Friday game locations with snow potential got a “redo”

Tagged under: News, pfn, Playoffs

Billy Splain | November 22, 2024

The above map shows the locations of Friday games and snow potential. Gold stars are current game location and red stars are where games were to be played. Map courtesy of our weather sponsor PAWEATHERPLUS

The PIAA Quarterfinal round happening this Friday hit a snag. A big, white, snowy snag. When the locations were released on Sunday three games were scheduled to be played in the Laurel Highlands area. Then reports started coming out of a rare mid November impending snow storm that could affect several areas of the state. The Laurel Highlands was one of those areas. State College and PCC were scheduled to play at Forest Hills, they’ll now play at Mansion Park in Altoona on Friday. TJ and Clearfield were scheduled to play at Winder but that game was moved to Mansion Park on Saturday and BG and Westinghouse were to play at Johnstown. That game is now being played at Highlands Stadium.

The Scranton Prep v Northwestern Lehigh game will now be played Saturday at 7 pm in Berwick

The Riverside v Williams Valley game will remain in Berwick and will also be a 1 pm kick off.

Juniata v Southern Lehigh now Saturday at 1pm in Shamokin

Penn Cambria v Hickory now 12:00 pm at Armstrong

Cambria Heights v Central Clarion 7 pm at Armstrong

Bishop Guilfoyle v Westinghouse is now at Farrell, Saturday at 1pm

For a full list of this weekends games and locations head to the link below (click on picture) then choose the bracket of interest:

How did the new locations get chosen? First let’s take a look at how the PIAA normally choses their sites for this round. When the PIAA playoffs hit the quarterfinal round, the PIAA does it’s best to find a stadium willing to host the game that’s somewhat in the middle of the two schools unless the quarterfinals are part of the district playoffs, much like the WPIAL and District One games being played this Friday. In that case those districts determine game location. Usually the team at the top of the bracket gets home field or in the case of the WPIAL, Acrisure stadium. “It’s a difficult process and people don’t understand it” said PIAA Executive Director Bog Lombardi. “First we have to find a stadium that is still open and willing to host a game. Most stadiums close down and winterize their stadiums as soon as their season is over. We don’t just pick and choose a stadium anywhere we want. We have a list of schools that have told us they would host playoff games and we start there”.

So, what happens when extreme weather looks like it will affect a game? PIAA Assistant Executive Director Pat Gephart said “first we like to have an accurate forecast.  Sometimes when it fluctuates between rain and snow we keep an eye on that. We try not to be premature with our decisions. If the forecast doesn’t change, and in this case with Fridays forecast it looks like all the models are in agreement and the Laurel Highlands looks to get a lot of snow, we start making calls. Obviously we take safety of schools and spectators into account.  Then it’s site availability.  We have to take into account the ability of the school to move the snow off the field, if they have the proper staffing, etc”.

There are other factors in play as well. “In District 6 you better make sure PSU isn’t at home that weekend because if they are you know there will be stadiums that there’s a very good chance stadiums won’t have the staffing” said Gephart. “Then we take a look at travel distance, the type of roads people will be travelling on. We look at the surrounding terrain. Cresson mountain is always a concern”.

Lombardi says in almost all cases like this the schools understand they might have to travel a bit more due to difficulty of finding a suitable location. “For one of the games we had to move fairly close to a teams school in the west (Westinghouse isn’t far from Highlands stadium) so it’s not a central location and we like to try to keep it that way, so we have to look at that” said Gephart. “Then also we also have to consider if the stadium will have staffing for concessions, etc. We try to go midway but we try to have alternates just in case”.

Hopefully this sheds some light for those that don’t understand how this process plays out.  The staff at PAFootballnews.com wishes all those heading to games this Friday SAFE TRAVELS! Please leave early and use caution!

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