Cautious optimism

AUHS Athletics responds to AIA's plan to open up Fall prep sports.

Late last week, the Arizona Interscholastic Association released it's tentative plan to open up Fall prep sports across the state.

At least for now, Arizona prep schools will have the option to open up practices on August 17th, with the start of season competition on the week of September 7th.

News 11 Sports had a recent conversation with Antelope Union High School Athletic Director Rocky Jaime, who expressed a number of concerns about this plan amidst the ongoing Coronavirus Pandemic.

For starters, with the current high numbers of daily positive testing results in Yuma County alone, Jaime doesn't see any realistic chance of any kind of season playing out unless there's a continuous decline in those numbers.

As the current plan stands, Antelope and every other prep school that still chooses to participate in athletics will all have condensed seasons.

Even though Jaime is optimistic that the AIA will figure out a way to accomplish this, he still believes the margin for error is pretty slim.

"I just think that they are going to do some kind of season. I do, if they start school. They're trying to figure out how they are going to run a season. Like I said, I think it's going to be a regional season with maybe one freedom game for each school. That's kind of what I see happening right now. Yeah, I think if they push it back beyond the 17th, I think they are going to cancel it. I think someone will have to say, make the decision and say, it's just not going to happen."