Joe Bursick and Jose Martinez are breathing a sigh of relief.

Bursick is the head wrestling coach at Hampton and Martinez is the head honcho at North Hills.

Both schools sponsor a dual tournament that will be affected by the PIAA's change to its scheduling point system, which has been adopted for the 2006-07 school year.

"Any dual tournament completed in one day will count as three points," said Frank Vulcano Jr., chairman of the WPIAL steering committee. "A tournament that lasts two days will count as four points."

The change was made to slow the significant increase in the popularity of dual tournaments, which allow the participants to wrestle up to eight matches in two days.

"A dual tournament is better for the average and below-average wrestlers," said Martinez. "In a traditional tournament, many of those kids will wrestle only twice. In our dual tournament, those same kids can wrestle seven matches, assuming each team has an opponent for him. You can't get experience like that at a traditional tournament."

The change will no doubt affect some of the teams attending Hampton's Dawg Duals and the North Hills Invitational.

"We might lose a few teams, but the change isn't as drastic as some of the rumored changes," said Bursick. "Even with the extra point, our tournament is still a bargain, because we wrestle six matches in two days and it will only count as four points."

Bursick has 12 teams entered in the Dawg Duals, including defending champion Pine-Richland.

"We have two pools each with six teams," said Bursick. "Every team wrestles the other five teams in their pool. We then hold a playoff round to determine where everybody finishes. The top team in Pool A faces the top team in Pool B for the team championship. The second place team in Pool A faces the second place team in Pool B to determine the third place finisher. The same format follows to determine who finishes fifth, seventh, nineth, and eleventh."

Hampton is in one pool, along Plum, Baldwin, Highlands, Moon, and Langley. The other pool has Pine-Richland, Mt. Lebanon, Keystone Oaks, Penn Hills, Riverview, and Slippery Rock.

"I don't see a clear-cut favorite this year," said Bursick, who considers his young squad a longshot to win the Fourth Annual Dawg Duals. "Mount Pleasant won our first tournament, and we won the next year."

The North Hills Invitational had 12 teams last year, but is fielding only eight teams this time around. Defending invitational champion Kiski Area is joined by Waynesburg, Latrobe, Gateway, Norwin, Seneca Valley, Avonworth, and host North Hills.

"We had four teams drop out, so I switched to an eight-team tournament with every team facing each other," said Martinez. "That means everybody has a chance to wrestle in seven matches."

"Any double-elimination tournament with eight or fewer teams still counts as only two points," said Vulcano. "Any double-elimination tournament with more than eigth teams counts as three points."

All teams are allowed a maximum of 24 points for their regular season schedule under the new and current system. A dual meet is considered one point.

"We have four of the best teams in the WPIAL," said Martinez, referring to Kiski Area, Waynesburg, Latrobe, and Gateway.

"Kiski is the favorite, but the other three can't be far behind."