As fall approaches, Pinewood’s football, volleyball, cross country, and tennis seasons are underway. With the help of new players and coaches, each team has goals, aiming to build on previous successes.
The Pinewood football team, despite having a relatively young and inexperienced roster, has been thriving on the field.
“The biggest goal for us is just to grow as much as possible because a lot of our team is new,” senior and team captain Arjun Ari said.
Despite the lack of experience among their new players, the veterans on the football team have taken on leadership roles and helped the newcomers frequently.
“We lost a bunch of seniors last year, but we also gained a lot of new people who’ve picked up football, like, pretty quickly,” Ari said. “They’re guys I trust to get practice done. And they’ve also stepped up in so many ways.”
Along with the football team, the girls volleyball team has been seeing improvement so far this season. Senior and team captain Annabelle Eaton said this success is due to the team’s heightened sense of urgency and competition this season.
“The coaches and players both want to get better, and we’ve maintained a higher-level of play during practices this season,” Eaton said. “We want to run the team like a club team.”
Just as girls volleyball has heightened expectations for this season, so does cross country. Senior Shay Mallempati said that everyone wants to set personal records and see improvement in their running overall.
“My personal goal is to get a 12:30 for the 4000 meter race,” Mallempati said. “I would hope to break the 5k record, and we all want to have an injury free team. That is our number one goal besides having fun.”
Much like cross country, girls tennis is eager to improve upon last season. Sophomore Devyn Smith said the season is going well.
“The goal is for everyone to be more confident and have more skills at the end of the season,” Smith said. Hopefully everyone can look back on the season and enjoy the time they had on the court.”
