignments that included Mifflin County had it not been for requests by Trinity and Steelton-Highspire to change basketball divisions. The conference will vote electronically next Wednesday on the alignments once Steel-High and Trinity resolve the issue. Assuming the Mifflin County school is included in those alignments, as they were on Wednesday, that’s a pretty good indication Mifflin County will have smooth sailing to Mid-Penn membership.

Sometimes I just provide links.

Sometimes I make people mad with my rankings or opinions.

Sometimes I even have someone agree with me.

But always, always, I wish the very best for everyone – athlete or not, coach or not, parent or not – because to think anything less would make me less than I can and should be.

I thank everyone for their patronage of RodFrisco.com this year. But far more than that, I wish everyone – Christian or otherwise – a very happy, safe and wonderful Christmas and holiday season.

Merry Christmas to all.

Fairly light menu, to be honest. The biggest news of the meeting occurred on Thursday night when the Board passed, on a first-reading basis, a proposal to advance the start of fall sports practice and playing dates by one week from the current PIAA calendar. The measure, if eventually passed in full by the Board of Directors, would be implemented for the 2012-2013 school year.

First, let’s make one thing clear: The proposal has not become PIAA policy yet. The measure must pass a second reading in January by a majority vote and by a two-thirds majority vote in March if it makes it that far. Thursday’s vote was 18-13, which shows the measure has support, but not the kind of overwhelming support required to implement the change. Frankly, it’s an uphill fight for the proposal; it will take 21 affirmative votes to pass the proposal.

A quick look at the financial game reports for fall sports shows that PIAA gate receipts are well behind last year’s fall sports receipts. Compared to last year’s receipts, PIAA is more than $23,000 behind last year’s total (football is not included in that number).

Updates will appear below the bar. The most recent update is at the top

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As expected, not much going on. The Board is down to a discussion stage on a number of matters that will not require Board action. I’m off to Hersheypark Stadium. Frisky out.

Lots of discussion on an important by-law: How the PIAA will count enrollment toward cooperative sponsorships. The PIAA is proposing to count 50 percent of a sending school’s enrollment toward a co-op rather than the current 100 percent. This seems like a reasonable and a good step toward alleviating the problem of bumping a host school up in classification.

Some Board members are bartering for an even greater reduction in percentage – District 5 rep Virgil Palumbo is asking for 25 percent – in orderto bring the percentage more in line with the actual number of students to go from a sending school to a host school.

There is a counter-argument that such a move would give a competitive advantage to the small number of schools that can engage in co-ops. And the proposal is tabled.

District 5 rep Virgil Palumbo makes a new proposal to lower the percent of enrollment used in a co-op to 25 percent. The measure passes on a first-reading basis, 22-7. The original proposal remains on the table.
Back in regular session.

Just finishing up a hearing for a Danville athlete. Will return to regular session shortly.

Recently, I’ve made it a habit to attend the PIAA’s sports steering committees (that’s where the seed is planted for changes in PIAA championships), and had every intention to attend last week’s football steering committee, but some other business intervened and I skipped it. Wish I hadn’t.

At that meeting, the football steering committee voted 11-0 with two members absent to propose move up the first date of football practice starting with the 2012-2013 school year.

In short, there has been much cursing and gnashing of teeth about the 16-week football season in Pennsylvania: Too long, runs deep into December, affects boys’ basketball and wrestling. All true, IMO. But the 16-week season has also allowed all PIAA districts to conduct their respective football championships as they wish (with just a few exceptions) and especially allows the WPIAL to retain its one-day, four-game championship day at Heinz Field.

As District 3 football chairman John Ziegler said at Tuesday’s meeting, “There’s no putting the 16-week genie back in the bottle.” Actually, it was something even a little more folksy, but I forgot to write it down.

As a result, the football steering committee is making a pitch to move up the start of football practice by a week statewide. As the 11-0 vote shows, the issue, which has been raised before and mumbled (rather than shouted) down, now has some serious support. In 2012, that would change the starting practice date from Aug. 13 to Aug. 6 and the first playing date from Aug. 31 to Aug. 24.

Ergo, the question: What’s worse, football on Aug. 4 or football on Dec. 11? And the other question: What’s worse, affecting 8 football teams and hundreds or basketball and wrestling teams or all of the state’s football teams?

District 3 knows where it stands on the issue: Heck, no.

District 3 will vote against the matter when it it raised at Thursday’s PIAA Board of Directors meeting in Hershey. And remember, there are 8 PIAA Board members who either represent, are associated with or live in District 3.

District 3 committee member Don Seidenstricker, the head football coach and AD at South Western High School in Hanover, summed up District 3′s basic position with the following: “This is insanity.”

