Thursday’s District 3 Class 2A girls volleyball final was between the state’s two top-ranked teams and could have doubled as the PIAA final.
But the PIAA doesn’t roll that way.
Because the organization that oversees most of the high school sports in Pennsylvania only allows the District 3 Class 2A champion to play in the PIAA tournament that started on Tuesday. The runner-up goes home.
This has been the case since the sport went to four classifications in 2016. PIAA Assistant Executive Director Lyndsay Barna said the organization only takes the number of participating schools into account when determining the number of entries into the state tournament. District 3 has 13 Class 2A schools sponsoring girls volleyball teams.
They don’t look at the sport’s history, which would show the District 3 champion has made the Class 2A state final more times (five) than any other district’s representative. District 7, with 38 teams, gets four teams in each tournament and has made the final four times since 2016.