Facing a major decision

by Tom Fox

Posted on February 22, 2008

MILL HALL — It's like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

One member of the Keystone Central School Board called it a "difficult problem."

Another offered a different solution: "We stay in the league and follow the rules."

No matter who you ask, everyone has his or her opinion about Central Mountain's participation in the Mountain League.

But with the 2008-2009 Wildcat wrestling schedule coming to fruition, the challenges with scheduling in the league are on the front burner.

CM athletic director Paula Lupold and assistant Mike Rendos appeared in front of the school board Thursday night to address the issue.

Here's the skinny.

Central Mountain is a member of the 10-team Mountain League, which is split into two separate divisions: Allegheny (called the big school division) and Nittany (called the small school division). CM is in the Allegheny with regional rivals Bellefonte, Indian Valley, Lewistown and Huntingdon.

For the sport of wrestling though, Bald Eagle Area and Philipsburg-Osceola join the Allegheny, while Huntingdon is in the Nittany.

Central Mountain, a team filled with underclassmen, ended the regular season with an overall record of 24-1, a third-place state Class AAA finish, a District VI Class AAA Team Dual Championship and appears to be heading toward more success over the next three weeks.

The train doesn't seem to be derailing any time soon either as CM will only replace three wrestling starters next year. The Wildcats, along with Central Dauphin, will probably start next year as the preseason favorites to win a state championship in 2008-2009.

There will be two major changes on the local and state wrestling scene when next season begins.

First, the Mountain League is requiring that all of its members wrestle each other once. That means CM would need to pick up matches with Huntingdon, Tyrone, Penns Valley and Central — all Double-A schools.

Secondly, the PIAA — the governing body of Pennsylvania interscholastic sports — has reduced the number of regular-season contests a team can have. Wrestling, which operates on a different structure than most, was allotted 24 points in 2007-2008. Next season, the sport is only allowed 22 points.

Thursday night, Lupold presented a brief sketch of next year's schedule. It includes matches with all Mountain League members. It also has contests with Big 7 schools (Jersey Shore, Shikellamy, Hollidaysburg, Bellefonte, BEA, State College), the annual King of the Mountain and Central Mountain Duals, the Top Hat Tournament in Williamsport, the Manheim Holiday Tournament, and a newly-created Mountain League Duals in which CM would face Bald Eagle Area, Lewistown, Central (Martinsburg) and Tyrone.

The catch: That current schedule has 24 points, which exceeds the new PIAA limit by two. Because a team can't take out individual dual meets, and it appears that they can't eliminate the Mountain League Duals, that means CM needs to drop either KOM, Top Hat, CM Duals or the Manheim Tournament.

Some have even questioned if CM should try to pull wrestling out of the Mountain League.

Lupold did throw caution to the wind there, saying that could mean expulsion for every sport.

That's when the conversation began, and some wondered why special rules couldn't be set for wrestling. Of note, football is the only school sport not associated with the Mountain League, but all 10 Mountain League teams are members of the Mountain Athletic Football Conference.

"This year, the rule was we had to wrestle all the Triple-A schools, and now it changes?" school board president Jack Peters said. "Perhaps we entered the league under the wrong assumption. If that's the case, how often can we expect changes to happen? It's important that we look for continuity.

"There is just no consistency here," he continued. "These conference schedules are always changing. It's not an easy situation to address. Really, how do you look at that schedule and decide what to drop?"

Lupold told the board she has been working with CM head coach Doug Buckwalter and they have asked the league to stick to last year's reasoning of only wrestling the Triple-A schools instead of going against some of the smaller ones.

Buckwalter, also present at the meeting, expressed his concerns with the schedule.

"When I was hired four years ago, I was put in a position to do the best that I could for this program," he said. "As a teacher and a coach, it's my job to challenge our students and student-athletes. And I am afraid that this schedule does not do that.

"If you add some of the smaller schools that forfeit many weight classes, you may make a long trip and the match will only take 30 minutes with several kids not participating. Then, there is talk of wrestling matches on a Tuesday night. Many parents probably won't be able to attend the matches and that's a school night when you would have to make a long trip. This year, we had four home meets, and next year, it's proposed that we have three."

Local radio broadcaster John Lipez backed up Buckwalter's point of the consistency of competition, and even went a step further.

"I would suggest your athletic administration go back to the athletic directors within the (league) and ask for some compromise, such as was done for this season: The Triple-A schools wrestling the Triple-A schools," Lipez told the school board. "If the ADs don't want to do that, it would be in the best interest of the wrestling program to withdraw from the conference.

"It is my understanding these athletic directors are prepared to bring in Clearfield should Central Mountain pull out in all sports. The better solution would be, in my opinion, to stay in the conference but seek some kind of relief for the wrestling program; either some flexibility in scheduling or withdrawal of wrestling from the conference."

Former CM athletic director Justin Evey, who moved to principal at Bucktail, explained the difficulty of not being associated with a conference.

"If you don't get involved with a league, you have to spend numerous hours scheduling for every single sport," he said, "and it's not easy to find games. We struggled trying to get one football game two years ago. I called from Virginia to New York, New Jersey and Maryland. I just don't know if it would be possible.

"Football has always been a separate sport from the league. But when the Mountain Athletic Football Conference was having issues, and many thought it would disband, those Mountain League schools were ready to help us out, even though it wasn't going to benefit the smaller schools," he added.

School board member and long-time football coach Tom Shafer backed up the schedule dilemma. He brought up traveling to Erie one week, and to Pius X (Poconos) the following week.

"It's not a lot of fun, and parents couldn't even get to the events because they were too far away," he said. "There's no doubt we need more dialogue about the wrestling issue. This is a difficult problem and it's tough to come up with a solution that doesn't penalize all the other sports. We have to convince these other schools to cooperate with us."

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