Soccer Preview: PIAA reclassification leveling playing field in District One
SPRINGFIELD >> Last fall, as his Springfield team mowed through opposition on the way to the PIAA Class AAA semifinals, coach Jason Piombino took note of the sideline disparities.
His roster of barely 20 names, generously spaced to fill a sheet of paper, paled in comparison to schools like Conestoga and Seneca Valley, whose end-of-season contingents, culled from preseason player pools numbering in the triple digits, tested the capacities of standard school buses.
The Cougars’ ability to topple one large foe after another — some whose enrollments outpaced theirs by a factor of three or more — heightened the sense of accomplishment. But this year, as the modesty that afflicts most like-sized institutions is restored, Piombino is grateful to see more equity in the numbers.
“We can still play with the big boys,” Piombino said at a recent practice. “But now it’s a leveler playing field.”
Competitive balance on the soccer field wasn’t the impetus for the PIAA’s across-the-board reclassifications. But in revising from three classes to four in concert with the advent of six classes in the “revenue” sports, few areas benefit as profoundly as District One, where the suburban mega-schools are partitioned from many smaller ones, like Springfield and several of its Central League rivals.
Springfield’s run is an anomaly, borne of the confluence of an exceptional generation of players. The numbers attest to its rarity.
Springfield was the only boys team in the District One Class AAA round of 16 last year to be reclassed in 3A. Likewise, only one current 3A girls team advanced from the first round of the AAA tournament. That team, Radnor (total female enrollment of 416, per the PIAA’s 2016-17/2017-18 calculations), was ousted by Pennsbury (female enrollment of 1,279).
As Penncrest girls coach Mike Deleo puts it, the arithmetic is simple: More kids in a school means more bodies at tryouts, casting a wider net to catch either elite multi-sport athletes or the prized year-round, club players. With the herd so drastically thinned by recruitment to private schools, players who opt for only club ball and, on the boys side, the Philadelphia Union’s Developmental Academy pathway, a larger quantity of raw talent that can be panned for gold correlates to consistent team success.
With the added class, teams in similar situations are now in more similar boats. Larger schools, like Conestoga or the Central Bucks trio who have the enrollment and club infrastructure to turn over their lineups with club players every year, compete for the same district crown. The Springfield boys and Penncrest’s girls, who usually boast a smattering of club players surrounded by multi-sport athletes, get their own prize to shoot for.
No system is perfect, and no matter where you set the boundaries, someone will always be aggrieved as just missing out. Strath Haven, for instance, has eight more boys enrolled than Radnor. Yet the Panthers are in 4A and the Raiders 3A. Penncrest falls 10 girls shy of the threshold for 4A, while the boys team is over the mark by a similar margin, landing the more difficult tourney.
And new classes do little to resolve certain bragging rights arguments, like the one Piombino played in at Great Valley, a smaller school that competed in parallel to the larger Downingtown High.
Ultimately, the different classes offer little more than an opportunity. Whoever the opponent, it’s a matter of seizing that chance on the field.
“It comes down to 11 players on the field and no excuses,” Deleo said. “Do the best that you can with your group of kids. You want to walk on the field thinking you’ve done their best and they’re in position to win or tie every time.”
Delco by Class
As part of the PIAA’s adoption of new classifications in all sports, boys and girls soccer has expanded to four classes. Below is the list of where each Delco school falls:
Boys Soccer
4A: Upper Darby, Ridley, Haverford, Garnet Valley, Penn Wood, Academy Park, Penncrest, Strath Haven
3A: Radnor, Marple Newtown, Springfield, Archbishop Carroll, Sun Valley, Glen Mills, Chichester, Cardinal O’Hara, Interboro, Bonner & Prendergast
A: Delco Christian, Christian Academy
Girls soccer
4A: Upper Darby, Ridley, Haverford, Garnet Valley, Springfield, Archbishop Carroll, Strath Haven, Penn Wood
3A: Penncrest, Radnor, Cardinal O’Hara, Marple Newtown, Sun Valley, Chichester, Interboro, Bonner & Prendergast
A: Delco Christian, Christian Academy
