sports Panther Prowler • March 7, 2022
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Girls’ lacrosse jumps into spring season
Emerson Fuentes-Alabanza Graphic Designer
Ava Prapaniku Staff Writer
While waving their lacrosse sticks, NPHS girls’ lacrosse teams head right into their new season on Feb. 23 at an away game at Oak Park High School. Now that the practices are back to normal after the pandemic, the team has formed one close-knit group. Daniella Guyette, senior, is a goalie for the varsity lacrosse team and is also one of their captains. “I’m feeling really excited for [this season]. We’ve trained especially hard over this pre-season and a lot of the younger players have been developing their skills which overall raises our strength in the team and further prepares us for any challenges we may face,” Guyette said. Not only are the seniors excited for the upcoming season, but there is also a lot of excitement towards welcoming younger members to the team. Sophia Laubner, senior on the varsity team, remembers being very intimidated as a freshman. “Now that I’m a senior, I’m looking at the entire experience differently. I’m just really thankful for the team and Coach Yarger for changing the culture and welcoming a lot more players that maybe wouldn’t have come out,” Laubner said. The only freshman on the varsity team, Beatrice Macdonald, feels right at home with the team. “I’m just ready to play and I’m excited because I love lacrosse,” Macdonald said. “I don’t really feel like I’m the only freshman because I’ve played club with these girls too so I feel like I fit in.” This season the teams attempted a new method of practicing. “We had newer players practicing with a coach named Tony [Estrada] and then the more experienced players practice with the head coach, Michelle Yarger, and I think that worked really well,” Laubner said. “And now that we’re in the real season and we’re all practicing together, we’re gelling a lot more because the newer players feel more confident since they were able to practice with the same type of skill.” A lot of the players have high expectations for the coming season and hope to beat prior years’ accomplishments. “I think the season overall will go pretty well. I’m hoping that we’ll definitely make it outside of the Marmonte league, hopefully winning that,” Fast break- Reagan Laubner, sophomore, is an attacker on the NPHS varsity lacrosse team and feels that the season has Guyette said. “I’m hoping that we’ll make another run for the CIF championships, been off to a great start. “It’s always a fun time at practices and I think we have a really strong team this year. The games are though I think this time around will be a lot harder where our competition has gotten going to be fun and we’re going to come up hard,” Laubner said. Reese Kelem/Prowler a lot better and I hope that our hard work and practice throughout the pre-season has payed off and that we’ll be able to make it as far as we did last year.”
Boys’ tennis makes a “racquet”
Allison Nguyen Features Editor
With the new spring season approaching, many sports teams are making their way back onto the fields and courts. For the NPHS boys tennis team, the start of this new season means more opportunities and more excitement. Ronak Santhosh, junior and varsity singles player, has been on the team since his freshman year and is very excited to be getting back into routine.“ Typically, we have practice on every single school day of the week when we don’t have a game, so essentially Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and these practices are from 2:30 p.m to 4 p.m. and we start out with some warm ups, like stretching, and then some sprints and working on movements that we use in tennis,” Santhosh said. “Then we go on to hit some balls and play some double sets.” Prior to the start of the season, the players got together to play a group scrimmage against each other to get into the feel for the game. For Jared Gillespie, senior, this has been an annual event that he has gone through for all of his time on the team. “We also have something called Black and Gold, which is basically where just the Newbury Park team itself splits into two teams and they play against each other in a normal match style format,” Gillespie said. When debating over doubles or singles, there are a few factors that these players look at before going in. Jackson Kurtz, sophomore, is speaking his first year on the varsity team as a doubles player. “I like playing doubles more because you have more opportunities to come up to the net and the play-style is different, which I happen to like more,” Kurtz said. “In doubles, there’s a lot less running around and a lot more team spirit because you have a partner when you’re playing and there’s a lot more opportunities to get really nice shots and the game plays a lot quicker because you have more people on the court.” For many of the seniors, this is the last sports season before their graduation. “I hope that we’ll be able to go to CIF this year as we’ve actually been able to go to every year that I’ve been on the team so far, except for the year they got canceled because of COVID,” Gillespie said. “Personally, I haven’t been playing as much as I was in the past couple years so I just hope that I can go out there and play my best and stay positive and just have fun.” No matter what challenges there are, the players are excited to see what this new season holds. “I’m excited to have a lot more different varieties of players and a more diverse set of high schools around the state [to play against], especially considering since last year with COVID there were a limited number of Serve- Karthik Tholudur, sophomore, returns the ball across the net as he competes against other schools. high schools participating [in the season] and we didn’t get to play as many teams as we usually would’ve,” Like Tholudur, Ronak Santhosh, junior, is also looking forward to playing. “There’s nothing like facing the challenge and physical adversity of having to play your best shots,” Santhosh said. Tiana Hoang/Prowler Santhosh said.
