‘We don’t mess around with it’: Heat a major factor for Las Vegas high school teams

Shadow Ridge’s football team was one of the few squads not complaining about temperatures in the 90s at a summer camp at Southern Utah University in Cedar City earlier this month.

Like many high school sports teams gearing up for the fall season, the Mustangs did what they could to get a break from triple-digit temperatures.

“The focus for us this week is the weight room, getting the kids indoors, working out with conditioning and then sending them home,” Shadow Ridge coach Travis Foster said. “We’ve done position meetings, we’ve done film, but we haven’t had our varsity team out on the field this week.”

High school fall sports teams are wrapping up unofficial practices. Aug. 5 is the first official day for fall sports practices and fully padded football practices. Aug. 17 is the first day for fall sports games.

Sunday is expected to extend a streak of 10 straight days with a temperature of 110 or higher. The city will remain under an excessive heat warning through Sunday night, and temperatures are still expected to hover around 110 this week.

“We don’t mess around with (the heat),” Foster said.

Teams are finding ways to avoid the heat by practicing early in the morning or later in the evening. Doral Academy girls soccer coach Kurt Divich said he and his staff focus on what they can control.

“We just avoid any unnecessary risk we can,” Divich said. “We try to control everything we can as it relates to hydration and the sun exposure.”

Foster said his team was planning to not see the field already this week coming off their camp, but he said the weather played a factor in making sure activities stayed indoors.

“You shorten your time, your individual sets, shorten your group sets, you make sure you’re watering kids every 10 to 15 minutes in practice. That’s all you really can do,” Foster said.

Foster said he stressed to his players about hydrating throughout the day and not just before practice. He and his staff have tubs of ice water ready on the sidelines for players to cool their body temperatures down if they feel lightheaded.

During intramurals, Divich said the team only practices for an hour beginning at 8 a.m. Along with monitoring the team’s hydration and the ultraviolet index, he puts a limit on how much cardio the players do.

“We make sure we don’t overdo it with the cardiovascular segments,” Divich said. “We work on fine motor stuff and technical stuff while they warm up in the shade. … I tried to really reduce their intense running in the sun to a very small portion of the practice, which isn’t optimal for our development, but it is for their health.”

Divich said “a third” of his job during August and September is checking with his players to make sure they are fine during practice and that they recover properly after a session or game.

Last season, he said the toughest challenge was dealing with games that had start times in the heat of the day and playing on turf, which can be 10 to 30 degrees warmer than natural grass fields.

“It was incredibly difficult because we’re asking kids to perform at the highest level,” Divich said.

Foster said that even though players get accustomed to the heat, it’s still a factor in planning practice. And while teams try to do as much as they can inside, Foster said the heat is something everyone has to deal with.

“We have to do drills outside. We have to do team stuff outside,” Foster said. “You can’t find a hallway in the building and play football.”

Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on Twitter.