Brian Bolitho, the Arizona Interscholastic Association’s director of business media, responded to the Tribune’s claims that there could be a flaw in the power points system with a guest blog post on ArizonaSports.com Wednesday.
Although the AIA has failed to acknowledge an error and refused to meet with local engineer John Carrieres about the problem, Bolitho said that ‘to say the AIA is ‘ignoring’ an error is incorrect.’
He goes on to say that ‘the current system does not present an error as the formula is working as created by the committee …

There is a very interesting story on our website today in which a local engineer and power points guru exposes an alleged flaw in the power points system.
If his allegation is correct, then teams that play more power point games are inadvertently rewarded for simply playing the extra games. Wins magnify the problem more, but if the claim holds true, even losing the extra game is likely to benefit a team.
This is very important because it may alter the landscape of the boys and girls boys basketball tournaments.
There are several real-world examples …

There have been several inquiries regarding changes to soccer locations for this year’s state tournament. Namely, why are the top-4 seeds in each division hosting doubleheaders?
Last year, all early-round matches were held at Reach 11 Sports Complex or at Red Mountain Park. That drew significant shouts of disdain. Some enjoyed being able to watch multiple games at the same time, others were vociferous in their dislike of losing home-field advantage for the first and second rounds, rendering power points virtually meaningless and not saving schools themselves any travel costs. A …

Saguaro’s celebration over winning a second consecutive football state championship lasted all of about an hour.
Around 11 p.m. Saturday night, the world lost Saguaro student Billy Waldo IV, by all accounts an excellent student and person, to a car accident while a passenger in his friend’s car that was driving back from Flagstaff after the game.
Saguaro was subdued to say the least on Monday.
Somehow stuck within this tragedy, however, is that the Arizona Interscholastic Association should share responsbility for this. After all, a Division III championship game featuring a school …

Among the many nuggets to come out of Monday’s Arizona Interscholastic Association executive board meeting, was a new sport.
To better align itself with Title IX — the 1972 Federal Law requiring gender equity in opportunities at Federally-funded institutions — and after a year of working with USA Volleyball, Arizona will pilot the first sand volleyball season this spring. With success could come a sanctioned sport in the near future.
Beginning in February, it will be a minimum of eight schools participating with a maximum of 32, with an eight-team state tournament …

In a somewhat futile attempt to plan ahead and get tons of logistical nuggest set up for the November nuttiness (football playoffs and fall sports state tournaments), I was rummaging through the football playoff brackets and noticed that the Div. I, II and III quarterfinals are on all being played on Thursday, Nov. 10.
The reason being Veterans Day is Friday, Nov. 11, and the AIA wanted to stay away from that date in terms of logistics, and with most schools closed on that date.
Meanwhile, Div. IV and V quarterfinals are …

In the wake of the lightning/weather fiasco from a couple weeks ago, some revisions were made to the by lawys by the AIA Executive Board during its Sept. 13 meeting.
The biggest of which is that games that are called due to weather, and which both sides agree to discontinue playing and a resume date can’t be agreed upon, those games were previously ruled an automatic “forfeit” by the losing team at the time of suspension and went into the books as a 1-0 victory with no stats being official.
Now, if …

Here’s the full AIA statement released on Wednesday regarding the Jarvis Lewis case involving his old school (Glendale Raymond Kellis) and his new school (Chaparral). After being investigated for a possible recruiting violation, Lewis – who missed the Firebirds’ first four games of the season – has been cleared to play on Friday night.
“The AIA Executive Board (Board) considered investigation findings regarding possible violation(s) and/or eligibility issues arising from a transfer by a student from Raymond S. Kellis High School (KHS) to Chaparral High School (CHS) in its board meeting …

The Arizona Interscholastic Association is set to determine the eligibility of Chaparral defensive lineman Jarvis Lewis on Tuesday at 3 p.m. at a meeting in Prescott.
Lewis, who has verbally committed to play at Arizona State next season, transferred over from Glendale Raymond Kellis after last season, but hasn’t played this year after Kellis brought up recruitment allegations pertaining to the transfer.
The AIA had a private investigator check into the matter, with those findings expected to be the key determinant in the ruling by the executive board members.
Lewis had 59 tackles …

Football schedules may not be made public until July 1 — when everyone’s on vacation and likely to not see them — but that doesn’t mean they’re not viewable.
At the softball state tournament last weekend, Arizona Interscholastic Association Executive Director Harold Slemmer said its member schools agreed to wait while many of them work out kinks in the fall schedules (including but not limited to football), especially dealing with schools trying to coordinate game dates among themselves.
He also said the plan — details are still being finalized — is to …