The PIAA Board of Directors announced on Wednesday that fall sports are still slated to begin as scheduled.

“We agreed to remain as is, the starts of practice as well as district and state playoffs,” said Frank Majikes, PIAA board president and District 2 chairman, who noted Aug. 10 will be the start of the heat acclimatization program and Aug. 17 will remain the first practice date.

“We will continue to follow the guidelines and directives of the governor (Tom Wolf), the Department of Health, PDE (Pennsylvania Department of Education), and if changes are made, we will modify, revise, revisit as necessary.”

Majikes noted that there were a number of items taken into consideration to do what was best in reaching the decision, which was a consensus among all districts.

Those items would continue to be monitored moving forward.

Majikes noted that there will be another strategic competition committee meeting soon, followed by another board meeting.

“It was the consensus of the committee to stay the course, for us to get as many activities and sports in, starting with the fall, and the heat acclimatization starting on Aug. 10,” said PIAA Executive Director Dr. Robert Lombardi. “We are trying to hold serve and stay the course based on other information we received.

“Obviously, the governor had a press conference today and made a statement restricting indoor gatherings to 25. Since we are still in out of season contests, we believe we can work through that with schools that are having workouts for girls volleyball by adhering to that number. I know it may be an inconvenience, but I believe this is a mitigation strategy that may be temporary, and fall sports don’t start until Aug. 17 so we still have some time.”

Lombardi stressed the significance of having each district be on board with the decision to move forward.

“I think it was important to say all 12 district committees were committed to see whatever we could get, including philosophical statement that if things change we would cooperatively work together to come up with any alternate plans, including possibly shortening of seasons and qualifiers if necessary,” said Lombardi. “But right now, it’s status quo, and we would like to hold serve for the start of fall sports.

“And we would like to compliment the schools on how well they’ve done on their health and safety plans, because even though we’ve had a few hiccups in some areas in the state, most people are doing a pretty darn good job of pre-screening, observing, practicing good hygine, good health habits and making sure people are hydrated and taking care of their health and safety and well-being as they participate in out of season workouts.”

Check out tomorrow’s Times News for more on the story.