Oct 30, 2012 4 min read

Superstorm Sandy’s drenching of the area has led to site changes for four WPIAL first-round football playoff games Friday, including one involving a local team.Washington High School athletic director Joe Nicolella said Tuesday afternoon that the undefeated Little Prexies (9-0) will play Shady Side Academy (6-3) in a Class AA game on the artificial turf field at Washington & Jefferson College’s Cameron Stadium instead of the grass field at Wash High Stadium. Kickoff will be 7:30 p.m. Friday.”Before all the steady rain hit Monday, I was in touch with our crew at the stadium and was told that what rain we did have was already making it muddy,” Nicolella said. “If we did play there, we would not be able to park cars on the grass inside the stadium. That was one of the primary factors for moving the game.”Though we didn’t get hit as much as some other areas, we’ve had steady rain. If we played at home, it was going to be a quagmire.”At its playoff pairings meeting Monday night in Green Tree, WPIAL executive director Tim O’Malley advised athletic directors for schools with grass fields that are scheduled to host first-round contests – locally, that’s Washington, Beth-Center, Jefferson-Morgan and Monessen – to find a secondary site with artificial turf. Each school was given two days to make arrangements for an alternate site.”From what we were told, you have until 9 a.m. Thursday morning to find a turf field to use. If you don’t and the WPIAL determines that your field is not playable, then they will select a neutral site for you,” Nicolella explained.Washington was proactive, even before Monday’s turf-mandate by the WPIAL. With rain in the forecast, Nicolella and head coach Mike Bosnic discussed late last week what changes the Prexies might have to make to their practice schedule.”Mike asked if there was any way he could get on a turf field,” Nicolella said. “I sent out some emails and Chartiers-Houston was the first to reply and said we could use their field. We practiced (Tuesday) at the Vernon C. Neal Sports Complex and Thursday we’ll practice at Chartiers-Houston.”With W&J’s football team playing Saturday at Geneva, Cameron Stadium was available as a game site. Nicolella said it was important to keep the game in Washington, so the decision was made to play at Cameron. “We wanted to make the decision in advance because there are others who need time to make plans, such as the bands,” Nicolella said. “We had Chartiers-Houston lined up, but when W&J became available it worked best.”Cameron Stadium was once the home to Wash High football, though that was decades ago. The Prexies used Cameron – then called College Field – for home games through the 1936 season before Wash High Stadium was built.In Class AA, top-seeded Aliquippa will host Steel Valley at Moon, and fourth-seeded Jeannette plays South Allegheny at Norwin.In Class A, Springdale has moved its home game against Brentwood to Fox Chapel.Monessen athletic director Gina Naccarato said a decision will be made this afternoon about where to play the Greyhounds’ Class A game against Apollo-Ridge. One possibility is to move the game to Charleroi.Jefferson-Morgan athletic director Scot Moore told the O-R that no decision has been made about the Rockets’ game against Neshannock and the plan is to be patient.”We will make a decision Thursday morning,” Moore said in a text message.There are only two turf fields in Greene County, at Waynesburg High School and Waynesburg University. Moore said each has been discussed a potential site, though he has not spoken with officials at the university about Wiley Stadium’s availability.