PIAA is moving girls’ soccer to the fall in 2010-2011; I put this story together …

The PIAA Board of Directors recently voted to move the girls’ soccer season from the spring to the fall, beginning with the 2010-2011 school year.

The move caught a lot of the Lancaster-Lebanon League coaches off guard.

“We had heard this was going to happen in 2012, so that’s what we assumed,” Penn Manor coach Bill Zapata said. “We thought we were getting a two-year warning to get our schedules set. So we knew this was coming; we just didn’t think it would come this soon.”

But the vote, which needed a two-thirds majority to pass, went down July 24, and passed by a healthy 22-7 margin.

This became a hot topic when District 1 soccer officials voted to move its entire girls’ soccer season to the fall starting in 2010. The entire western part of the state - along with a couple of pockets in the east - plays girls’ soccer in the fall.

The PIAA currently recognizes a fall state champ and a spring state champ.

Beginning in the fall of 2010, everyone will play at the same time, setting up a true state championship.

“A majority of the state was playing in the fall,” Warwick girls’ coach Mike Logan said, “so why not Central Pennsylvania, too? It was time.”

The L-L League has produced the last two Double-A state spring champs: Lancaster Mennonite in 2008 and Donegal this past season.

“District 1 (suburban Philadelphia) is such a big soccer area, so the PIAA looked at it and thought it was something we should all do,” Zapata said. “Half of District 1 plays in the fall and the other half plays in the spring. And they wanted to play against each other.”

With the vote in the books, the 220 PIAA-sponsored schools that still play girls’ soccer in the spring will play their season next spring, then turn around and play another full season in the fall of 2011.

“I guess it was the time for them to make a decision,” Mennonite girls’ coach Dale Stoltzfus said. “Am I happy about it? Probably not.”

With girls’ soccer on the cusp of being played at the same time as boys’ soccer, Stoltzfus is in a real bind. He’s one of three L-L League coaches who coach a boys’ team in the fall and a girls’ team in the spring.

That obviously will have to change come the fall of 2011.

Stoltzfus coaches Warwick’s boys’ team and Mennonite’s girls’ team, Matt Spahr coaches both of Lancaster Catholic’s teams, and Ray Kreiser coaches both of Annville-Cleona’s teams.

And there’s more than a handful of assistant coaches who coach in the fall and in the spring for both soccer programs. Those folks will also have to decide which team they’ll stick with.

“I haven’t made up my mind which way I’m going to go yet,” Stoltzfus said.

Logan, the L-L League girls’ coach’s president, is a proponent of the move.

“I’m glad they did it now,” he said. “I think there are definitely a lot of positives, and I think it’s great that the kids can make their own decisions.”

That’s the crux of the switch.

Many L-L League girls’ athletes play field hockey in the fall and then soccer in the spring. And field hockey is huge not only in the L-L League, but around District 3 and the state. Numerous L-L League field hockey players earn scholarships to major Division 1 programs every year.

But girls’ playing field hockey in the fall and then soccer in the spring will no longer be an option after this coming school year. The rising seniors will be able to play both one last time, but the underclassmen will have big decisions to make come this time next year.

“We’ve lost girls to lacrosse in the spring,” said Zapata, who led Penn Manor to spring state titles in 2002 and 2005. “So we’re used to losing girls to other sports. And at the same time, we’ve taken girls from other sports, too.”

Like softball, track and field and lacrosse, which will remain as spring sports.

But now there will many more sports to choose from in the fall: soccer, field hockey, cross country, tennis and volleyball.

“That’s a lot of options,” Stoltzfus said. “Obviously it’s going to be very tough for kids to make these decisions. Heck, it’s going to be tough for me to make a lot of these decisions … I can only imagine 16-year-old kids trying to make these decisions.”

Logan made a good point:

“Everyone is saying that the girls will have to choose between soccer and field hockey,” said Logan, who said he’ll have approximately a half dozen underclassmen that will have to choose between soccer and field hockey next year. “But when it comes to spring sports, they’re having to make decisions now … track, softball, lacrosse or soccer. So they’ll still have to make a difficult decision – just now in the fall.”

“I might lose some kids to volleyball,” said Zapata, who said he has a ‘handful’ of underclassmen that currently play soccer and field hockey. “But I will say this: I think there will be some unhappy girls over this.”

Speaking of unhappy, there could be at least two more problems that rear their ugly heads when this big switch goes down.

First and foremost is practice space. Boys’ and girls’ soccer teams will now be jousting for time on local practice fields. And for campuses that feature artificial surfaces, practice times will be at a premium.

“At Mennonite, if we needed the turf field right after school in the spring, we’d get it,” said Stoltzfus, who guided Warwick to the boys’ state title in 2005. “Now in the fall we’re going to have girls’ soccer and boys’ soccer and field hockey who will all want the field. We won’t have sufficient practice times or facilities. It could be a nightmare. And that’s just at Mennonite. I can’t imagine what will happen at smaller schools.”

Stoltzfus said he has one rising junior that plays soccer and field hockey.

“That will be a big decision for her in her senior year of high school,” he said.

Scheduling could also be tricky, considering there are only so many officials to go around.

“They could do it like L-L basketball in the winter – with one team home and one team away on the same night,” Zapata said. “Although right now, it’s anyone’s guess.”

“We could play on opposite nights, which would help out with the refs,” Logan said. “But right now, my best guess is that eventually, everything will settle down and we’ll fall into a good routine.”

The league is expected to vote to put boys’ and girls’ middle school soccer in the spring, which would alleviate some scheduling snafus and field availability in the fall.

The move also could help out with college recruiting.

“The major college coaches, who are the ones offering scholarships, are usually at the big showcase events, and those events are in the spring,” Zapata pointed out. “The kids are playing in the spring and can’t get to those showcase events. Now those kids can go to those showcase events.”

Which means more L-L League girls’ soccer players might have a better chance at landing a college scholarship, and that’s certainly a good thing.

“It’s not a shock that this is happening,” Zapata said. “It just stinks for the kids who have put in a lot of time, and all of a sudden, next year, in their senior year for a lot of them, they have to make a choice.”