First, the good about the just-completed PIAA wrestling championships at the Giant Center in Hershey.

Girls joined the tournament for the first time and their presence added a lot.

Like many, I was skeptical about how they would fit. This is the state tournament, in one of the best states in the country for wrestling and nobody wanted to see the girls put on a "headlock fest" (a basic pinning move seen mainly on the middle school level) all day and night.

We didn't.

The girls worked combinations; their fitness levels were superb; there's plenty of mat sense and strategy; and they go after it. In other words, the girls know what they're doing.

And, not to be overlooked, our Bucks County area boys are getting better, too.

For years an afterthought on the state level (if I had a nickel for every time I heard a wrestler in 30-plus years covering states say, "Oh, I have a District One kid in my next match — I'll pin him" or something along those lines, I'd have a lot of nickels), that's no longer the case.

The emergence of Faith Christian on the Class 2A level (the Lions have won the last two PIAA team titles and had nine PIAA medalists this year) has given the district credibility, but our 3A kids aren't slouches, either.

In 3A, District one had four finalists, two winners (Hatboro-Horsham's Dom Morrison and Dillon Bechtold of Owen J. Roberts) and three of the four are returning next season in Morrison, Quakertown's Collin Gaj and Dean Bechtold of OJR.

Plus, nine other medalists in Class 3A in Bucks County alone are back for at least another year. That's progress and it's also what scheduling tougher dual meets, going to better tournaments and wrestling year round will do.

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The bad?

There's just not enough time in the day, in this case the three days of the tournament, to reasonably fit everything in.

Some examples:

Class 2A wrestlers had their weigh-ins for Friday's Day Two at 7 a.m. and many of them were still wrestling at 10:30 p.m. that night. That's way too big of a gap, way too much sitting around, and way unfair.

Again, this is the Pennsylvania state tournament, not Alabama, and the fans want to see the best kids at their best. That didn't happen.

Everything was rushed. Breaks were baked into the schedule, but continually had to be shortened because sessions ran long all three days and pushed the wrestling later and later into the night.

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The Giant Center holds six mats and if those six mats could talk, they would say how sore they were from constant use.

Trying to squeeze three tournaments (Class 2A, Class 3A and girls), with 20-wrestler brackets for the boys and 16-wrestler brackets for the girls, into three days is just too much.

Even the finals, the marquee event of the season, were diminished because they ran all three classifications at the same time on three mats (girls on the middle mat flanked by the boys on either side).

So, good luck if there were two matches being held at the same time that you wanted to see.

The problem is, though, when the finals came around on Saturday at 4 p.m., the arena was just about full.

One local coach looked around during the finals and said, "They're not going to change a thing. It was never like this just for the boys (the Class 2A or Class 3A finals, which where held at different times). This place is packed, even in the upper levels and that's money in the bank for the PIAA."

Let's face it, he's right in that things won't change, although let's offer some ideas that could make it better.

Start the tournament on Wednesday instead of Thursday. Even if the tournament got the prelims and the first round finished Wednesday night, that would ease things considerably schedule-wise over the next three days.

Yes, it's not ideal to have the wrestlers and coaches, many of whom are teachers, miss three days of school instead of the two they miss now, but these kids are only kids once. Being at their best for the biggest tournament of their life, something they'll remember forever, means more to them than a Wednesday school day in March.

Or, flip things around.

Start the tournament on Thursday as usual so kids only miss two days of school, but finish on Sunday.

Have the prelims and first round for each classification on Thursday night and then proceed over the next three days, wrapping up Sunday.

Now, I'm sure there's some archaic law handed down by the State Assembly decades ago saying high school kids can't play sports on Sundays.

Change it.

New Jersey plays some of its football championship games on Sunday.

Before it joined the PIAA, the Philadelphia Catholic League played football and basketball on Sundays for decades.

The great Escape The Rock tournament hosted by Council Rock South every January ends on a Sunday.

The kids will deal with, and in this case, would prosper, by wrestling Sunday. I think they'd be fine.

And, if the Giant Center could be packed on a Saturday at 4 p.m., I'm pretty sure the same crowd would show up 24 hours later.

Drew Markol: dmarkol@theintell.com; @dmarkol

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Do PIAA wrestling championships need another day after adding girls?