Soccer, football return to practice

Soccer shooting for a season

Photo Credit: Pixabay, Pexels.com

BY BEN SCHWARTZ

Staff Reporter

With the restrictions put in placed on depressed and filled with anxiety. soccer kids are not able to get the exercise “The lasting effects of just not being able and social interaction needed to keep a to hang out with people is something that you healthy state and they are missing recruitment kind of just have to deal with and it’s just hard opportunities. knowing that you’re not able to be around

In the past, school soccer, like other sports friends all the time,” said Parker Allen. has been a way for kids to get P.E. credits and He brings up some good points and even go outside and play the game they love with though he says we just have to deal with things there friends from school. It provides relief like not being around are friends and hang out from tough home lives, and is a stress reliever with people, it is much easier said than done for anyone worried about school. Currently there are several restrictions on school soccer in California as although you can play both club soccer and “The lasting effects of just not being able to hang out with people is something that you kind of just have to deal with and it’s just hard “ as situations like are really tough to get through for everybody involved. For many the delay in starting back in to school soccer is just as school soccer right knowing that you’re not able to be Corona Virus now, because of around friends all the time”. rates are so high restrictions all the teams can only - Parker Allen, junior and soccer is a very physical do conditioning. sport where When you go to practice you must fill out a contact has to be applied in order to play the form stating that you do not have COVID-19 game properly. California has the second most and you have not been in contact with anyone cases in the U.S.A. at about 900,000 cases and who has had the virus, you must where a although our rates have been lower than many mask when not on the field, you must use other states lately we still have a lit of cases sanitizer when you get there and when you and many are still very concerned about that. leave, all social distancing rules still apply, It is a rightful worry as there probably would and practices are split between two days and be more new cases if we went back to school two different groups so it is almost never the soccer in full form combined with club soccer, full team playing together. So although teams this is the reason there are so many restrictions are allowed to gather, the process has been and guidelines right now, so when soccer does delayed and it does not provide the same come back, somewhere around January, the relief and opportunities it did before with the spread should be completely limited and there season taking place in the Spring instead of the should be minimal cases. Winter. With the introduction of COVID-19 into

COVID-19 forced students to stay the U.S. last year taking place before many inside and limit there social interaction and Spring sports were able to compete last year activity which resulted in students becoming California had decided to prioritize those sports over the winter sports that will be playing at the same time as them this year. That means there will be less, if not no, field space for soccer for both practices and games.

“It was just kind of an “L” for them that they didn’t have a season,” said junior on the team, Dylan Bardsley.

Bardsley continued with his beliefs describing that he thinks they should have gotten a season last spring.

“It kind of sucks [soccer not being prioritized by school], but it’s not really that bad. You got to accommodate for everybody so i think its a good move,” said Bardsley.

This is a differing opinion than lots of kids on the soccer teams but a just one as it is fair to say that the other sports deserve a good season like everybody else got last season but it also means, Soccer players will get less playing time and exposure so those looking to get drafted by colleges scouting around the campus will be at a much bigger disadvantage than previous seasons.

To improve our situation we must continue to follow the rules and decrease COVID-19 cases so we can open back up again, although there are rumors of opening soccer back up, nothing is set in stone so we must wait and continue to wear our masks and follow proper social distancing protocols. Although it is important to get school soccer back but we must also consider everybody’s safety from the virus before we can get back to where we were before.

Football kicks off

BY CAITLIN DULSKY tice and the athletes are following all of the guideManaging Editor lines set in place for COVID-19 precautions.

Football has begun! It’s crazy to think would be inclined to breach the rules and regteam’s are practicing during this era of so- ulations, but I think that because every player cial distancing. The Sequoia football team wants to have a season so badly, no one feels and many other teams have started distance the urge to act out against the rules” Crum said. practicing. But precautions have been put in Also, with the season not starting at place for the football team, and other sports, normal time Freshman might not have been that makes practicing safe. Everything is aware of practices or conditioning going on, changing with COVID-19 and the predict- but the team is still open for people to join. ed start for the football season and all other There still have been many freshmen who have fall sports is December. come onto the The football team has been practicing and conditioning since August and holding practices socially distant. The team has been split up into cohorts with a maximum of 12 athletes to a group. The players can go The guys truly put in the effort during each training session, but we’ve also been having fun being together again. “ team so far, and who have started conditioning. The team is scheduled to start playing in December and the team is hopeful to three practices a week. - Wilson Crum, junior for the season.

“We added an actu- “I don’t al weight component to know what’s goit so we have barbells and ing to happen dumbbells and physio but you know I’m balls and plyo boxes and bumper plates and at least I’m at least now cautiously optimistic smash balls and all of that out on the field. whereas if you had asked me early summer, I We’re again social distance, we’ve basical- said this is this is a illusion and we’re just going ly built the workouts, on to kind of a super- to be active and then nothing’s going to hapset schedule, and each station that the athlete pen and now I actually think you know there’s is that they’ll do two exercises paired up as a a chance that we play,” said Coach Poulus. superset, and then they’ll rest and do another The coach is hoping for a great year pair of exercises,” said head coach, Rob Poulus. this year. With the team being able to start

The football team has been prac- practicing and lifting multiple months beticing for a few months and conditioning is going well for the players.

“Without this pre-season training, our team would be riddled with injuries during the actual season, so this is certainly an important part of the process” Junior on the football team, Wilson Crum said.

The football team, like others practicing right now, have to be cautious of all COVID-19 related issues and they need to practice socially distant.

“with the restrictions we have we have to wipe everything down between uses, you know, so this means that that athletes at that station for about 15 minutes getting four exercises done, then they wipe down their station and they move to the next station, so it kind of minimizes the moving parts and how many times we have to wipe everything down and athletes have to transition on that,” said Poulus.

The players feel good about going to prac“Naturally, one might assume that teens fore the season starts, this will help them in many ways for the season. A lot of times the younger players aren’t as physically built yet so having these extra months now gives them more strength training then they would usually get before the season starts. “I think we have a lot of athleticism, we’re a little young, that’s another thing where I think the schedule is actually helping us, because I feel like this year we have a small senior class. We’re going to have a lot more involvement from a younger crew of players, juniors and sophomores than in other years,” said Coach Poulus. The team has been practicing hard and feel their lifting is going to really help them this season. “I think the players latching on to the strength training for this is important because in a normal year, everybody’s strength training. So you’re so you’re keeping up with people, but you’re not necessarily moving past them. This is one of the few years where I’m like, we, we might be lifting at a level that other teams just can’t do, because they don’t have access to waste right now or anything like that so you know the return on investment might be pretty big on that,” said coach Poulus. We still don’t know for sure if the season will start and how it will work, but players can hope and plan for the season to stay prepared, and the Sequoia football team is doing just that!