Sports
TRIVIA!!
What is the size of a baseball?
Correct Answer---> 9 inches in circumference
Spring Sports have started! Make sure you're looking for game days and meets, so you can go watch the teams compete!
cm-chat-media-video-hOT5N7MkK2VLcaCDlAjTa.MOVLuckily, there is an actual track season this year. Many of the athletes missed out on their senior year last year, but some of the athletes came back even stronger than last year. Josh Schuurman, a junior on the track team, cleared 10' 6" at the track meet on March 27. This video is just of him clearing 10', and Schuurman says he wants to be able to clear 12' by the end of the season.
Spring Sports Have Bloomed
By Alaina Warner, Sophomore
Student-Athletes at WASHS are now able to be involved in the up and running spring sports season, almost a whole year after the shutdown from Covid-19. Track and Field, Baseball, and Softball have all begun their season on the 8th of March and will continue through May, being “the first season this school year to start a sports season on time” as informed by Steve McElroy, head varsity softball coach.
Athletic Director, Eric McIlquham, stated: “We’ve been able to have sports every season, there will be hardships along with these spring sports, but what they are, I don’t know”. He also stated that there will continue to be a limit to the number of fans allowed to attend these events. Although, having new guidelines that are always changing, currently any amount of fans are allowed as long as they are wearing a mask.
All spring coaches and Eric McIlquham have unanimously reported that as long as you are within a 6 feet distance of anyone, you must have your mask on, whether that be running, in the dugout, on the field, or waiting your turn for an event.
For safety purposes, Steve McElroy said, “there may be an option of one team using the same ball and another team using another so there won’t be spreading of the germs from the other teams.” There could even be the possibility of sanitizing the ball between innings, while Travis Hardman said they have a lot of baseballs to use and will have people sanitizing their hands.
Head track and field coach, Jimmy Rickett, spoke out about the abilities to compete this year. He believes that all events will be able to be included, even the relay race that has contact with others. Everyone will have to be “adapting” to the new rules with the Covid restrictions, guidelines, and especially with wearing a mask while performing. The athletes will still be able to go to meets and invitationals but some may be split up or separated.
First-year head varsity baseball coach, Travis Hardman, and second-year head varsity softball coach, Steve McElroy both are in comparison for the same rules. Practices look the same as they always have, varsity and JV split up with baseball having their pitching and catching in the early morning. Just like every sports season so far, when a game is finished the players must still stand on their side and wave while saying good game or “tip their caps” as Coach Hardman would say.
Student-Athletes Megan Miller, Nathan Wynkoop, and Cameron Witte are all in agreement that although it’s bumming that some things have changed, Witte announces that she doesn’t mind the masks as long as everyone is still allowed to play, which is how almost every player feels after the cancelation last year. Getting back out there and playing, “gives a sense of normalcy during a crazy time” iterated by Wynkoop.
Flashback to Winter Sports:)
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Underdogs of the Division
By Jaylon Bean, sophomore
The Waynesboro Area Senior High School varsity boys basketball team finished third in their division and ended on a 11-6 season. Led by coach Tom Hoffman, the Indians had battled through a season like no other and proved to the division that they were not the bad team that they expected to see after losing their 1,000 point scorer, Cole Rhyne. Due to covid and the shutdown back in December, the Indians started almost a whole month later than what they had planned. Starting tryouts and getting players back in shape with masks on was a difficult task but the boys overcame the adversity and were prepared to take on the season. Some say that this year was ¨the season of silence” but the boys made their name known with sportsmanship and hardwork on and off the court.
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Gymnastic's team made it to States and won FIRST place!
Maiden Basketball Perseveres Through an Unpredictable Season
By: Madi Boltz, Junior
The Maidens Basketball team defeated the Boiling Springs Bubblers, 43-27, on January 29, 2021, on their home court. This is the first win under head coach Heidi Shaull. Coach Shaull has been coaching the sport she loves dearly for many years. She played at Chambersburg growing up and graduated in 1996. From there she went on to play soccer at Millersville University and was hired at Waynesboro right out of college. “I have always had the passion to help this program become established”, Coach Shaull states. This is Waynesboro alum, Coach Nicki Embly’s first season with the Maidens. Both coaches explain the impact basketball has had in their life, and they are excited to pass it on to their players.
