OPINION: The west valley takeover has started

In November of last football season, Zach Alvira of the East Valley Tribune and the Ahwatukee Foothills News released a column proclaiming it is time to hand over the football crown of power from the East Valley to the West Valley as the Liberty Lions and Centennial Coyotes from Peoria were set to face off for the Open Playoff title.

Following the release of that column, there was backlash (as expected) as some people believed that one season of success doesn't mean the crown had shifted hands. However, it is more than just football that the shift has started, as shown by the list below of team championships and individual championships from the 2023-24 school year.

This spring the west took the track and field crown, as Desert Edge led the way with the fastest 100-meter runner in the state in David Cabrera and the fastest 4x100 meter relay hailing from the same program. In fact, the Agua Fria High School District set the pace for the rest of the state as it brought home the title for the 200-meter race in both the girls' and boys' field as well as the 1600- and 3200-meter race for girls and the 300-meter hurdles. In total, the West Valley had 29 total individual championships from track and field alone.

Dominating both the court and the sand this year was Sandra Day O'Connor high school in Northwest Phoenix. The girls in the fall dominated, dropping only six sets in their 35 matches finishing the season as 6A champions finishing 34-1 with 30 of their victories coming as straight set sweeps.

In the sand, the Eagles won their third consecutive beach volleyball championship and for the second year in a row went undefeated in the process.

The boys spent the year ranked inside the top 20 just two seasons removed from their national championship and had the best win in the state this season knocking off national No. 19 Valley Christian (CA) as the Eagles reached the top 10 early in the year following the match.

This was the year of hoops in the West Valley on both the girls and boys side. The boys saw Millennium become a national powerhouse, spending most of the season ranked in the USA before falling short in the championship to Perry as both Kingston Tosi and Cameron Holmes saw their recruitments reach new ceilings. The 4A-6A championships were a west valley sweep, as Jed Dunn at Deer Valley and Mark Wood at Liberty both picked up their first rings after close to two decades each at their respective schools. Jordan Augustine coached Ironwood to its second championship. Desirae Carranza helped the Canyon View girls get over the hump as the program beat Millennium for the first time in the regular season and once again in the semifinals en route to a 5A championship over defending champion Sunrise Mountain. In 6A girls, Charles Wilson, in only his second season as head coach at O’Connor, got the program over the hump and won the title. Josh Cole got a young O’Connor team to the championship on the boys side as well.

The shift has been building for a while and multiple factors play into that. First, the quality of coaching in the west valley has gone to new heights. There’s been multiple program builders who’ve been doing things for a long time that have been successful (Dunn at Deer Valley) but with the influx of young coaching talent such as the duo of Wilson and Cole at O’Connor, building a program and establishing a culture has allowed these teams to reach new heights.

Secondly, the rapid growth of both new homes and schools popping up has created more pools of talent for already-good schools to become great. In Waddell, ALA - West Foothills and Canyon View both have recently open in the last six years and have grown in their success as time has gone on. In Buckeye and Peoria, new homes are popping up consistently and are sending kids all over their respective districts.

Lastly and most importantly, these schools are keeping kids at home. For a long time, especially in football, you’d see gobs of talent from Goodyear and Glendale go to powerhouses in the East Valley even with quality programs in their backyard. Liberty, Centennial, Desert Edge and Millennium have led the way in terms of keeping kids in their boundaries and making them want to attend the high school they feed into with the level of support they’re receiving from both their districts and the administrations that are on campus daily.

The west valley has pulled the crown away in multiple sports and at the current rate things are going, it may be a while before it is handed back. The quality of coaching and talent has set the once over looked and under appreciated part of valley into the forefront of the Arizona high school sports scene.