As the relaxing summer slowly ends, students spend their days in the intense environment of captains’ practice. As the school year begins, fall sports are already hitting their stride. For most athletes, their year started three weeks ago at captains’ practices.
Anna Craig ‘25, varsity volleyball player, attended every captains’ practice and all three days of tryouts. As a junior, she took on more of a leadership role. She explains, “I was really pumped up for the new season, and as one of the oldest on the team, I made sure to make sure that everyone else younger also felt [excited]…it was super fun and exciting.”
Craig noticed several differences between this years tryouts and last years, sharing, “This year was kind of weird because we only had one court to use [since the school was] storing the stuff for the new Early Learning Center (ELC) [on] the other two courts. In years prior, the tryouts were more rigorous and weren’t as fun, so this year was a nice change because I felt like I was being looked at more for my skill and not being constantly conditioned.”
Craig has been trying to make varsity for two years, and has “worked really hard to get onto varsity and [all the work] paid off.”
Roland Bentley ‘25 is a double fall athlete. He says the experience “can become a lot, but as long as you stay on top of getting sleep and showing up on time, it isn’t too bad generally. [Tryouts are] only for a week or two so it isn’t strenuous for long periods of time.”
Between the two practices, “there’s been great team morale [on both teams] and connection going on through everyone doing the same things at the same time. It’s a camaraderie under pressure.”
Soccer and football share similar practice formats, where offense and defense will do some parts of training together and other parts separately. As a goalie and kicker, Bentley occupies different roles but experiences physical intensity throughout. “Football through the weightlifting sessions and soccer through running and conditioning,” says Bentley.
