Some big moves are coming for many sports at Judge and all around the rest of the state with UHSAA’s newest region realignment for high school athletics in Utah. 

Judge specifically will now be classified as a 4A school for all athletic and activities, excluding football and lacrosse. To say that Judge’s new region is different from their old would be an understatement as Judge’s previous region, region 14, included only three other schools – Providence Hall, Summit Academy, and American Heritage which had an average distance of about 40 minutes. Judges’ new region, region 10 is set to include Cottonwood, East, Highland, Jordan, Juan Diego, Murray, and Park City which are mostly in the Salt Lake Valley, or close to it. 

Associate Dean and Associate Athletic Director at Judge, Cyrus Nassersaeid was able to shine some light on why the region change happened, and how it affects Judge in the future. Coach Cyrus explained that the UHSAA does reclassifications every two years so it was something that Judge was expecting, because of the growing population size at the school. Cyrus explained that along with Judge getting bigger as a school, travel was the other big piece for the change. Cyrus emphasized the advantage of being in a region with schools in Salt Lake,  “…playing some schools that we do have historical rivalries with.” It seemed to be a very important thing for Judge to revert back to. 

Coach Cyrus seemed very excited about Judge’s new region move as he believes that as the student population grows at Judge we will be ready for competition in 4A. He was able to acknowledge that the competition in 4a will be much “stiffer and tougher” but believes Judge can take the challenge head-on and excel in the future.

Junior Lucy Duberow competes in both soccer and for the swim team at Judge and was initially excited about a new challenge in 4a when first hearing the news. She did have some thoughts about what the region change could mean for Judge Swim and their current four-peat as state champs. “Judge has been superior and dominant in swimming…we might lose our winning streak next year, that’s really my biggest concern,” Lucy said. 

These thoughts are shared by many other athletes at Judge, and in particular athletes of teams who have found success in their current spot in 3a. To conclude, although the new region change does come with some uncertainties, everybody who was interviewed agreed that a change was needed, and we’re confident that athletics at Judge were up for the challenge.