Deliberations of a Desert Rat

So, the AIA released its sectional initial placements this week. I had a chance to review it and figure out how far off I was. Appeals are ongoing until January.

The result? Not too bad.

First off – the AIA decided not to name any of the sections and just number them. Nice.

Division 1 – there were mistakes in every section, but you can see what happened. The AIA placed Desert Ridge and Skyline (the far East Valley schools) in Section 2 instead of the Ahwatukee schools Desert Vista and Mountain Pointe. Then the 5A Metro schools (Carl Hayden, Central, North) along with St. Mary’s were placed in Section 1 instead of the 5A Northwest schools (Mountain Ridge, Boulder Creek, O’Connor) plus North Canyon. Tally so far = 27 out of 35 correct (77.1%).

I believe that all 12 of these schools will appeal. Desert Ridge and Skyline are being placed in the Section grouped with the three Southern Arizona schools (Buena, Sunnyside, Tucson), along with the Southeastern Valley schools like Hamilton, Chandler, and Basha, instead of being grouped with their natural Mesa-area schools (Mesa, Red Mountain, Westwood, etc.). Also, the 5A Northwest schools will now have to travel to the far East Valley instead of staying on the West side of I-17. The 5A Metro schools are caught in the middle – it’s a shorter drive to the West Valley than to the East Valley, yes, but the difference is negligible. St. Mary’s in particular will appeal to be in the same section as Brophy anyway.

Division 2 – 40 out of 42 schools placed correctly. (95.2%) Swap McClintock with Kingman in Sections 1 and 3 and that’s it. This was the division where I had originally gotten only 29 teams correctly placed in the division, so I’m pretty happy about the sectional placement now. I’m reasonably sure that Kingman will NOT appeal since they would be placed with a lot of Northwest Valley schools, including Prescott, but McClintock will definitely appeal since now they will not be in the same section as Marcos de Niza.

Division 3 – Again, mistakes in every section here, but it was not as bad as D1. Swap Apache Junction for Maricopa for Sections 1 and 3, and then it’s just a matter of the far West Valley schools versus the North Phoenix schools. Tally was 29 out of 39 (74.4%). I don’t think you’ll see any appeals here in D3. Most everyone I think will be happy even with this placement. This is the division I fully expected to have mistakes with sectional placing.

Division 4 – Surprises here. Payson is booted out of the Rim Country and along with Fountain Hills are apparently now members of the West Valley. South Pointe is actually taken literally and placed in the Southern Arizona Section along with Scottsdale Coronado. And Page gets its wish as the step-child and is placed in the Rim Country Section. Payson will appeal but lose because Page’s drive time issues will outweigh Payson’s. Tally was 30 out of 35 (85.7%)

Division 5 – Only two misses here. Scottsdale Christian is in the same Section as the Phoenix-area and Yuma-area schools, while Santa Cruz is placed with the Southern Arizona schools like Pusch Ridge, Tombstone, and Bisbee. Tally was 36 out of 38 (94.7%)

Division 6 – What a cluster*@$+. Almost everything was wrong in Section 3 and the other two sections only had 6 right in each. To make matters worse, the divisional alignment specified four schools that were not in the sectional placement!! (Shonto Prep, Rancho Solano Prep, Phoenix Day School for the Deaf, South Ridge), while the sectional alignment ADDED three schools (El Capitan, Seligman, Phoenix Country Day School). Mind you, I welcome Seligman and PCD back into the fold after a multi-year absence, but it’s distressing that these three are showing up now after not being there before. Tally here is 14 out of 36 (38.9%), but apparently the total number of teams in D6 is a moving target.

Total count: 162 out of 193 (discounting Division 6). That’s 83.9%. Ugh. I was shooting for 95%. Of course, if the appeals go the way I think they will, I’ll probably hit 90%.

So, right now, the new sectional alignment is below. In Division 6, where it says “not listed”, those are the schools that were in the divisional placement but not in the sectional placement (thus showing that the AIA needs a fact-checker on staff…)

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 16th, 2010 at 11:42 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.