By: DOM COSENTINO
Bucks County Courier Times

The PIAA Board of Control voted Friday to move spring girls soccer entirely to the fall beginning with the 2010-11 school year, an action that makes next spring the last in which the sport will be sponsored by the state athletic organization.

Ordinarily, such a change would require approval on three readings to take effect. But the board instead voted to suspend protocol and to approve the measure in a single vote with the approval of a two-thirds majority because two factors contributed to a greater urgency to act sooner:

??PIAA member schools must submit their enrollment figures for the next two-year cycle (2010-11 and 2011-12) by October, and the new enrollment breakdown is to be released in late November.

??The Suburban One League's decision in May to move girls soccer to the fall means just four districts will offer spring soccer in Class AAA. And of the 548 girls soccer-playing schools in Class AA and Class AAA, just 196 would continue to play in the spring.

"I think the board members felt it really wasn't their action that precipitated this, it was the action inside the Suburban League," said Rod Stone, the principal at Central Bucks South who is also the board president and the District One chairman.

Advertisement According to a document circulated at Thursday's meeting of the strategic planning committee, which is comprised of district representatives, fall girls soccer would expand from two to three enrollment classifications, which means there will be championships in Class A, AA and AAA.

Chris Shank, the girls soccer coach at New Hope-Solebury, is excited about the prospect of getting to play those schools that have long played in the fall, but he worried about field availability, whether there were enough officials, and what coaches who coached the boys in the fall and the girls in the spring might now do.

Shank also coaches as an assistant with New Hope's boys team, but he said he was "99 percent sure" he would continue to coach the girls, just as he has done for sevens seasons.

New Hope-Solebury will be Class A, at least according to the current enrollment numbers.

With all teams playing in the fall in 2010-11, state playoffs will expand to three classifications.