David Medina
ASU Student Journalist

Corona del Sol's girl's soccer team braces for season postponement

November 30, 2020 by David Medina, Arizona State University


Arizona Interscholastic Association logo

David Medina is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Corona del Sol High School for AZPreps365.com.

Corona del Sol women's soccer coach Bobby Smith is trying to prepare for a season of uncertainty, a season that potentially may not start on time.

Due to a recent spike of COVID-19 cases in Arizona, The Arizona Interscholastic Association decided to make some modifications to the Arizona high school winter sports schedule and protocols at the AIA Executive Board meeting earlier this week. Soccer is included in these modifications.

Winter sports at Arizona high schools will most likely not start until January at the earliest. This postponement will affect many sports.

Some of the changes in protocol include things such as no more handshakes between teams, and players and coaches will be encouraged to sanitize their hands as frequently as possible. Social distancing and mask usage will be encouraged on the benches and sidelines for games.   

“We would have finished tryouts by now,” Smith said, “And that would go for most other high schools as well. With my team, this afternoon (November 17) would have been practice number one.”

The news of this postponement had the girls on the team disappointed, especially the captain of the team, senior Amaya Antonio.

“I am very heartbroken with the news of the postponement but I am hopeful that we will still be able to compete in January. Numbers are rising again so the decision was understandable,” Antonio said, “ I am very bummed that my senior season is being affected by it especially because we were supposed to have a really good group of girls this year. It’s definitely not the senior season I expected after being on the team since freshman year, but we are trying to make the most out of it.”

The postponement will potentially affect the club soccer season. Because many girls on the Corona team are also on club teams, it may create some scheduling conflicts.

“The ASA (Arizona Soccer Association) has contingencies in place on what will happen if there is still club soccer for high school ages still going on through December and potentially January as well,” Smith said, “Normally club soccer is all done by Thanksgiving.”

Ashley Lutes, a junior on the Corona team, said the potential scheduling conflicts that would happen if the club season overlapped into the high school season.

“This will affect my club season because we will continue to have practices and play in tournaments for as long as the school season does not start,” Lutes said, “My club team is currently looking into tournaments that we can play in during the winter in order to get some opportunities to be seen by college coaches.”

With all these uncertainties, it has made for a stressful and unpredictable year for everyone involved with high school sports.

“Whatever the parents, staff and coaches are feeling is so much worse for the kids, and that’s my concern really,” Smith said.