This year’s fall sports have come to an end! Pitman has lots of fall sports to offer for boys and girls such as volleyball, cross country, golf, tennis, water polo, girls flag football and everyone’s favorite, football! This article is an insight into the minds of athletes and their perspectives on their sports!
Water Polo Interviews – Brycen DeRose (11th) & Claudia Martin-Park (11th)
What was your personal and team goal for the season?
DeRose: “My goals for this season was for my team to go first in league and possibly get MVP.”
Martin-Park: “My personal and team goal for this season was to become a smarter player rather than just a strong player and hopefully win more and overall become a better team.”
What motivates you when playing water polo?
Martin-Park: “What motivates me is being better than the other players and teams in the league.”
DeRose: “Being able to go out there and score and being competitive.”
What were your season predictions?
DeRose: “I [wanted us to get] first or second in the league and overall become a better team.”
Martin-Park: “I [wanted us] to have a good season because we have been working really hard and doing extra practices learning how to be a smart player and not a strong player.”
Girls Tennis interviews: Ava Khomari (11th), Anjuli Avila (12th)
What were your predictions for the 2024 tennis season?
Khomari: “My predictions for this season [were] that everyone’s going to get a chance and the time to learn and improve, play and then work together as a team to lift each other up.”
Avila: “My prediction for the season was for us to get second place in the league.”
What motivates you?
Khomari: “What motivates me is just knowing I can put in my hard work and effort into something and look forward to the outcome at the end of the day.”
Avila: “What motivates me is words of encouragement and having a supportive coach.”
What is your personal goal?
Khomari: “My personal goal was to win every match I play.”
Avila: “My personal goal was to win 8/10 of my matches and just try to improve my tennis game.”
What was your team goal?
Khomari: My team goal was for all of us to always be supportive of one another and to always encourage our team to always push even when a match may seem tough.”
Avila: “My team goal was for our team to become a family and have support for one another. Another team goal was to make it to the playoffs.”
What are your game day traditions?
Khomari: “My favorite after game tradition is going out and getting food either by myself or with my team girls.”
Avila: “Our after game traditions are going out to team dinner.”
Girls golf interview: Lexi Jeans (11th)
What were your season predictions?
“My predictions [were] that we’re going to get 3rd place because our team was going to improve all together.”
What motivates you?
“Music motivates me and my passion for the sport.”
What is your personal goal?
“My personal goal [was that] I wanted to decrease my score by 10 strokes.”
What is your team goal?
“My team goal was for us all to improve overall.”
What are your team traditions?
“Our team just likes to keep a positive mindset and stay calm, not let the adrenaline make use nervous.”
Cross Country Interview: Montana Rodin (11th)
What are your team traditions?
“We keep positive vibes and keep an open mind.”
What was your team goal?
“My team goal was for us to make it to states.”
What motivates you?
“What motivates me is just remembering I’m doing the sport for fun and because I am interested in it and that I am doing it with positive people.”
What is your personal goal?
“My goal was to complete a variety race in under 20 mins.”
What were your season predictions?
“I have really high expectations for this season, I’m loving it!”
Volleyball Interview: Aila Reich (11th)
What were your season predictions?
“This season our team was expecting success. We were looking for the CCAL title and competing in state.”
What motivates you?
“Knowing that I can get better every rep and surpassing others motivates me, I love competition.”
What are your personal goals?
“My goals for the future are to play in college and get CCAL defensive player of the year.”
What was your team goal?
“My team and I were looking towards state; we want to go far and compete.”
What are your team traditions?
“Before games my team gets hyped in the locker rooms listening to music and dancing. For me I like to warm up with headphones and lock in.”
Football Interviews: Frosh- Brayden Esparza (9th), Jacob Scheuber (9th); JV- Landen Neal (10th); Varsity: Syncyr Sanders (12th)
What were your personal goals for the season?
Esparza: “Have over 1000 passing yards.”
Scheuber: “Get stronger and lead the team more.”
Sanders : “My personal goal for this season was to win a CCAL award at the end of the season and get my first college offer.”
What was your team goal?
Neal: “My team goal was to do better than freshman year and hopefully not go 2 in 8.”
Esparza: “My team goal was to hopefully be 8 in 2.”
What were your season predictions?
Esparza: “I [said that I want] to have a positive winning season, we have talent and skill to be good.”
Neal: “My season prediction was that we weren’t going to do horrible, but not undefeated.”
Sanders: “My season predictions were that we will be 7-3 and our floor would be 2-8. I thought my season would go smoothly being a senior. I know this is my last shot at this in high school, I had a lot to prove and I was ready to show that.”
What motivates you?
Esparza: “What motivates me is playing against Turlock and a pep talk with starting offense listening to music.”
Sanders: “What motivates me is my parents, my mom always pushes me to be great and my dad lifts me up from above.”
Neal: “What motivates me are my teammates.”
Scheuber: “What motivates me is beating Turlock.”
What are your team traditions?
Scheuber: “Our team traditions are doing Pride jumping jacks.”
Sanders: “We manly try to listen to some music before the game but I am hoping my team will start a prayer this week.”
For our final fall sport, flag football! Flag football is a brand new sport to Pitman and they’ve done great—they captured the CCAL championship at the end of October. Earlier this season I spoke to Coach Matt Vasconcellos—one of our amazing flag football coaches—here is what he said he intended to see this season.
“It’s been really fun and exciting. The games are really fast and the girls are a lot of fun. It’s hard to tell what our season is going to look like because we have only had four games so far. However, the girls are really athletic and getting a grasp for things, I think we’re going to have a lot of success. Typically we have girls lead the warm up, this serves a couple different purposes. It allows the girls to get their bodies ready to perform and interact, have fun and laugh while warming up. My brother and I have coached wrestling for a long time and had a lot of success so our goal is to win!”
Hopefully you were able to make it to as many of this year’s fall sports games as possible to support all of Pitman’s amazing athletes! To make it even easier to support Pitman athletes you can purchase an ASB card and get into all sporting events for free by spending $40 one time for the whole year. This card also makes your dance tickets cheaper!