As RHS students, who are now the Renton Redhawks, fully returned to in-person classes earlier this fall, the sports teams and their schedules have done the same as well. Last school year, the sports seasons were delayed and the usual fall sports started a couple of months into the school year, near the winter of 2020. Because of this delay, the sports seasons were shorter and different than the years before.  Luckily for this year, they’ve gone back to “normal”. But for people who didn’t participate in or keep up with these sports, they don’t exactly know what that normal is. So to learn about this and give a brief rundown on the season, let’s hear from student-athletes who have successfully finished the first sports season of this school year. Specifically, players from the Girl’s Volleyball, Girl’s Soccer, and Boy’s Tennis teams. 

How do student-athletes feel about this year’s season? 

To get a better insight on how to answer this question, a few players from the teams mentioned earlier were asked some questions about their practices, games, and other things that come up when playing their sport. Elisse Mejia (outside/right front player), a sophomore who’s on the volleyball team summarizes this season as “a rollercoaster of experiences, lost and won games, proved that the team can get through things, and made history by getting the team to playoffs.” While sophomore Riley Mcdowell  (starting center defender) on the soccer team talks about how she enjoyed this season, saying that the main reason was the team’s energy and getting along with each other well. She also compares this season to the previous soccer season, talking about how they improved from then and liked seeing it happen as well. Senior Kirby Nguyen who’s a doubles player on the tennis team, mentions “This year’s tennis season was definitely fun. Although tennis is more so an individual sport, I definitely feel a sense of community is in it.” A common statement that was mentioned by these students was being able to work well with a team and growing bonds with those teammates throughout their time together in the season. Of course, this should be recognized and happens throughout every season, but after the schedule change that went back to how things are currently, there’s a difference in regards to this, which the students do agree with.

Who did student-athletes want to recognize?

The players also had fellow teammates they wanted to recognize/acknowledge after this season. Starting with the soccer team, Riley wanted to shout out the team’s Captain, senior Paige Foster “because  she was a really great captain; always ready to do her best whether it was a practice or a game, and she always encouraged everyone else on the team to do their best as well.” Freshman Zitlaly Valeriano-Reyes  (starting goalkeeper) wants to appreciate “Riley Mcdowell [because she] was a great teammate, and  helped a lot in the back making saves on the field to keep the forwards away from goal, and always made me laugh.”

Kirby wanted to recognize sophomore Richie Dang, who is a singles tennis player. He said Richie was an awesome teammate this year and encourages him to keep on playing tennis to grow as a tennis player and as a person. He also wanted to recognize freshman Junmarc Antiojo “for being such a compassionate soul and giving me feedback whenever I needed it.”

Meanwhile, Elisse on the volleyball  team recognizes the libero on the varsity team, sophomore Sherley Martinez who has played volleyball  with her since 8th grade and who’s “helped and been there for me with personal things to keep up or so I can clear my head out for practices or games.” She also adds “It’s cool watching how much the sport  has grown on us and how much we’ve both improved but especially how much SHE’S improved, She’s  been complimented by other coaches and other players from different teams.” Sophomore Sophia Laroza,  the Junior Varsity (JV) libero also wanted to recognize Sherley for being a good teammate and encouraging her. She says, “ I admire her overhand serves and

her controlled passes when it comes to volleyball. Additionally, she has always motivated me and gave me tips. She is the reason why I felt confident in myself to try out for volleyball since it was my first time trying out for any sport.”

How did the RHS sports teams perform this fall? 

With the end of October, the season for a few of the teams came to an end. But this wasn’t the case for a couple of teams who played past the start of November for the play-offs in their league, which includes all the teams mentioned before. As said earlier, this year’s Volleyball team made history and was able to advance to the playoffs this year. The last postseason appearance for our volleyball team was  2008, which is the longest time from their last appearance out of all the teams that made an appearance this year. This makes this the first postseason appearance in 13 years! But they, unfortunately, had lost in the first round against Foster High School 3-0 on November 2nd. In this year’s season, the team’s overall record was 3-12 (wins-losses), and even with the rough record, the ladies were still able to make history and advance to the playoffs after so long! So they deserve special congratulations for their great efforts and hard work in order to do this!

Moving onto the Junior Varsity volleyball team, their overall record was 7-4. Even though they weren’t able to go to this year’s playoffs, they also did an amazing job in their games this season!