Going into this season, the coaches and players had many goals. Coach Shaull explains the uncertainty in this season. She goes on to say “The scoreboard does not always reflect the progress that we are making”. Both Coach Embly and Coach Shaull explain how this season was focused on rebuilding the program and laying the foundation for years to come. “My goals this season were to continue to help build this program even if I won’t be playing when the big turnaround comes. I want to know I pushed those girls so they can reach that goal!” exclaims senior Brooke Davis.
Compared to last season this season has looked very different. “We are playing with masks and we do not know who will be on the court from day to day,” says Athletic Director Eric McIlquham. The uncertainty has pushed the girls to work harder in the gym. You never know when it could be the last time you step out onto the court. Brooke Davis explains how this season, the girls all felt closer and relationships were stronger than in previous years. Both sophomore, Megan Miller and sophomore Slaydon Fisher explain how they felt more prepared for this season even with the risks of Covid-19.
Every year the Maidens have a “word of the season”. This year's word was perseverance. Coach Shaull has each girl pick a word that they want to focus on for that season. Then they pick a word out as a team and vote on it. Perseverance was the perfect word for the team for this unpredictable season. No matter what the scoreboard said the girls would persevere, no matter the circumstances, the girls would persevere.
On January 29th, the girls pulled away with their first win under Coach Heidi Shaull. This win occurred at the girl’s home court and was against the Boiling Spring Bubblers. Miller, Fisher, and Davis explain that this win felt like all of the hard work they have been putting into this season had finally paid off. They loved the feeling and were very excited. “My goals did not change for the girls after the win but the girls are building the foundation for our program. They may not see the benefits in wins, but they are building the expectation for future generations to battle and to work hard, and play fundamentally sound basketball”, says Coach Shaull.
The team is only losing one player for the next season. Brooke Davis, who will be continuing her education to study early childhood education was the lone senior of this year. The team will be working hard in the off-season to come back even stronger next season. Coach Shaull explains how she foresees the girls hanging with the other team for all four quarters. Overall, Coach Shaull and Coach Embly express how proud of the girls they are for battling in every game.
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The Indian Season
By Jaylon Bean, sophomore
It was required that every team must wear a mask while playing and are required to wear it everywhere they are in a facility. This was a risk for the players since masks cause shortness of breath and muscle cramps to the players. The Indians were up to the challenge and were prepared to play despite the risk of having to wear a mask. The Indians were ranked seventh out of eight teams in the division which had outraged the players and coaches of the Varsity Basketball players. The boys were out to prove everyone wrong and wanted to be respected as a good team. Connor Jacobs, a senior on the Indians, stated that, ¨We have a good possibility that we would have a good impact on the league and I want to prove the doubters wrong.¨ He saw the potential of how great the team could be and sought to be greater than what others saw the team to be.
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The Tryout Catastrophe
By Jaylon Bean, sophomore
The rapid spread of covid-19 had caused the whole Waynesboro Area School District to go on a two week shutdown to help prevent more people from catching the virus. Players were encouraged to stay in shape while being in quarantine for four weeks but it was difficult for some players to find a gym to play at, as well as exercise at home if they do not have much equipment. After four long weeks of not being able to play, they boys finally got back into school and were now able to begin tryouts. The boys were able to have a successful two day tryout but it was a short lived sense of hope. The state had issued all sports to shut down for another two weeks which caused many teams to question if there still would be a season. Multiple practices, and opportunities for players had been lost including many tournaments and scrimmages but every team was still able to have a seventeen game season. Ryan Shaffer, a sophomore on the Indians, said that, ¨I am very grateful because I had a chance to prove myself as a sophomore and show my abilities so that he could be seen as a threat on the court.¨ Everyone on the team was very happy and excited about being able to compete and they enjoyed being able to bond with their teammates and coaches.
