Getting ready for tonight
Every local football team will be action tonight; twists in YUHSD scheduling
Roy Urias, with the Yuma High School facilities department, pushes a paint striping machine across the grass, putting down the 50-yard-line stripe early Thursday morning at Doan Field in preparation for tonight’s first varsity football game of the 2020 season. The Criminals will host Cibola High School in a 7 p.m. contest. The start of the season for all of the schools in the Yuma Union High School District, which under normal circumstances would have begun in late August, has been delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Also tonight, Gila Ridge High School hosts Kofa High School, and in non-YUHSD games, Yuma Catholic High School hosts Pusch Ridge Christian Academy from Tucson and Antelope hosts Parker. It will be Yuma Catholic’s second game of the season. For further details,
Note: Antelope’s season opener on Oct. 9 against Parker has been canceled. Every local team besides Antelope will be in action Friday night. Yuma Catholic will not be a part of this season preview as they began its season Oct. 2 and the Sun ran a separate season preview.
Yuma in 2019 witnessed the furthest playoff run by an area high school district football program in 2019 since 1961 when the Kofa Kings won the state championship.
Gila Ridge’s 9-1 regular season record propelled them to the Arizona Interscholastic Association state semifinals.
Antelope last season also clinched a playoff berth for the first time since 2008.
The football schedule will look a lot different this season due to COVID-19. There will be zero traveling for YUHSD teams outside the city. Each YUHSD team will play one another two times – one game at home and one on the road – this season.
Here’s a preview for each team:
Cibola Raiders
6A Desert Southwest Coach: Steven Fritz (2nd season)
Last year: 6-4 AIA
AIA opener: Oct. 9 at Yuma High
The lowdown: The Cibola Raiders haven’t reached the AIA state playoffs since 2017, but certainly could
find themselves in the mix with a 6-0 record this season. It’s a favorable schedule for the Raiders, who’ve won their last 18 games against YUHSD competition.
However, coach Fritz isn’t thinking about the Raiders’ success from the past.
“I’m not thinking about anything other team than Yuma High,” he said. “I’ve said since we began phase
one to not look past Yuma High. They return a ton of kids. Playing in-town teams, you’re going to get their best shot. They’re going to give everything they have.”
Cibola will have a new signal caller under center this season. Yuma Catholic transfer Andrey Acosta will control the reins and look to expand the Raiders’ passing attack.
“He’s fit in pretty easily with this team,” Fritz said. “It happened on Day One. He’s a pretty smart kid. He’s got a strong and talented arm. From that perspective, I like his grasps of the offense.”
Cibola’s offense was balanced in 2019 – running the ball 53% of the time compared with 47% passing – and Fritz imagines the
offense continuing to maintain balance among the play calling.
Acosta inherits plenty of talent on the offensive side of the ball.
Seniors John Beltran (running back) and Liam Hoffmeyer (tight end) will be the go-to-guys on the offense. In 2019, Beltran ran for 840 yards, while Hoffmeyer