I bet you never thought you’d see your Knoch Knights Football Team take on the WPIAL runner-up on senior night!
Coach Burchett claims that McKeesport will be the team’s toughest opponent this season due to their only loss last year being to state champion Aliquippa at Acrisure Stadium.
Student athletes have been thrown for a loop this season due to the great WPIAL schism. Last year, we sat comfortably in AAA, just beginning to get our feet set in football. With most sports moving to AAAA, coaching staff and the athletic director agree, the future of Knoch sports is uncertain.
Golf had made the team playoff for two years in a row up until this season, where they didn’t qualify. Coach Voltz voiced his disagreement with the move.
“Our section has North Allegheny, Pine Richland, Seneca Valley, and Butler; all teams that are in 6A basketball. It is impossible to compete with teams that have more than twice the student population to pick from,” Voltz said.
The golf team has a multitude of tough matches this season, certainly unfair in the eyes of Coach Voltz. His opinion isn’t unpopular, either.
With all of this confusion comes the need for reason. Athletic Director Mr. Shoop says the reason lies in the numbers.
“The PIAA requires each school to submit every student who is enrolled at Knoch in [grades 9-12]. We submit our first set of numbers for our male population and we submit a second set of numbers for our female population, these numbers are submitted by the Principal of each member school directly to the PIAA,” he said. “So essentially, every two years a school can move up or down in classification based on the numbers that the school submits.”
Coach Burchett added on that the Butler County Vocational-Technical students count for this year’s totals, though last time they did not.
Despite this change, he has remained sanguine, saying, “Every year is challenging–we are still facing teams that have teenagers just like us.”
Coach Voltz does not feel as expectant about the rest of the season. He said he’s “disappointed that the team doesn’t get to compete against schools of equal size.”
However, Coach Voltz has managed to find a mildly sarcastic silver lining in this golfing mess. Take this how you will:
“The positive is that the Knoch team gets to witness first hand how truly gifted players (ones with scholarships to Division 1 programs) manage their games,” he said.
As far as records go, he was upset by the harsh reality that their last two seasons had consisted of only two losses, but this year, the team will only have two wins.
On the other hand, optimistic coach Burchett had but one thing to say about how the division will affect his record; “I’ll let you know in November.”
