The Arizona Baseball Coaches Association’s annual all-star games kick off this weekend with the smaller conferences, while 4A and 5A play next week.
The current format selects a North and South team from each division. Mostly, the game is meant to honor the players and have fun.
But what if a wrinkle was thrown into the mix?
In football, fans always lament that the state champions from 5A-I and 5A-II don’t play each other, and many wonder how big the gulf is between them.
There’s no question the gap between divisions in baseball is …

After 32 years, six individual state championships, five knee surgeries and a handful of national expeditions, retirement prevailed by decision over Westwood wrestling coach Ed Montalvo.
Montalvo called it a teaching and coaching career after the final 26 of those years at Westwood. He also spent five years at Powell Junior High and a year in Colorado.
The chance to be with family, his knee troubles and a few financial tussles all combined forces to move Montalvo into a new direction.
He coached six kids to state championships in his career, including Daniel …

Multi-sport high school athletes are few and far between, thanks to the lure of the scholarship. Why play two or three sports when you can submerge yourself into excelling at one to chase those elusive college dollars?
Au contraire.
Most of the time, as Corona del Sol’s Garrett Baker-Slama can attest, diversity makes for an equally-rewarding experience.
He was a year-round soccer guy until the senior joined the cross country team in fall after a friend on the team (Matt Whitlatch) convinced him the Aztecs needed another runner. With no previous cross-country training, …

You can take the coach out of the school, but you can’t take the coach away from the kids.
From the minute he and Basha parted ways, former football coach Tim McBurney – who was at the school since it opened in 2002 until he was replaced by Bernie Busken this spring – he’s vowed to continue coaching somewhere.
He could be two weeks away from taking over the Phoenix Camelback program.
All that’s holding it up is the need for an available teaching job (physical education) at the school. McBurney said it’s …

It was an exciting year for home runs in high school baseball.
Red Mountain slugger Cole Gleason led the state for most of the year, but Mountain Pointe’s Kevin Cron came on strong at the end of the season to overtake him.
Gleason finished with 18, while Cron tied the single-season state record with 22, matching Corey Myers’ prolific 1999 season.
Could this have been just the appetizer?
Both Cron and Gleason are juniors.
Ryne Dean, who hit fourth in the Red Mountain lineup, returns next season, so Gleason should have some protection.
Josh Alexander, the …

Basha senior kicker Brandon Foutz signed on to be a kicker at Division I Grambling State on Tuesday.
Foutz was originally a soccer player who went out for football as a senior despite having never played. He had scholarship money for soccer on the table, but chose to try football instead, and has a chance to be the starting kicker at Grambling State this fall.
He made 31 of 32 PATs and nine field goals for the Bears, including a school-record 44-yard attempt in his first football game.
He credited the help received …

Desert Vista’s Shaylah Simpson broke her own state record with a pole vault clearance of 13 feet, four inches in the track and field Meet of Champions on Saturday at Queen Creek.
Simpson’s mark is the third best nationally this season, four and a quarter inches below the record.
Other local winners on the girls side were: Jasmine Todd, Chandler (100-meter run, long jump); Hannah Carson, Chandler (shot put, discus); Bailey Farkas, Skyline (200-meter run); Katie Penney, Xavier (800-meter run); Marissa Opatz, Desert Mountain (1,600-meter run); Alexis Clay, Chandler (100-meter hurdles); and …

Arizona Meet of Champions 2010
When: Saturday, 6 p.m. (pole vault begins at 5 p.m.)
Where: Queen Creek High
Who: State champions from all conferences, along with other state qualifiers
Outlook: Many of the state’s elite athletes will be competing in the event. It’s a nice way for athletes from lower levels to test themselves against elite competition. Here’s a list of the top-3 qualifiers in each event as of Friday at 2:10 p.m.
GIRLS
100 meters: Jasmine Todd, Chandler (12.10); Zenobia Sims, Buena (12.22); Shannon Jacobs, Highland (12.33)
200 meters: Zenobia Sims, Buena, (25.07); Bailey Farkas, …

Pity the Highland Park High School girls basketball team.
They just wanted to get some sun and escape the treacherous Chicago cold in December and come play in the Scottsdale Holiday Invitational. They accumulated their own money to make this trip with fund raisers and donations to play basketball.
Instead, the overzealous and paranoid prevail.
Superintendent George Fornero and assistant Suzan Hebson kiboshed the trip by citing fears over Arizona’s new immigration law and its enforcement.
The only thing public to come out of their explanation is a written statement on the Township High …

Here is a schedule for the upcoming conference all-star baseball games:
MAY 29
3A: North vs. South, 4 p.m., Surprise Baseball Complex
East Valley All-Stars – South: Michael Skiba, SS, Fountain Hills.
1A/2A: North vs. South, 7 p.m. at Surprise Baseball Complex
East Valley All-Stars – North: Aaron Schepps, 2B, Chandler Prep; Lucas Sorrells, SS, Gilbert; Willie Renard, 1B, Scottsdale Christian; Jared Gaynor, P, Scottsdale Christian.
JUNE 4
5A-I: North vs. South, 5 p.m., Surprise Baseball Complex
East Valley All-Stars – South: Colton Thomson, 1B, Gilbert; Mike Wesolowski, 2B, Skyline; Travis Flores, 3B, Desert Ridge; Austin Emility, 3B, …