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Swimming at WASHS and the Impact of Covid
Jordan Price, Class of 2021
There are many opportunities for swimming here at WASHS in the form of the swim club but there is also the non - school affiliated Waves team at the Waynesboro YMCA. While the club has been active here for many years, swimming is always overshadowed by the other, larger sports. Swimming tends to be an excellent sport for conditioning, staying in shape and there is very little opportunity for injury. Competitive swimming is a time based individual or team racing sport. There are varied distance events in the butterfly, backstroke, freestyle, and individual medley. Swimmers can also participate in a freestyle or medley relay in teams of four. Each stroke requires its own specific techniques and there are distinct regulations for the acceptable form of each stroke. The goal is to reach qualifying times. Swimmers strive for a fast paced time that will qualify them for bigger, championship meets. It is an intense physically demanding sport as well as mentally challenging.
This year the team has had some new challenges because of Covid-19. Sarah Stains, the second year WASHS Swim Club Coach, discussed the background of the WASHS swim club and a bit about this year's Covid operations. This year, the high school swimming opportunities are only open to current members of the Waves team. Due to the lack of practice availability and just to keep everything as safe as possible, they were not allowed to have kids from outside the Waves team join the swim club. They are hoping to have the club open to everyone next season, when hopefully Covid restrictions relax. According to Sarah, the performance of the swimmers she has observed has not been terribly impacted. “ I haven’t noticed a particular difference in mindset or the fitness of the swimmers, but it has made the kids more determined to reach their goals this year.” Sarah stated.
Although the WASHS swim club is a great opportunity for swimmers, it is not the only swimming offered in Waynesboro. The Waves swim team at the YMCA is also open for whoever may be interested. Samantha Mears, the first year head coach at the YMCA commented that, “ I would love for more kids to be involved, usually kids start with swim lessons and work their way up but it really just depends, you can start whenever.” While spots on the team were limited at the beginning of this year, as restrictions ease there will be more availability in the future. A majority of swim team operations this year have been kept the same except with the addition of no parents able to view meets, limited swimmers allowed to join the team and the cap on qualifying spots.
Lauren Wetzel is a senior swimming for the WASHS swim club this year. She has been a part of the WASHS club and Waves swim team for several years and will continue to swim in college. Lauren swam with Waves for several years before transferring teams. She has been swimming for a total of eight years. Lauren has received a full scholarship to West Point which is a D1 school. “Recruiting this year was really difficult.” Said Lauren. “ The NCAA changed recruiting rules so commitment came a lot earlier this year. Many kids had to accept their scholarship offers without being able to visit the campus first.” She commented about the difficulty of this year in terms of remaining in shape and staying on top of things mentally. While it may not be the senior season everyone expected, she still reflected on some of her best swimming memories over the years. “While I have so many amazing memories, some of my favorites would be winterfest meets, daily renfrew trips before practice and my past team trip to Ohio.”
Swimming has wonderful opportunities and benefits for anyone interested. If there is anyone interested and would like more information feel free to reach out to Samantha Mears at the Waynesboro YMCA or Sarah Stains through the high school. There are also rookie camps at the Waynesboro YMCA every spring for interested swimmers to come and give it a try.
Weird Winter Season
By Zelie Musolino, sophomore
This year with the pandemic has been a new thing for everyone. Schools have been closed, stores have been at half capacity, sports weren’t allowed, etc. The Waynesboro High School was fortunate enough to be open and have sports seasons. They all have been “grateful to get out and get playing,” according to Eric McIlquham, the athletic director here at the high school.
Basketball
Fortunately, this year Boy’s and Girl’s basketball was able to have a season despite everything going on with the coronavirus. There were still struggles that went along with both team’s seasons. Jaylon Bean, a varsity basketball player, says that for the boy’s season, it was bothersome “how compact and short” their season was. Their season was short this year because of a late start date and having to quarantine when somebody got Covid. Bean is hopeful that their season will start on time next year and that they will actually have a normal season. The girls’ season was just as affected, and they had to quarantine for quite some time. Megan Miller, a varsity basketball player, believes that next season will be more normal than this year. Miller was bothered by “having to wear a mask.” Her answer definitely isn’t anything that anyone hasn’t heard already. Masks are difficult to breathe in, especially while playing a sport.
