In the midst of their last year at the high school, some seniors have decided to break from the norm and begin an entirely new sport within their final year of high school. During the familiar rhythms of senior year, these students are stepping out of their comfort zones, embracing new challenges and discovering unexpected passions.
Senior Shannon Gonzalez said she has joined the softball team for the first time this year.
She said senior year provides a great opportunity to try new things because it’s the last year students will have the chance. Gonzalez said she has watched her friends play for years, and they persuaded her to join the team.
“I thought that softball could be fun because a lot of my friends play,” she said.
Senior Reese McClellan said she has run cross country for three years, but after her senior season in the fall, she wasn’t quite ready to give up running.
“I love my whole cross country team, and a lot of them also run track, so I wanted to get to run with them a little longer,” she said.
McClellan explained she plays basketball and rides horses in addition to running cross country. Typically, she would play club basketball during the spring but not this year, she said.
“Since you can’t play your senior year, this year I have enough time to run track,” she explained.
McClellan said she runs long distances for track, making it similar to cross country. She runs between 800 meters and two miles for track, but for cross country she would typically run between three and five miles for practice and 3.1 miles at meets, she explained.
“Since I’ve been running for a while, it hasn’t been hard to transition into track,” McClellan said.
However, this isn’t the case for Gonzalez, who explained that learning the sport has been more challenging than she expected.
“It’s been really difficult learning all of the rules,” she said.
She knew the basic ideas of the game because she had watched her friends’ games before, Gonzalez said.
“There are so many things you don’t have to think about when you’re watching that you have to think about when you’re playing,” she said. “I think I learn at least one new rule every practice.”
Gonzalez said some rules, like the infield fly rule, were especially hard for her to learn. An infield fly occurs when there are less than two outs and there are runners on both first and second base, she explained. If a fair fly ball is hit by a batter, and the umpire judges that it can be caught easily by an infielder with low effort, that is considered an infield fly and the batter is automatically out, she added.
Gonzalez said despite a few challenges picking up the game, everyone on the team has been very welcoming and friendly. She is happy with her decision to join the team this year.
“I think when you’re a senior, all the pressure of being good is taken off,” she said.