He’s right, of course. The entire football season should be 15 weeks max (I prefer 14 weeks by shortening the regular season to nine games and expanding classes to six or seven, which these days is a bigger pipe dream than scoring the Mega Millions jackpot).

But the reality is this: Until some folks on the PIAA Board are willing to say “no” to their own, 16 weeks is the present and the future for Pennsylvania football. And an early start to the season, distatseful as it might be to many, the early start is the only solution to this mid-blowingly political problem.

I spent the day refining and then actually giving a presentation to the District 3 Committee for a position with the district as its webmaster and director of corporate sponsorships.

I’m pleased to announce that the district, after some healthy discussion on the matter, has approved the job. I thank the committee, and especially chairman Sam Elias of Hershey and vice-chairman Ron Kennedy of Donegal, with deep gratitude.

In brief, I have been charged with upgrading the District 3 site and providing the site with daily content as well as establishing permanent features. In addition, District 3, much like District 7, is actively seeking corporate sponsorships for its championship events. I am thrilled to be the point man for this initiative. The district will be seeking everything from major sponsors (a la District 7) to low-cost sponsorships for specific sports.

I will have details soon on the new District 3 website, which I hope to have up by Christmas. In the meantime, if you are interested in sponsoring District 3 championships at any level or know of an individual or business that is interested in the same, please feel free to contact me at rod@rodfrisco.com or call me at 717-919-5144. I will be happy to explain District 3′s different levels of sponsorship that are designed to work with any budget.

Now, what does this mean for RodFrisco.com? Is this the end of the site? Hardly.

What will happen with RodFrisco.com is a shift in philosophy, but not in content. I’ll be less of a reporter / blogger (because of time), but still very heavy on daily information. I will have to streamline my time and some of the information. I’ll have shorter, to-the-point blog posts and more links directly to the information.

I still intend to cover PIAA championships andpost everything I can related to PIAA news. For example, I’ll cover Friday morning’s PIAA Board of Directors meeting as well as all four football championship games this weekend.

But are some things that will necessarily change. For instance, I know some readers are looking for District 3 wrestling rankings on the site, but unfortunately, I cannot so them for two reasons. Now that I am actively working for District 3, I do not believe it is ethical for me to post district rankings, which are an opinion. It could be construed as the official position of District 3, and that cannot ever be the case. In addition, I am doing the team wrestling power ratings, which will formally qualify and seed the District 3 team Championships. I cannot be in the position of putting up my own rankings while working the official ratings; it’s a conflict of interest, and neither District 3 nor I can be in that position.

So I have to back away from my own rankings, but I’ll be happy to post the rankings of others. As such, things will change a little, but not in a way that’s detrimental to the readers of RodFrisco.com, readers for which I am extremely grateful.

Thanks to all who have chosen RodFrisco.com since the site launched in February. The site isn’t going away. In fact, it will have a sharper focus as a result of my work with District 3.

Keep checking. There will be plenty of items on the site in the coming days, weeks and months.

Rod

No details are available on the game at this time. Seminary led 1-0 at the half, then exploded for four second-half goals.

At the time of this post, unbeaten Emmaus held a 1-0 over Cocalico in the Class AAA championship.

RodFrisco.com will provide continuous updates of tonight’s PIAA Class AA Girls Soccer championship game between South Park (19-2-3) and Mercyhurst Prep (21-0-3) and the PIAA Class AA Boys Soccer championship game between Archbishop Wood (17-7-1) and Hampton (24-1).

Both games will be contested at Hersheypark Stadium. Kick for the South Park-Mercyhurst Prep game is 5 p.m. while the Archbishop Wood-Hampton game is scheduled for 7 p.m.

These will not be live, play-by-play updates. Those are prohibited by PIAA policy due to its contractual arrangement with PCN, which will broadcast four of the six games live. The 3 p.m. Class AAA girls’ championship between Archbishop Wood (23-1) and Peters Twp. (22-2) and the 5 p.m. Class AAA boys’ championship game between Central Bucks East (18-5-3) and Landisville Hempfield (23-4) will also be broadcast live.

The other Saturday championship game – the 11 a.m. Class A girls’ championship game between Warrior Run (20-4-1) and Sewickley Academy (17-7) and the Class A boys’ championship between New Hope-Solebury (16-5-3) and Mercyhurst Prep (21-1-1) will be tape delayed at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., respectively.

I will not be at either the Class A girls at 11 a.m. or the Class A boys at 1 p.m. on Saturday. I will update the Class AAA game from Hersheypark Stadium.

But fear not. I will be keeping my eye on playoff football throughout the state. After all, what’s else there to do between goals?

RodFrisco.com will also post scores as soon as possible on Saturday with the results of the PIAA Class AAA and Class AA Field Hockey championships from Whitehall High School’s Zephyr Sports Complex.

