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

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).

The link will take you to all of the results. Click on the tabs at the bottom of the page to find the results for team and individual scores.

The recap:

Pittson Area junior Brandon Matthews shot a 4-under 67 to sweep past the field and claim the boys’ title at the 2010 PIAA Golf Championships Tuesday at Heritage Hills Golf resort in York.

And two-time runner-up Aurora Kan finally got her PIAA title after a wild 79 placed her in a three-way playoff with friends Gabriella DiMarco of West Chester East and Stani Schiavone of Bangor, all at 7-over 151. Kan won the playoff on the second hole.

Matthews posted seven birdies in his second-day round to finish with a 36-hole total of 139. That tied for the second-best 36-hole score in PIAA Championships history along with Bobby McWhinnie of Upper St. Clair (69-70) in 2000 and current PGA Tour pro Jim Furyk of Manheim Twp. (68-71) in 1987. The 36-hole record is 138 by Blaine Peffley of Cedar Crest, who shot 65-73 while capturing the 2001 PIAA title.

Matthews’ 67 is the first 67 shot in a PIAA championship round, and is third to Peffley’s PIAA record 65 in 2001 and a 66 by Robert Schoener of Allentown (11) in the third round of the 1951 PIAA Championships.

Matthews is Pittston’s first PIAA golf champion and the fourth individual state champion in school history. He is also the first PIAA champion of the 2010-2011 school year; the girls’ playoff finished after Matthews had completed his second round.

Kan held a 3-stoke lead of DiMarco after the opening, but posted a triple-bogey 8 on the second hole that helped to close the gap between her and field. In fact, Kan, who will attend Purdue University, was in danger of losing in regulation, but knocked down consecutive birdies on the final two holes to join the playoff.

All three players had a par on the first hole, but Kan was able to sink a 12-foot birdie putt to win the title, her first and Chichester’s first in state golf. Kan is Chichester’s first female state champion; Chichester’s four previous PIAA titles came in boys’ swimming and diving and boys’ track and field.

In team golf, Council Rock North won the boys’ title while Central Bucks East claimed the girls’ title.

North shot consecutive 308s to post a two-day score of 616, overtaking Peters Twp. (622). Peters Twp. had a two-stroke lead entering the final day but shot a 316 on the second day. North’s winning team members were Zach Herr (72-72-144, 7th in individuals), Brandon Dalinka (75-71-146, tie 8th individual), freshman Erica Herr (79-78-157, tie 5th in girls individual) and Austin Birky (82-87-169).

I’m not sure whether Erica Herr is the first girl to win a boys’ gold medal in a PIAA championship event. I tend to doubt it, but right now I don’t have the research to either confirm or deny that.

Central Bucks East easily beat Fox Chapel 689-706 for the girls’ title. The team of Ashley Cassidy (79-84-163, 12th individuals), Jordan Giatt (86-83-169, tie 18th individuals), Francesca Ruscio (85-84-169, did not qualify for individual states) and Stephanie Yocum (89-99-188) claimed the championship.

The Council Rock North team title is the school’s first in golf and third overall for the school. Central Bucks East also won its school’s first PIAA golf championship and the 21st overall PIAA title.
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PIAA GOLF CHAMPIONSHIPS TEE TIMES

Here are the results of the PIAA West Region and East Region Golf tournaments:

West Region (Monday at Tom’s Run GC in Blairsville)

Eric Urda of Pittsburgh Central Catholic carves out a terrific 4-under 68 at Tom’s Run for boys’ medal honors. Urda, ninth at the District 7 Championships, had five birdies, a bogey and 12 pars. Shady Side Academy junior Kendall Allen also breaks par to win medal honors, going 1-under 71.

In team play, Fox Chapel shoots 342 to beat McDowell by seven strokes for the girls title. Usual suspect Cathedral Prep posts an excellent 301 to nip just-as-excellent Peters Twp. by two strokes for the boys.
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East Region (Tuesday at Golden Oaks GC in Fleetwood)

Bangor senior Stani Schiavone goes 2-under on the front, even par on the back for a two-under 70 for girls’ medalist honors at Golden Oaks. Big story is Lancaster Catholic’s Bobby Stengel, 17th in District last week, winning a two-hole playoff to beat Montgomery’s Kyle Deisher for the East Region boys’ title. Both Stengel and Deisher carded 2-under 70s.

In team play, Central Bucks East outgunned Scranton Prep 337-395 for the girls title while Council Rock North topped Scranton Prep 304-318 in boys.

The 2010 PIAA Golf Championships are next Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 25-26, at Heritage Hills Golf Resort is York.

First, the links to the PIAA regional cards:
WEST REGION (Monday, Oct. 18 at Tom’s Run Golf Course, Blairsville)
EAST REGION (Tuesday, Oct. 19 at Golden Oaks Golf Club, Fleetwood)

PIAA CHAMPIONSHIP: Oct. 25-26 at Heritage Hills Golf Resort, York (card will be posted when made available by PIAA)

DISTRICT 1 BOYS AND GIRLS GOLF

DISTRICT 2 BOYS INDIVIDUAL
DISTRICT 2 GIRLS INDIVIDUAL
DISTRICT 2 BOYS TEAM
DISTRICT 2 GIRLS TEAM

DISTRICT 3 BOYS – ROUND 1 – ROUND 2
DISTRICT 3 GIRLS – ROUND 1 – ROUND 2
DISTRICT 3 BOYS TEAM
DISTRICT 3 GIRLS TEAM

DISTRICT 4 BOYS
DISTRICT 4 GIRLS

DISTRICT 5 BOYS
DISTRICT 5 BOYS TEAM
DISTRICT 5 GIRLS
NO DISTRICT 5 GIRLS TEAM

DISTRICT 6 BOYS
DISTRICT 6 GIRLS

DISTRICT 7 BOYS
DISTRICT 7 BOYS TEAM
DISTRICT 7 GIRLS
DISTRICT 7 GIRLS TEAM

DISTRICT 8 BOYS
DISTRICT 8 GIRLS

DISTRICT 9 BOYS
DISTRICT 9 GIRLS
DISTRICT 9 BOYS TEAM
DISTRICT 9 GIRLS TEAM

DISTRICT 10 BOYS AND DISTRICT 10 GIRLS
DISTRICT 10 BOYS TEAM AND DISTRICT 10 GIRLS TEAM

DISTRICT 11 BOYS AND DISTRICT 11 GIRLS
DISTRICT 11 BOYS TEAM

DISTRICT 12 BOYS
DISTRICT 12 GIRLS

You can join the chat tomorrow here at 7 p.m. And yes, you can make fun of my rankings. A little bit.

Just a reminder: I’ve written and posted precious little on anything but football this fall, but I will begin posting post-season information of district and PIAA fall championships ASAP. As I’ve said since the site launched in February, that’s my primary mission.