AIA board eliminates wrestling invites, adds other winter sports changes,
Arizona high school winter sports will look different this year because of the pandemic.
There will be no more wrestling invitationals but muti-team meets can be held for schools that don't have enough wrestlers, as long as no more than one match is conducted per wrestler that day, under revised guidelines approved by the Arizona Interscholastic Association Thursday.
For basketball and soccer, only one tournament per school can be played and only during winter break when the schools are not in session. The tournaments can include no more than eight teams with no out-of-state teams and no adjacent courts and fields to be used, under the revisions.
The jump ball still will be used for basketball. And, like fall sports, there will be no handshake line post-game.
If a tournament is held at a soccer complex, every other field has to be used to provide spacing between teams.
The revisions were passed by the AIA's Executive Board after meeting with its Sports Medicine Advisory Committee earlier Thursday.
The board's vote comes as Arizona is seeing an upward trend in daily COVID-19 cases the past few weeks, a reversal from the downward trend seen in August and September that allowed fall sports to begin after a major spike in June and July.
Winter sports practices can begin Nov. 9, if the COVID-19 county metrics allow. Those new metrics will be put out Nov. 5, next Thursday, by the AIA and SMAC.
"Those will be the numbers used to attempt to begin the winter season," AIA Executive Director David Hines said in the meeting.
The SMAC and AIA moved the required community spread metric from 10 per 100,000 people to 75 per 100,000 in order to start the football season on Oct. 1.
"As a reminder to all, that even though the first day of scheduled winter season is Nov. 9, schools within counties must meet the metrics with moderate rate and high-risk sports before any competition can be played," Hintes said. "Those numbers will be put out by the AIA staff next Thursday."
Hines said the rationale behind having no more than eight teams per tournament at one site for boys and girls basketball and soccer, and space out play on courts and fields during tournaments, is "to eliminate spectators that could be close to the players on the sidelines."
Regarding wrestling modifications, Hines said that the SMAC recommended that during weigh-ins, there should be skin checks, temperature checks, and a CDC survey must be completed before wrestlers are allowed to compete.
It was also recommended that invitationals be held during the regular season. Dual meets are allowed, along with small muti-teams meets with wrestlers not having more than one match per day.
It was also recommended that larger wrestling room areas be used with doors open for ventilation purposes. If the wrestling mats can be moved to the gymnasium at a different time than basketball, that is ideal, Hines said.
The AIA board passed those recommended modifications.