From bill on Contact us #

Rod, Wonderful effort—-a grand display by you to keeping good things going. Can we send a donation or tribute? …

Well, first of all, many thanks to the otherwise anonymous Bill. Comments like that help keep my enthusiasm level high.

But Bill did bring up that rather sensitive subject of money. This gives me an opportunity to make a little pre-emptive announcement.

As a dot com, I cannot accept donations toward the site. I run a (very) small business, subject to the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and those fine folks at the Internal Revenue Service. So any income I derive through the website must come in the form of either sales or sponsorships.

I am on the cusp of seeking both. Soon – very soon – I will have some RodFrisco.com gear available for sale. No, you won’t have a slick, four-color brochure to peruse. I will have just one product to start: Simple, white T-shirts with the red-and-black RodFrisco.com logo across the front.

I will make those shirts available for sale via the website in a week or so; I still have to set up my PayPal account and install it on my site.

If you like the site, please consider purchasing one as a way of supporting the site. They will be sold a small profit, the monies of which will be used to support the site.

I do not plan on making RodFrisco.com a subscription site … ever. That’s not a great business decision, to be honest, but I have always believed that the information on the site should not be for sale. I just want readers throughout the state and beyond to have a vault of information that they can access 24/7 without the annoyance of logging in or even paying a small fee for the privilege.

The simple fact is I love covering and commenting on Pennsylvania high school sports and have since I wandered into The Progress of Clearfield 37 years ago looking for a job answering phones (thanks, Fred Kavelak!). It’s a passion, and passion doesn’t have a price.

The T-shirts will, though. But it will be a reasonable one. Look for the announcement soon.

And thanks to all who have viewed the site (just about 400,000 and growing since February).

FIELD HOCKEY
CLASS AAA GIRLS
Emmaus 3, Landisville Hempfield 0
Cocalico 2, Mount St. Joseph 0
PIAA Championship: Emmaus (26-0) vs. Cocalico (21-4) at Zephyr Sports Complex, Whitehall HS, 1 p.m.

CLASS AA GIRLS
Wyoming Seminary 2, Crestwood 1
Lehighton 2, Conrad Weiser 0
PIAA Championship: Wyoming Seminary (23-2) vs. Lehighton (22-3) at Zephyr Sports Complex, Whitehall HS, 11 a.m.

Notes: Emmaus is seeking to extend its PIAA record to 10 titles; Emmaus currently has nine. Crestwood and Lower Dauphin are next at four each … Cocalico is making its first appearance in the PIAA finals. Cocalico finished fifth in the District 3-AAA Championships. … Wyoming Seminary is seeking its fourth championship and its second in the last three years. … Lehighton is attempting to become the first AA team to repeat since Crestwood won backot-back titles in 2003 and 2004.
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Here are the Wednesday soccer results:

Class A girls: Warrior Run 3, Loyalsock Twp. 0
Class AAA girls: Archbishop Wood 3, Conestoga 2, OT
Class AA boys: Archbishop Wood 3, Lancaster Mennonite 0
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Here are the complete soccer pairings. Go to piaa.org for the brackets.

BOYS CLASS AAA
Central Bucks East 2, Central Dauphin 1
Landisville Hempfield 2, Pittsburgh Central Catholic 0
PIAA Championship: Central Bucks East (18-5-3) vs. Landisville Hempfield (23-4) at Hersheypark Stadium, Saturday, 5 p.m.
Notes: Central Bucks East and Hempfield are both making their initial PIAA championship appearances.

BOYS CLASS AA
Archbishop Wood 3, Lancaster Mennonite 0
Hampton 1, Palmyra 0
PIAA Championship: Archbishop Wood (17-7-1) vs. Hampton (24-1) at Hersheypark Stadium, Friday, 7 p.m.
Notes: Hampton is making its second straight appearance in the PIAA Class AA finals, losing 2-1 to Octorara last year. Hampton made one other title appearance, sharing the 1990 Class AA title with Great Valley after the two played to a 0-0 tie. … Archbishop Wood is making its first PIAA championship appearance.

BOYS CLASS A
New Hope-Solebury 3, South Williamsport 0
Mercyhurst Prep 5, North Star 1
PIAA Championship: New Hope-Solebury (15-5-3) vs. Mercyhurst Prep (21-1-1) at Hersheypark Stadium, Saturday, 1 p.m.
Notes: New Hope-Solebury is making its second appearance in the PIAA Class A finals; it lost to Seton-LaSalle 3-1 in 2006. … Mercyhurst Prep is making its first boys’ soccer championship game appearance.