The girl’s soccer team also advanced to their post-season league, which is their first postseason appearance since 2018, making it 3 years since their last appearance. They sadly lost in their first-round as well against North Mason High School, with the score being 2-0 on November 2nd.  Also, congrats to them for getting an overall record of 7-7 this season! 

Kirby on the tennis team talks about the “ladder system” that individual players are placed on and advance based on how they do in their own matches. “We did make it to the playoffs and some of our teammates got it very far down the ladder,” he says. Once again, great job to these three teams for working and practicing hard to make it into their playoff seasons, and hope to see them as well as the rest of our sports teams do it again next year, and create new histories and achievements for our school! 

How is this season compared to last year’s seasons? 

As mentioned previously, sports seasons were scheduled and done a lot differently than in previous years because of the pandemic. While sports seasons usually take over 2 months, players said that the seasons’ last school year was only a month long. When interviewed, the student-athletes had all said that the more time they spent playing and practicing the sport, the more they improved. Junior Merissa Echaniz, a starting defender on the soccer team explains that “Last year’s season was a month-long, this season was really different in terms of the number of games we played, schools we played, time we had to practice, etc.” Elisse also says “I would say I prefer this season more because the team this season was more of a family, we were all sisters. The way we got through rough patches and dealing/getting over things together, creating a great big bond made us easier to understand each other,  making playing on the court and comforting each other easier. This season’s team I would say is irreplaceable.” This means that the increased time to work with each other solidified their bonds and  camaraderie, in turn improving their gameplay as well. Elisse also talks about audiences at games  mentioning, “last season for volleyball no one was allowed to watch and this season it was packed again.” 

How can other students support our student-athletes? 

There are still many Redhawks who aren’t student-athletes or who aren’t planning on playing on our school’s sports teams this year, but there are still things they can do to help give support to our school. Which is coming to the live games in person to cheer on our student-athletes! When coming to home games, make sure to go to the designated “student section” and help raise our school spirit! For students unable to come, there’s still a way for them to do this. Throughout the pandemic, the NFHS  (National Federation of State High School Associations) network has increased in popularity since it started working with many schools across the country to help broadcast games to others at home instead of coming in person. The NFHS network “allows people to watch live high school games including  basketball, football, wrestling, volleyball, soccer, cheerleading, dance, ice hockey and baseball on a  computer or smartphone or save them for on-demand viewing.” But since it’s a subscription streaming platform, it costs $10.99 a month or $69.99 a year. Also when asked, most of the student-athletes  recommended just watching the games in person because “it shows the athletes that you are there to support them,” (Kirby Nguyen) and “because it’s just a better experience too.” (Sophomore Soccer Player  Laila Vieira, starting center midfielder/center defender) Zitlaly also adds that “the games on recordings can become very glitchy and you lose the ball on screen.” Meanwhile, Elisse mentions another good way  to use NFHS as a student-athlete saying “my group of friends and I all play sports so we rewatch our  games on NFHS.” She says that they use NFHS to look at their previous games to see how they play and what they do well as well as what to improve on. But they did mention that staying home and using NFHS is a safer option if you can’t/don’t want to watch the game in person. Even so, using either of these methods will still help support our school and give the opportunity to watch fellow students play sports! 

Hopefully, this was able to inform you about some of the fall sports teams, and what they did/achieved this year as well as give some information about some improvements from last year. For students who still don’t plan to play a sport for our school this year, coming to support our student-athletes as a proud Redhawk at their games in person is highly encouraged! And for students who are unable to for any reason, NFHS is still an option to watch safely from home. With the fall sports season over, the winter sports are coming very soon, with practices for this already starting as well. So keep an eye out for Wrestling, Gymnastics, Boy’s Swim & Dive, as well as Boy’s and Girl’s Basketball in the next few weeks! If you want to help cheer for our sports teams this upcoming season, please check out the image below with the varsity schedule for all the winter sports. Hope to see everyone fill up the student section at the home games!

Winter Sports Schedule (Credit on Photo):

Sources:

Girl’s Volleyball Team:

Elisse Mejia (10th Grade, Varsity)

Sophia Laroza (10th Grade, JV)

Girl’s Soccer Team:

Zitlaly Valeriano-Reyes (9th Grade)

Riley Mcdowell (10th Grade)

Laila Vieira (10th Grade)

Merissa Echaniz (11th Grade)

Boy’s Tennis Team:

Kirby Nguyen (12th Grade)

https://www.campaignlive.com/article/why-high-school-sports-viewing-skyrocketed-nfhs-streaming-network-pandemic/1725920