Despite the messed up season this year, Bean says he was “very proud of how we played this season with covid restrictions.” The boys and girls played through many different conditions this year which probably will have an affect on future seasons.
Gymnastics
Just like the basketball teams, gymnastics was affected this year as a team. Brooke Bonner has been doing gymnastics for 9 years because she views it as her “escape from life.” She thinks pretty highly of it, and just because this year was weird doesn’t mean that her view changed. This year, she “learned a bunch of new skills,” and got to spend her season with the seniors that won’t be there next year. There was a lot of team bonding this year because Bonner says the season “taught us how to be a team even with road blocks.” This year definitely had roadblocks for every sports team. Equipment had to be cleaned in specific ways, and teams could only hand out two passes for family or friends to come see them. That’s not an easy thing to go through especially if you are one of those seniors Brooke talked about. Although this season was new and different, the gymnastics team, and their coaches Amy Dennis and Jessica Bryan, persevered through the season. They even won first place in states recently.
Wrestling
Wrestling is a very difficult sport to keep a mask on for. The wrestlers are rolling around on mat all over on another, and they are expected to keep a mask on while doing so. According to Mr. McIlquham, the wrestlers aren’t even allowed to shake hands before they wrestle one another, yet they are still allowed to roll around all over each other. James Crutchfield, a freshman on the wrestling team, says that even though they had masks and couldn’t shake hands that this won’t affect future seasons that greatly. One big thing that was different from any other year was that Trojan Wars, “a big tournament in Chambersburg,” was canceled. It is a pretty huge event, and it would have been James first year doing it through high school.
When asked what bothers him most about the wrestling season, James answered, “You have to wear a mask, and it’s really hard to breathe sometimes.” Even though the masks have been a nuisance to everyone, they must have helped something because James says the wrestling team was never quarantined as a whole. Despite the challenges, at least they got to fit in a season.
Everyone’s seasons were different this year, but everyone was very glad they at least got a season and very hopeful for future seasons to come.
Season Progress
By Jaylon Bean, sophomore
The Indians had a great start to their season by blowing out York Tech, 69-19. The boys were on a great start and wanted to continue to make their name known in the league. Their next game was against one of their biggest competitors, the Shippensburg Greyhounds. Coach Hoffman did not know how this game would play out since the team did not have many practices or time to prepare for this big game. The Indians fought and battled against the Greyhounds and kept the game very close all the way to the end. After a very intense four quarters, the Indians ended up losing 67-72, but this game began to put respect upon the Indians after being in such a close game against the best team in the division. After the battle against Shippensburg, the boys had a long week ahead of them. They had to play four games in one week going against Carlisle, Big Spring, West Perry, and James Buchanon. The boys were on a hot streak after they had won all four games and were proving to the division that they were top competitors. However, the boys had a rough following week. They had a hard loss against Northern York and an unexpected loss against the Boiling Spring Bubblers. Things were not looking so good for the Indians which had made people second guess their abilities. Next on their schedule was their big time rivals, the Greencastle-Antrim Blue Devils. The Blue Devils were having a great season and they were the team in favor of beating the Indians. The Indians had beaten the Blue Devils for the past four years and were not looking to lose to them on the Waynesboro home court. Greencastle had been defeated by the Indians, 53-36, which had given Waynesboro the push to regain their identity. The Indians had gone and finished their season with a 11-6 record but unfortunately did not make districts. They finished third in their division and proved that they were to be respected. Waynesboro’s 2020-2021 season was a season like no other and it goes down in history as one of the most bizarre and unordinary season in Indian history but a season to learn from. Coach Hoffman explained after the season that, ¨When you look back on a season you look back on losses that could have been potential wins. We sometimes forget to think about games we won that we potentially could have loss. We cannot say that we should have won close games that came down to the end.¨ This mind opening quote explains that there is no certainty to winning a game that comes down to the last minute but games in the past are meant to be left behind and a lesson for the next game. The Indians played phenomenally this year and prepared to come back bigger and better the next upcoming season. Tom Hoffman claimed that, ¨The boys next year will be a good group of young men and the team has a good chance of making districts next year and possibly even more.¨