The Beginning of a New Sports Season
Katie Vastola
Editor
As winter sports come to an end, there are eight sports firing up as the weather gets warmer. Baseball, crew, lacrosse, rugby, soccer, softball, tennis, and track are beginning their seasons this week. Tryouts started February 21 and continue through the 25. Each sport has varying times and dates for tryouts occurring this week.
Vaccination requirements have remained the same as winter sports. Athletes must be fully vaccinated, but there are religious and medical exemptions. Exempted athletes will need to provide a negative COVID-19 test daily. Athletes that are unable to meet these requirements won’t be able to participate. Athletes who have not already done so should submit their vaccination card at alexandriacity.rankonesport.com.
Junior Malik Kunata, who runs track, said, “ Our first meet will likely be at the end of March. The whole team is very excited to get back into racing after a few months off!”
Senior Lainey Eveges, tennis player, said, “I’ve been preparing for the season by practicing two to three times a week. I play at a local tennis facility to continue practicing throughout the offseason.”
In some sports, athletes have an idea of what team (varsity or junior varsity) they will be on, even though they won’t know officially until after tryouts. Sophomore Sophie Waldhoff does crew and said, “There’s definitely an idea of the rankings early in the season but we don’t officially have boat lineups until basically right before we start racing.”
Some athletes have participated in preseason training or team workouts at school. Senior Reese Crochet plays baseball and said, “Me and many of my teammates have been lifting, throwing, and hitting together since December.”
Kunata said, “Preseason started earlier this February after our indoor regional meet. We have mostly been doing distance runs to build a strong base for the season.”
Eveges has been looking forward to reconnecting with the team. She said, “Last season, I loved having a group/team supporting me, so I’m excited to start that again!”
Waldhoff said, “I’m probably an outlier for this but I’m really excited for morning practices and obviously competing.”
Winter sports had limits on the number of people who were able to attend indoor matches. Since spring sports are all outdoors, restrictions may change based on COVID-19 regulations. More information will be released as it gets closer to the first competition date.
Malik said, “This is our first outdoor track season since the start of the pandemic […]; COVID-19 has taken so much from us, and the seniors are looking to make the most out of their final season.”
Crochet is hopeful that the season will be the first normal one since 2019. He said, “COVID-19 definitely hurt the younger kids because they haven’t had much experience playing high school baseball, so it’ll be fun for everyone to have a normal season this year.”
In the midst of tryouts, there is a lot of movement between the fields and on the track. Make sure to look out for the tryout times and locations of the sport you want to participate in!