GIRLS CLASS AAA
Archbishop Wood 3, Conestoga 2, OT
Peters Twp. 3, Norwin 1
PIAA Championship: Archbishop Wood (23-1) vs. Peters Twp. (22-2) at Hersheypark Stadium, Saturday, 3 p.m.
Notes: This is Archbishop Wood’s first appearance in the girls soccer championships. … Peters Twp. is making its second girls title game appearance, having lost to Conestoga 2-1 in ’08.

GIRLS CLASS AA
South Park 3, Midd-West 2, OT
Mercyhurst Prep 3, Mars 0
PIAA Championship: South Park (19-2-3) vs. Mercyhurst Prep (21-0-3) at Hersheypark Stadium, Friday, 5 p.m.
Notes: South Park is making its third appearance in the PIAA girls finals in four years, sharing the 2007 Class AA title with Villa Joseph Marie after a 0-0 finish and losing to Montoursville 3-1 in 2008. The 2007 co-championship is the only shared girls’ fall title. … Mercyhurst Prep is making its first girls’ championship appearance.

GIRLS CLASS A
Warrior Run 3, Loyalsock Twp. 0
Sewickley Academy 1, Springdale 0, OT
PIAA Championship: Warrior Run (20-4-1) vs. Sewickley Academy (17-7) at Hersheypark Stadium, Saturday, 11 a.m.
Notes: Warrior Run is making its first PIAA gils soccer championship appearance. … Sewickley Academy is making its second appearance in teh championship game, winning the 2003 Class AA title by beating Villa Joseph Marie 3-2.

Additional notes: Mercyhurst Prep and Archbishop Wood qualified their boys and girls teams to the state soccer finals. It is the first time since the PIAA added girls’ soccer in 1992 that two teams have advanced both teams to the state finals in the same season.

This is the second time in the last two seasons that the boys and girls’ team from the same school reached the PIAA soccer finals in the same season. Peters’ Twp qualified both schools in 2008. Prior to that, the only other times this happened was in 1996 (Quaker Valley) and 1995 (McDowell). Only one of those teams – the 1996 Quaker Valley boys – won a PIAA title.

There has only been one year without a girls’ fall soccer champion from District 1. That was 1992, the first year of PIAA girls soccer championships when Mount Lebanon of District 7 defeated Villa Joseph Marie 2-0. … This will be the 13th straight year the fall soccer championships will be conducted at Hersheypark Stadium.

We will provide scores from the soccer games played tonight.

Here are the sites and times for Tuesday’s PIAA field hockey and soccer semifinals, courtesy of www.piaa.org (the links go directly to the PIAA brackets for each class):

FIELD HOCKEY

All games will be played Wednesday, Nov. 17

Class AAA
Landisville Hempfield (15-8) vs. Emmaus (25-0) at Exeter Twp. HS, 4 p.m.
Mount St. Joseph Academy (18-4-1) vs. Cocalico (20-4) at Exeter Twp. HS, 6 p.m.

Class AA
Wyoming Seminary vs. Crestwood (20-2) at Wyoming Valley West HS, Kingston, 6:30 p.m.
Lehighton (21-3) vs. Conrad Weiser (21-4) at Emmaus HS, 6 p.m.

GIRLS SOCCER

Class AAA
Conestoga (19-5) vs. Archbishop Wood (22-1) at West Chester East HS, WEDNESDAY at 5:45 p.m.
Norwin (20-4) vs. Peters Twp. (21-2) at Carl Newman Stadium, North Allegheny HS, Wexford, 8

Class AA
Midd-West (18-2-2) vs. South Park (18-2-3) at Hollidaysburg Area HS, 5 p.m.
Mars (24-0) vs. Mercyhurst Prep (20-0-3) at Neshannock HS, New Castle, 5 p.m.

Class A
Loyalsock (21-1-1) vs. Warrior Run (19-4-1) at Hughesville HS, WEDNESDAY at 7 p.m.
Sewickley Academy (16-7) vs. Springdale (19-4-1) at Carl Newman Stadium, North Allegheny HS, Wexford, 6 p.m.

BOYS SOCCER

Class AAA
Central Bucks East (17-5-3) vs. Central Dauphin (18-5) at Tulpehocken HS, Bernville, 7 p.m.
Landisville Hempfield (22-4) vs. Pittsburgh Central Catholic (18-3-3) at Mansion Park Stadium, Altoona, 6 p.m.

Class AA
Lancaster Mennonite (18-6-1) vs. Archbishop Wood (16-7-1) at West Chester East HS, WEDNESDAY at 8 p.m.
Palmyra (18-5-1) vs. Hampton (23-1) at Hollidaysburg Area HS, 7 p.m.

Class A
South Williamsport (20-4) vs. New Hope-Solebury (14-5-3) at Tulpehocken HS, Bernville, 5 p.m.
North Star (19-3) vs. Mercyhurst Prep (20-1-1) at Neshannock HS, New Castle, 7 p.m.