Who The Unknown Parent is Rooting For in the AIA Playoffs

The Unknown Parent is a series of musings for Sports360AZ.com from an anonymous parent of athletes. The parent is an Arizona high school sports fan from their time involved in education, coaching and athletics. Want to have your questions or comments featured in future articles? Email TheUnknownParentAZ@gmail.com.

Read last week’s post HERE.

Playoffs? Playoffs!?

One of my kids’ teams is still alive in their classification’s football playoff, so I don’t want to give away too much, but as a longtime fan of Arizona High School football, I figured I’d give a parent’s perspective on who I’m rooting for in each division.

2A Division

Last year a 12-seed won the 2A Championship, and that was exciting. Was Scottsdale Christian a true 12-seed? Maybe not, but they definitely deserved to be considered underdogs with regular season losses to San Tan Charter, Tonopah Valley and Pima. 

This year, a game that was played in the quarterfinals between 12-seed Scottsdale Christian and 13-seed Veritas Prep is expected to be the championship pairing, so I’m going to pick a team I view as an underdog to root for throughout the 2A playoffs.

How about the Benson Bobcats? They entered the playoffs as a 14-seed, and upset a team that had already beat them in Phoenix Christian, with their QB Dawson Judd  setting a career high in rushing yards in the victory. Now, Judd and the Bobcats hae to face another team that has already beaten them in 6-seed Willcox. 

I guess the reason I’m rooting for Benson is that as a parent, it’s just getting more and more rare to see multi-sport athletes compete at a high level. Judd plays football, basketball, and even has his own baseball website. I know a lot of rural town kids play multiple sports, btu when you combine Judd’s athletic accomplishments with the fact that this team will have to beat multiple teams it already lost to on the path to the state title game, for the storylines alone, I have to root for Benson. 

3A Division

I have been around Arizona high school sports for just under 30 years. I played sports in Arizona, and a team I was part of even won a championship while I was there. I’ve worked at schools and in school districts with high performing athletic teams. But I have to say, when I think of consistent success, I think of Round Valley football. 

Round Valley just made the playoffs for the 22nd year in a row, and won a playoff game for the 12th year in a row… but they only have one championship to show for it (2019). Round Valley is like the 1990’s Atlanta Braves of Arizona High School Football. 

This year they’re the 3-seed in a bracket where they’ll have to beat the two teams ahead of them in order to win the championship. The real reason I’m rooting for the boys out of Eagar, Arizona to win it all is because I have kids that have played on the same team before, and the Elks have a pair of brothers in Jaxon and Brody Crick, and a whole bunch of players with the last name Brown that I’m going to assume are related, and I just think winning it all would be an awesome experience to share with family. 

4A Division

I’m all in on Mohave. I think people forget that Bullhead City is part of Arizona, because it’s 250 miles from Phoenix, but what this group of kids from the 4-seed Thunderbirds have accomplished this last few years has been special, and I’d love to see them walk away with a championship trophy to show for it. 

The QB, Joe Yoney Jr, has 79 career TD passes, and 47 career rushing TDs. He’s also just 45 offensive yards away from 10,000 in his high school career. I wish I knew what the Arizona high school record for rushing TDs for a QB was, but I have to think Joe Yoney Jr. is close to setting it. The most I can ever recall a QB getting is Teddy Ruben at Saguaro, who had 51.

Mohave also didn’t have a playoff win since 1983 before Yoney Jr. got there, and they have made the playoffs all four years he’s been the starter, and went to the 3A semifinals in 2023. 

This kid is probably going to go down as the best athlete in Mohave high school football history, and it would be awesome to at least have a championship appearance to go along with it. 

5A Division

I watched the video the staff of Sports360AZ put together about Campo Verde head coach Ryan Freeman’s daughter Brylee last year, and I want nothing but good things for that team. I know that coach Freeman stepped away to be with his daughter earlier this season, and as a parent, I can’t imagine the ups and the downs of the last few years.

Apart from the inspirational aspect of a team coming together for their coach, I just like the Coyotes. Especially with their QB, Jonah Lubno, making them more than a threat to just run the ball all the time, as they have in previous years. 

They also have a really good player in Jake Jones, who had 3 sacks last week to give the Coyotes a playoff win over Verrado. I hope they keep winning, so more people get to know how much heart this team has.

6A Division

I have a few teams I’m rooting for in 6A, because this is the classification I’ve spent the most time around personally- some of the the teams I’m rooting for assume that a team drops down to this tournament. 

I’m a Cardinals fan. Larry Fitzgerald might be the greatest Cardinal of all time, and he never got to win a championship with Arizona, so I think it’d be pretty cool if his son Devin Fitzgerald got a ring. For that reason, I’m rooting for Brophy. What’s weird about this, is I need them to lose to Casteel in the first round of the Open in order for this to happen.

As far as team that isn’t in the Open, but is starting out in the first round of the 6A playoffs, how cool would it be to see #18 Highland make a run after starting out the year 0-4? I don’t get to see that program up close, but from the outside looking in, Highland has always always seemed to have a tight-knit, family oriented program. They’d be doing a lot of Arizona coaches a favor by beating Mesa- a program that I actually wrote about for this column earlier in the year. 

This isn’t really me rooting for a 6A champion, but I also really like a good redemption story, and last year Mountain View QB Brady Goodman and WR Talan Arnett lost to Centennial in the 6A title game. They meet in the first round of the Open Playoff this year- so I’m actually rooting for Mountain View to win against Centennial, but I assume if they do that, they’ll likely lose against Hamilton. 

Open Division

I’m assuming one of the top 4  teams is going to win the Open state championship. It’s hard to choose, because there are no underdogs- just powerhouse teams. There are some cool storylines though. Two teams have hurt QBs. One team seems to never lose to Arizona opponents, and I love a good streak. One team is coached by a former player that is hoping to restore the team to its former glory. One team is in their first year with a head coach that has been at multiple other AZ schools and never reached a championship. 

If I had to choose, I’m kind of partial to Liberty. LB Hudson Dunn is a perfect 35-0 against Arizona competition in Varsity games that he’s credited with registering a statistic in, and reaching 38-0 would be an accomplishment that other players would have the opportunity to equal, but no one would ever be able to exceed it. Hudson Dunn is chasing perfection, and that’s hard not to root for.