Swimming, diving championships likely will move

This year’s Swimming and Diving Championships are likely to move to Cumberland Valley High School, pending a written release from its contract with Bucknell University.

The event ran into several challenges with the host site, which is allowing a limited number of people into its Kinney Natatorium and Sojka Pavilion. In addition, the university will not be on spring break as in years past, creating an increase in the number of students on campus.

Diving will be a champions-only contest March 13. The swimming championships will be March 19-20. The district deadline was also extended to March 7, with the provision of going to March 8 if weather postpones championship events.

“(Cumberland Valley) hosts the District 3 Championships, so they are very familiar with running a Swimming and Diving Championships,” PIAA assistant executive director Melissa Mertz said. “A couple of things that made it very attractive to us were the fact that we have the use of so many facilities within their building. The fact that we can use their auxiliary gym, we can use their cafeteria, we can use their auditorium. It gives us flexibility on spacing people out. We talked about doing awards in the auditorium. Staging athletes in the auxiliary gym and keeping the competitors during their sessions in the auditorium.”

There will be no spectators allowed for the swimming championships.

There are still no dates set for the PIAA Team Wrestling Championships, however, the board agreed to a district deadline date of March 20. The boys and girls basketball championships remain on schedule to be held March 25-27 at the Giant Center in Hershey. Details on spectator policies are still being worked out.