Arizona High School Pickleball Championships bring fierce competition to Mesa

By Connor Van Ligten
Mail

For as popular as pickleball is in the state of Arizona, the Arizona Interscholastic Association has not recognized the sport as an official high school sport.

An endeavor by PURE Pickleball & Padel and a multitude of high schools in Mesa and across the valley are trying to change that.

The Arizona High School Pickleball Championships, a two-day event in Mesa on Dec. 6 and 7, is to feature at least 12 schools sending both boys and girls teams to compete for glory in five events. Each event earns schools points if they have podium finishes, with the highest overall point total at the end of the two-day event earning that school the championship title.

The championships will be held at Dink & Dine Pickle Park at 1017 N. Dobson Road in Mesa. For information, visit https://purepickleball.com/azhschampionships2025/.

The five events are girls doubles, boys doubles, mixed doubles, girls singles and boys singles, with the sixth “event” being the overall championship.

For Bentley Halverson, a senior at Mountain View High School in Mesa and captain of the school’s pickleball club, this league is an exciting opportunity.

“It’s extremely gratifying to see. I know a lot of people who would love to compete in pickleball,” Halverson said. “It was just a side hobby that they’d like to turn into something more, and this gives us a way to do that.”

The event has generated a lot of interest in pickleball among his peers, Halverson said. Their pickleball club experienced a surge in popularity very recently.

“Last night, our club just exploded,” Halverson said. “We had so many people that we ran out of courts.”

Brett Warner, co-founder of PURE, said the goal behind this event is to build infrastructure for pickleball for young players. The sport is growing increasingly popular each year, and Warner wants to build it from the ground up for a younger demographic.

“In order for the sport to get more popular, and in order for it to trend younger, there needs to be more infrastructure in place,” Warner said. “We believe that the right opportunity is with high school sports.”

The event will be sponsored by HonorHealth. Other sponsors include Joola and RPO, and Warner hopes more will sign on soon.

Warner also wants to show the AIA that there is demand and infrastructure in place for pickleball at a high school level. If this event succeeds, Warner hopes that it will make the likelihood of official recognition by the AIA even higher.

“You’re proving that there’s not just a high participation rate but also a high interest in competing,” Warner said. “We’re trying to document the participation rates and prove the interest in competition and I think that’s what the AIA is looking for, if this has a strong foundation and strong interest from a competitive level.”

The infrastructure being in place will help their case, according to PURE Sports Director and Youth Coach Stephanie Newton. Newton said that if this event succeeds, it can pave the way for competitive youth pickleball at levels below high school too.

“We create the infrastructure and the organization and the demand,” Newton said. “Our goal is that we have put this infrastructure together and we can give to (the AIA) on a silver platter, and they can just take it and run with it,”

According to both Newton and Warner, there’s already a lot of interest in the league, with more schools wanting to sign up to participate every day.

That momentum may help them reach their goal of more than 100 participating clubs by 2027. The 12 teams that are prepared for competition will have more schools joining them very soon.

“The momentum is pretty big. Every day we are getting calls from schools and connecting with them to put things in place and support them,” Newton said. “We have 12 teams that have already signed a participation form and they’re ready to go, and another 18 have just started their clubs.”

Although Halverson is a senior and won’t get to participate in the championships beyond this year, he is nonetheless excited for what the event could bring to high school athletics in Arizona.

“We’re gonna be able to show how much interest there is in pickleball, not just at Mountain View but at other schools,” Halverson said. “It’s sad that I’m a senior this year and I’m not gonna be able to see how this turns out, but I’m really, really excited and I hope it will get turned into a full-on team sport for most high schools.”

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