A. Jay Bronson isn’t superstitious; he’s just got high hopes.
Despite Sedona Red Rock High School’s swimming home opener getting rained out, its head coach believes he has the right numbers and schedule for a top-10 finish from both of his teams at the Division III State Championships in November.
“I’m hoping for a top seven finish for [the] girls at State and top 10 for boys,” said Bronson, whose teams fell a day short of last year’s Division II state tournament. “I’m really looking forward to us … finally going up against schools that are our own size and not Arcadia [or] Catalina Foothills-type schools.”
While the rest of the SRRHS sports teams aligned into 2A and 3A conferences, often playing bigger Phoenix and Tucson teams like those from Bronson’s example, his 15 girls and nine boys comfortably settled into Division III with the smallest schools in the Arizona Interscholastic Association.
“Ideally, you want 12 and 12, but I’m happy with our team,” Bronson said prior to the Scorpions’ opening invitational Saturday, Sept. 10, in Kingman. “With the new division, we really don’t know where the cutoff will be, so we want to test out what’s going to happen.”
The first test should have happened Sept. 1, but lightning converged on the Sedona Community Pool, canceling the meet and sending Chandler Preparatory Academy and Casteel High School home early.
“It definitely didn’t help us,” Bronson said. “That first meet usually gives us a look at our newbie swimmers as well as what we can work on leading into our meets.”
So regardless of how senior co-captains Mary Brown, Austin Cottle or Skyler Lee-Eason swim Thursday, Sept. 8, against Seton Catholic Preparatory High School and Northland Preparatory Academy, their leadership will be needed that much more when they face NPA again Sept. 10 at the Northwest Region Invitational.
It also falls to seniors Leo Castanon and Dawson Stevenson, as well as Brown’s teammates from last year’s top relay team in the 400-yard freestyle — namely, sophomore Eva Holowacz and junior Sarah Reed — to put some times on the scoreboard Sept. 10.
The Small Schools State Championship meet Oct. 22 will also be a great tune-up for State, Bronson added, two weeks prior to the two-day Division III tournament.
“It is going to very similar to the state meet,” he said. “It will omit some teams, but it will also be a last-chance qualifier for us to really push us into State.”
For more photos and the full Sedona Red Rock High School schedule of boys and girls swimming meets, please see the Friday, Sept. 9, issue of the Sedona Red Rock News.
