The Arizona Interscholastic Association announced Monday that Mountain Ridge High School and Xavier Prep will receive the Tony Komadina Outstanding Athletic Program for Girls Award.

Komadina passed away in 2011 and is a former executive director of the AIA. Since 1989, the Komadina Award has recognized the efforts of programs that are creating more opportunities for their female athletes to succeed.

Xavier Prep and Mountain Ridge are this year’s 4-5A conference co-winners and will receive their awards in May during the AIA’s annual award luncheon at University of Phoenix Stadium. AIA representatives will pick the 1-3A conference Komadina Award winner after site visits are made next week.

The announcement of the Komadina Award winners was made during Monday’s monthly AIA executive board meeting.

Board OKs new scheduling proposal

The AIA’s executive board passed a proposal that mandates teams to complete their division schedules first before scheduling games against opponents in different divisions.

Apparently some teams are having trouble filling their division schedules for the 2013-15 block. Mountain Pointe’s football program is one of those teams.

Mountain Pointe principal Bruce Kipper said during Monday’s executive board meeting that his football team made more than 30 requests to schedule games against different schools in Mountain Pointe’s division. But those schools passed on playing Mountain Pointe, leaving Kipper’s football program with four open dates.

But the proposal that passed Monday will now help programs such as Mountain Pointe fill their schedules with teams in their divisions. The nearest division teams to Mountain Pointe that have open dates or scheduled games against opponents in different divisions must now play Mountain Pointe.

Division teams near Mountain Pointe that might have already scheduled opponents in different divisions have to remove those opponents from their schedules and replace them with Mountain Pointe. The new proposal passed 4-1.

Dan Serrano, the 5A conference rep, was the lone dissenting vote.

Forfeits to remain out of formula

The formula that’s used to seed the AIA’s postseason brackets will continue to operate without forfeits.

The board didn’t request a vote on the forfeiture topic after listening to a discussion led by the AIA’s Chuck Schmidt.

“If there’s a forfeiture involved, it’s because of an ineligible player, and utilizing that loss then as a forfeit, in evaluating that team’s performance, isn’t accurate because they beat the team (with an ineligible player),” Schmidt said.

“That’s why the idea of not counting the forfeiture (in the formula) is there. Because (a forfeit) doesn’t address how you evaluate that team on that given night.”

Centennial football

Centennial turned in a violation report for recruiting along with the corrective action that school took, Schmidt said.

The AIA’s board will address that violation report of Centennial’s football program during the April board meeting, Schmidt said.

Executive board movement

Art Wagner’s term as the AIA executive board president will end after this school year, but Wagner, the district athletic director for Higley’s Unified School District, will continue to serve on the board as the 4A conference rep during the next three school years.

The board will select a new board president in May. Ken Van Winkle also was selected by the AIA’s board to remain on the board during Monday’s board meeting.

Van Winkle, the superintendent for the Heber-Overgaard Unified District, will serve another three-year term on the board as the 1A conference rep. Chinle’s Virgil Brown was chosen to represent the AIA on the Arizona School Board Association.

Current AIA executive board members Bill Gahn (district athletic director of the Deer Valley Unified School District) and Beverly Hurley (Buckeye Union High School District Superintendent) are stepping down from the board after this school.

Hurley is retiring after this school year, and Gahn has accepted a different post in education. 

Possible limit on baseball, softball tournament entrants?

The board will likely need to place a limit on the amount of out of state teams that register for Arizona baseball and softball tournaments, AIA executive director Harold Slemmer said.

The AIA doesn’t have enough officials to send to games of tournaments with a high amount of entrants, Slemmer added.