Alex Burman ’16, Francis Lee ’16: With the unprecedented onslaught of snow this year, many spring sports are caught in a bind. With several inches of snow covering the tennis courts, baseball fields, and the track, and layers of ice covering the lacrosse fields, many teams have been forced to practice indoors in crowded spaces or travel away to fields that are not covered.
The boy’s tennis team this year has yet to play on the actual courts. Senior captain Brendan DeVoue ’14 said, “We cannot shovel the snow because it will damage the courts. We have to wait it out and let the snow melt. Unfortunately, we still need to have tryouts and figure out a line up before our first match. We have not been able to come together as a team and we have all been practicing individually. We have one of the best teams in a few years and it is probably the strongest chance we have had in the past four years to win it all.”
The boy’s baseball team is in a similar predicament. AJ Lotsis ’16, a member of the Varsity team, stated, “The field having snow covered all over is hurting our opportunity to get reps and get a feel for being outside. We may not be able to actually practice on the fields until after the Florida trip. Baseball is one of those sports that you need to be outside to get a sufficient amount of work in and that’s hurting our team right now.”
Track this year has also been hit especially hard because of the need to run in both the winter and the spring. Mr. Farrell, a track assistant coach, explains, “We haven’t practiced on the track since December, which is pretty unfortunate. The cold weather is especially detrimental because practicing outside with this freezing cold is an energy sucker; your body is focusing on keeping itself warm and not running.”
Photo courtesy of Connor Martin ’14
In fear of having no outdoor practice time whatsoever before regular season games, both the boys’ and girls’ lacrosse teams found an opportunity in West Chester at an outdoor complex owned by Kelly Sports. With many marquee matchups against nationally ranked opponents, Captain Brian Zappala ’14 recognized that there was no time to waste for his team. He declared, “The weather has no doubt been an obstacle that we as a team needed to overcome in the preseason. We were without a field for a few days, but we didn’t let that stop us. We worked around campus whenever possible and drove to West Chester for a week in order to get on an actual field. We, the captains, pride ourselves on never making excuses, so we made the most out of whatever space we got hold of.”