Spring Sports Tryouts Go Well, and Every Team Is Excited About the Fresh Start
by Maddie Hommey
With the closing of a winter sports season that was better than expected for most, spring sports have completed tryouts and began practice daily. The many athletes are excited to begin their seasons, and are happy with how tryouts went.
Spring tryouts are always at a difficult time.The immediate transition for many athletes from inside to outdoors can be tough. However, Walkersville athletes are quickly adjusting.
Freshman Kasie Ogwulu, a member of the track team said “Indoor to outdoor means a lot of conditioning and feeling out of breath all the time, but it’s worth it. It’s definitely more hard work, but at least the weather will be better.”
Junior lacrosse player Jenna Molnar enthusiastically agreed with the weather, “It wasn’t snowing like previous years!”
Although weather was a factor, others dealt with even more adversity for tryouts. The Lion’s softball team began their season at 5:45am on March 1st, the first day of spring sports. They held tryouts in the gym on this early morning, so they would have plenty of light and avoid the bad weather outside on that day.
“Honestly having the 5:45am practice was not that bad,” admitted senior Alyssa Riggs, “It was hard to wake up so early, but once we were there we were all super excited to see each other, and kind of nervous to start the season. We knew we needed to be awake because it was tryouts and we had to give it our all. Our coaching staff is great, so they made it easier by making us not feel so intimidated on the first day of tryouts. I think everyone really showed their skill on the first day, and that continued throughout the entire week.”
Some multisport athletes begin the season later than others as their winter sport playoffs come to an end. This is yet another difficulty that some overcame with tryouts. An athlete may miss tryouts, and not have the same opportunity to show that they deserve to be on a particular team. Or, they simply start the season a little behind everyone else. Sophomore basketball and tennis player Julie Wallace is one of these individuals. Wallace said, “It’s difficult starting later than others because you don’t know who the competition is going to be and you have to walk out to people who have already made the team, and it makes you feel kind of behind already, but everyone who tried out made it, so that’s really good.”
Many teams did not have to make cuts with the great talent this year. Riggs stated “We had a great turnout and didn’t have to make cuts, so we have two teams, and it’s great.”
Likewise, baseball experienced a phenomenal turnout and has two solid teams. Senior Anthony Devincentis said “We had a much bigger turnout this year than in the past few years.” With a large selection of players they’ve put together a team that as Devincentis said, “We should be pretty hard to beat this year and I think we have a good shot at going deep in the playoffs.”
Although some teams are experiencing large numbers of athletes trying out, the boys lacrosse team has enough members for only a varsity team. This can be difficult for underclassmen as sophomore Carter High explained, “We didn’t really have tryouts because no one got cut, so it just felt like practice. I do miss having a JV team though because of the pressure as I am a younger player.”
With this being said, the team still looks to have a winning season. “The team is very comfortable with each other since we have all played together for a few years now, and the new players are doing fine, so it’s all been pretty fun so far,” said senior lacrosse player Jack Chavez.
The girl’s lacrosse team has also gained talented young players. “ I love everyone on my team, and am super impressed with the under classmen who made varsity this year. Everyone is always working hard and pushing others. The season is going to be a fun one I think,” stated junior Jenna Molnar
Track athletes are also working very hard towards improvement. “Track tryouts were actually more difficult then I thought it’d be, but it only pushes me to do better. It makes me excited for this year because I’m only a freshman and I’ve heard that I’m doing really good. I hope this season will bring me many accomplishments, and that we make nationals for our 4×2 team,” Ogwulu said.
Junior Grant Rasband concurred, “We have a lot of people that are poised to have a good season if they all stay healthy. There is a lot of excitement right now mostly because there are a lot of new people with fresh goals and we’re really trying to emphasize the team aspect of the sport. It’s shown in the general mood of the team. We’re really optimistic about the improvements we can make this season.” The track team had time trials to begin this week, and hopes to improve throughout the entirety of the season.
While the snowstorm on March 14th kept players away for a day of practices, the real games and matches start next week.
As with track, all other spring sports teams at Walkersville have had very noteable tryouts and lots of energy and hard work to begin their seasons. Be sure to support these teams in what looks to be a winning season to finish off a great year of sports at WHS!
