PIAA Raises Number Of Individual Qualifiers For XC States


The PIAA will raise the number of individual qualifiers for the PIAA XC State Championships, upping its figures from its initial announcement regarding state meet qualifiers two weeks ago. The PIAA made those changes official in its Board of Directors' Meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

All three classifications will now get 60 individual qualifiers who are not on a qualified team. The initial figures allotted 55 individual spots each for girls and boys in Class A and Class AA, and 40 individual spots each for girls and boys in Class AAA.

"Those districts that are deserving of more than five (individual qualifiers) under the proportional representation, we allocated additional qualifiers," Mark Byers of the PIAA said. "They were allocated to those larger districts."

The PIAA did not, however, change the number of qualifying spots for teams in each district. Class A and Class AA still get 11 team spots and Class AAA will still get eight team spots. Only the district/region champions will qualify a team for the state meet in each classification.

On September 23, the PIAA announced that the state meet would be a two-day meet with smaller overall fields as a response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The meet is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 6 (Class A) and Saturday, Nov. 7 (Class AA and Class AAA) at Hershey's Parkview Course.

On the topic of spectators, Byers said, "we certainly hope to include spectators in our upcoming championship."

A breakdown of the qualifiers is below.

PIAA Class A


In Class A, District 6, District 9, and District 10 get one additional state meet qualifier, bringing its number to 6 individual qualifiers, up from 5. District 7 (WPIAL) will get an additional two individual state qualifying spots bringing its number of individual qualifiers to 7, up from 5.

The other districts in Class A will still get 5 individual state meet qualifiers.


PIAA Class AA


In Class AA, District 3, District 4, and District 10 will get one additional state meet qualifier, bringing its number to 6 individual qualifiers, up from 5. District 7 (WPIAL) will get an additional two individual state qualifying spots, bringing its number of individual qualifiers to 7, up from 5.

The other districts in Class AA will still get 5 individual state meet qualifiers.


PIAA Class AAA


In Class AAA, District 1, District 3, and District 7 (WPIAL) will be getting additional individual qualifiers. District 1 will get 13 total individual qualifiers. District 3 will get 12 total individual qualifiers. District 7 (WPIAL) will get 10 total individual qualifiers. That brings the total number of AAA individual qualifiers to 60, which is the same amount Class A and Class AA will receive.

The other districts in Class AAA will still get 5 individual state meet qualifiers.