Cydney Ventura
Reporter
As fall sports quickly come to a close and the winter season is right around the corner, student athletes have started preparing for their next sport. Athletes have been doing various things to train for their seasons but is it always as easy as it seems for students who transition right from a fall sport to their winter one? Everyone has a different way of training to get ready for the season, so what is it that they’re all doing to get prepared?
For senior Georgia Hunsinger, a cross-country runner and a basketball player, she finds playing a fall sport helpful when transitioning into her winter one. “I think it’s a lot easier, I feel like if there was a big gap between the two times it would be a lot harder to kind of get back into shape,” she said.
Georgia also explained the type of training that is offered for the basketball team in order to get ready for the season. “My basketball coach got the boys’ varsity coach to have a workout for us. So he does a little basketball lesson and then we do conditioning after, so I’ve been doing that.”
For senior Olivia Hompe, a cross-country runner and an ice hockey player, her fall sport was also beneficial to her winter one. “I think my fall sport did help me train for my winter one, because running cross country allowed me to get into great shape,” she said.
Olivia also believes that preparing for sports is extremely significant to the success of the season. “I work out pretty much every day of the week. Usually during the week I’m with the team, and on the weekends I work out on my own,” she said. Many times the most important part of the season is the work you put in during preseason. ”
According to girls’ basketball coach Kim Palmer, students who play more than one sport have a little bit of an advantage when going into the season over those who do not. “Anytime you have preparation you’re going to have an advantage. I am a coach that believes in athletes participating in more than just one sport, but anytime that you are active in a competitive sport or training you’re going to have an advantage over somebody who’s not,” she said.
Ms. Palmer also emphasized that she likes her basketball players to come to the tryouts in shape and ready to go. “I think it’s extremely important to train especially when you’re dealing with a sport like basketball where your endurance has to be up. So if you step on the floor November 19 and you have not prepared in regards to getting your cardiovascular endurance up, you’re going to struggle and it’s going to take some time to get to the next level.”
But for some students, transitioning right from their fall sport to their winter sport can be a difficult task to handle. Senior Nick Musicco, a football player and track runner, provided some insight on why he finds it challenging to go straight from football to track. “Football didn’t really help me prepare for my winter sport because you lose your endurance, but track definitely does help with football. So to jump right on the track you’re usually out of shape and it takes awhile to get used to,” he said.
Senior Johnny Rhudy also finds it tough to go directly from football to wrestling. “It’s definitely hard because football is more of a team sport and wrestling is more of an individual sport so you have to base your focus on how am I going to benefit my team by winning matches in wrestling, while in football, defense is all about team playing,” he said.
Some student athletes decide to play certain sports only because they want to be in shape for their primary one. “My fall sport is secondary to my winter sport. So I do cross country to prepare for basketball. In basketball there’s a lot of running and although cross country is long distance running, it still gets my endurance up,” Georgia said.
Since the spring season isn’t too far away, lacrosse coach, Kristin Woods, encourages students who play lacrosse to also play a winter sport so they have that edge coming into the season. “If people aren’t into basketball or ice hockey they might choose track and I think that’s a good thing to take up if they need to prepare for lacrosse,” she said.
Ms. Woods also expects most of her athletes to play a winter sport because she likes to have students who participate in more than one sport in her starting lineup and she believes they have an advantage. “I think it is very important to be a multisport athlete. No matter what you can learn from, whether you play field hockey, soccer, basketball or ice hockey, they all are very similar and different concepts carry over from one sport to the next.”
