Confidence in a season
Yuma Catholic's Athletics optimistic for Fall season.
Less than a month after the Arizona Interscholastic Association laid out it's latest Fall prep sports start-up plans for practices and season games, Yuma Catholic Athletics is certain that it will all play out before the end of 2020.
Shamrocks Athletic Director Jeff Welsing himself doesn't have any doubt about this.
"I'm a 100 percent optimistic that we're going to have a Fall sports season. I believe that we have safety precautions in place. We've taken every measure. If something happens, something happens. It kind of is what it is. But, we've taken every single precaution that we can, but we want to get kids back into school. We want to get kids back into athletics. We want to get back to some type of normalcy for school."
According to Welsing, the AIA has already reconfigured the conference scheduling for all the football teams in the 3A category (including the Shamrocks).
Right now, YC is reshuffled into the 3A Metro Section with the likes of Dysart, Cortez, River Valley and Kingman.
The football team is expected to receive a condensed 7-game schedule and the potential opportunity to play in a full bracket of 16 teams in the state tournament at the end of the season.
The football preseason practices are supposed to start on September 7th, with the regular season kicking off on October 2nd.
Meanwhile, volleyball's practices are slated to begin on August 31st, with a condensed regular season scheduled to start on September 21st.
YC volleyball will not receive it's season schedule until it becomes clearer which division they'll play in due to section realignments that are still yet to be resolved.
Welsing believes sticking to the safety mandates will help ensure the season will play out.
"We're going to, you know, take every safety precaution, follow all the protocols and we'll make sure that it will happen. The coaches and the students, the student athletes are excited. So, get back to some normalcy and get back to athletics."
