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Psychology notes and new teachers, Flextime appointments and math problems; the WHS Huskies have a lot on their plates as we start another school year. In the world of sports, some of our fellow students have been practicing for hours after school, perfecting their game for the season ahead. I’ve sat down with a couple of our talented student athletes to learn more about how Washington Athletics is looking this fall.
Under the Friday night lights, WHS Football has had a thrilling start to the season, bringing home the Battle of the Boulevard title after defeating American High School with a score of 41-34. Although the Huskies had a rough start to the game, we overtook the Eagles in the second half with outstanding performance from Jalen Frenchwood. At the time of our interview, team captain Xavier Walker predicted that the team would go undefeated for the rest of the season. As of now, the Huskies are 4-1 with our only loss to Dougherty Valley. When asked about attendance in the Husky student section, Xavier said, “I’d like to see students at every game.”
Not all of our sports can have student sections though; I certainly wouldn’t be able to manage running alongside the WHS cross country team! These incredible runners have had stiff competition against Mission San Jose and American, but are still managing to produce some amazing times. Current juniors, Nitika Sathiya and Ella Yang, are both working to PR, cross country jargon for beating your previous personal record. “My most recent three mile race was the fastest I’ve ever done,” Nitika shares. You can find this duo hard at work at after school cross country practices running as much as 6 miles in a day!
Much like in cross country, senior Natalie Ryu explains that she and the golf team compete on more of an individual basis. “You’re basically competing against yourself,” she says. Golf matches are flying by with almost half the season completed; nonetheless, our team has had impressive results this year with a 303 to 306 win against MSJ and an amazing turnout of new underclassmen players.
It’s tennis time! The girls tennis team has recently competed in both a JV and Varsity tournament hosted at Logan High, facing off against players everywhere from San Ramon Valley to Piedmont. Sophomore Sarah Hamilton shares that the team has been steadily improving. “We’ve played really well as a team thus far,” she explains. After a disappointing 3-4 loss to Kennedy, our girls team has been redoubling their efforts at practice, determined to secure more wins in the second half of the season.
Volleyball season is also underway, and the girls varsity team already has a big preseason win under their belt after defeating Alameda High. Senior Savannah Le described the game as “an intense five-setter.” Although the team has faced some tough competition at the start of the season, Savannah reassures “we can only go up from here.”
To finish our forecast, let’s take it to the pool with WHS water polo. Senior Maddy Stewart shares that “our best game was probably when we shut out Irvington 19-2 which was really fun.” Stewart described the emotions surrounding this season as “excitement and a little bit of pressure.” Kudos to all of our incredible Husky athletes! Make sure to show your support at games this season. Schedules can be found on instagram @washingtonathletics or on the Mission Valley Athletic League website.
Ava Paine is a current senior at Washington High School; this is her first year at The Hatchet. Born and raised in Fremont, she is interested in reviewing local restaurants and books. Ava is varsity captain of the girls tennis team, participates in varsity cheerleading, and is president of WHS Interact and WHS Model UN. In her free time she loves to bake, take care of her houseplants, play with her labrador retriever, read, and listen to Taylor Swift. In the future, she hopes to study international relations or law.