With winter sports starting up, a lot of teams are doing the best they can to be ready for game one. Teams have already started practicing, and have a clear schedule because practice is every day. These student athletes are working hard to balance practice and schoolwork.   

     One sport in particular that has been putting in the work over the offseason was the wrestling team, led by Coach David Esposito and captains Craig Mager, Anthony Giordano, and Kyle Pokornowski.

     Wrestling is a sport that takes a lot of effort and energy. One match lasts a total of six minutes (three two minute periods) unless someone gets pinned before the time is up. Since the matches take so much energy, the team has to undergo lots of conditioning to get their bodies right for the matches. 

     Mager states, “We have been doing regular conditioning and workouts in order to get ourselves in shape for the season.” 

     After one week of practice, Mager noticed that the team’s work was well worth it. 

     Mager states, “The team is working very hard and I can tell that everyone is ready for a great season and we are all trying the best we can to win as many matches as possible.” Mager stated that the team wasn’t getting as tired towards the end of the matches.

     Basketball is also one of the many sports starting up this winter. The Basketball team is always a larger sized team consisting of a Freshmen team; junior varsity; and varsity, which gives Head coach Jeffrey Raucci a very important job. Roughly 50 students participated in the tryouts and Coach Raucci had to get that number down to about 20 students for JV and varsity combined, and about 15 students for the Freshmen team. 

     Raucci says in an interview, “We do conditioning, a lot of it. Typically don’t play with more than seven or eight guys at the varsity level, so they need to be in good shape to play those amounts of minutes.” The basketball team recently finished their last day of tryouts, and should be selected soon and the goal is always to make states, Raucci says. 

     The Athletic director Anthony Vitelli also takes a big role in the winter season and all the other sports year round. His job is to manage the sports teams and make sure all the players have the correct paperwork filled out in order to pay. Vitelli speaks on the upcoming winter season, he says, “It’s very exciting to see our winter sports season starting up. The coaches and players will be working hard in the preseason preparing for their upcoming seasons.”

     There are so many upcoming sporting events in the future, be sure to mark those calendars because these events are a great way to show off your lion pride and cheer on the team.