Donald Harley (9) knew he wanted to play a sport during the fall season. He was convinced by friends to join the JV tennis team, but didn’t get to start the season at the same time as his teammates due to an injury. A trauma to his right shoulder growth plate while pitching in a baseball game in June. Harley enjoyed the season despite having a late start.
“I could not play the first few weeks of the season and after I got back it still hurt to hit for a few weeks,” Harley said.
Tennis is not Harley’s main sport, he’ll soon begin to prepare for baseball, a sport that he’s played since elementary school. He usually gets ready for the season by going to the hitting cages at Baseball Kingdom in Lansing.
“I am very excited to play [baseball] for [coach] Mark Pontoni because he is a great coach and we are gonna have a good team this year,” Harley said.

After only playing tennis for two years, Kailen Foster (10) made the boys varsity tennis team. Foster felt he wasn’t able to play at his full potential at the beginning of the season, but as it progressed he felt his game become better than ever.
After the tennis season, Foster will start to transition into his main sport, basketball, by sharpening his skills in the gym.
“I am excited for the upcoming basketball season because we are supposed to have a good team this year,” Foster said. I am ready for redemption for the teams we lost to last year.”

In Sebastian Perez’s (10) first game for the boys JV soccer team, he scored two goals against a rival, Mason. The team finished with a winning record.
“The team was all around good but each guy has a different skill level,” Perez said. “I feel like I played well this season and had a lot of fun playing with my friends again.”
After the season he will transition into club soccer. Accompanied by his twin brother, Perez tried out for a travel team called ‘Midwest United,’ located in Grand Rapids on Nov. 6. He will continue with this club for the remainder of the year.
“I didn’t play for Midwest United in the fall because I wanted to play on the high school team so I could build my confidence for the club season tryouts,” Perez said. “The transition out of the high school season is rough for me because I won’t be able to play with all my high school friends on a team.”

In her third year on the varsity golf team, Elizabeth Gisholt (11) noticed the difference between her time on the team as an underclassman and now. Golf requires her to miss school, and this year, she has significantly more homework.
“It was difficult missing school with harder classes,” Gisholt said. “I think last year, I just had easier classes so it wasn’t as hard to play catch up. There were some days that were really easy to miss and some days that were just really, really hard to miss.”
At the end of Gisholt’s golf season, she starts off-season training for tennis. Sometimes this means small hitting sessions, working with a coach one-on-one, or just getting in shape at the gym.
“It’s kind of nice especially [in the off-season] because golf is so intense and short,” Gisholt said. “It’s really nice because you get to set your own schedule and do as much as you need and like if you can’t do something that week, it’s not as big of a deal.”

This fall, Carter Sible (9) didn’t have the best season on the freshman football team.
“The season was not good because we lost a lot of games,” Sible said. “It was still fun and a good experience but it is annoying losing a lot.”
Sible played all around the field but his main position was linebacker. He likes this position because he gets to hit people.
“What I’ll miss most about [the] football season will be film days because they were chill and easy,” Sible said.
Sible will play baseball in the spring and will be preparing by going to Baseball Kingdom and playing in an indoor hitting league with his teammates.
“I am excited about this upcoming season because I love playing baseball and am excited to play at the next level,” Sible said.

Carly Kenyon (10) noticed the difference between the freshman and JV volleyball teams right away. She said that last year’s group was hard, and that her teammates didn’t all take it too seriously.
“But now we’re getting older and looking into what we actually want to do instead of just doing this for fun,” Kenyon said.
The environment on the JV volleyball team is different from Kenyon’s experience on the softball field. Her freshman year there was a JV softball team, but this year there are not enough girls to make two teams. This means that a lot of underclassmen will be fighting to gain a spot on the varsity team.
Kenyon hopes to gain a lot of practice during the winter preseason, although there are challenges that come with practicing softball indoors.
“It sucks to not be outside, because it’s not the same as the field,” Kenyon said. “Practicing inside is not going to do the same thing for us. Also, this year everyone’s just competing for the spots and preseason is starting quicker.”