Rain, Season Overlap Create Unique Challenges

The overlap of winter and spring sport seasons, along with inclement weather, during February have created significant conflicts in facility use and complicated athlete’s schedules. With many of the winter teams advancing to their respective North Coast Section playoffs, most have found their seasons extended past February 6, the official start of the spring sport season.

“[The overlap] is always a factor during the season transition, between fall and winter sports and winter and spring sports,” said Athletic Director Shannon Rogers. “The inclement weather has caused the space and scheduling challenges to be greater than usual, this winter and spring transition.”

In fact, Rogers said teams have had to adapt to slightly shorter or different practice times and work around each other because the excessive rain.

Girls’ lacrosse and boys’ soccer coach Shane Carney is also uniquely impacted by the season overlap.  Soccer is a winter sport while lacrosse is contested in the spring. “When I hit the overlap of boys soccer and girls lacrosse, it takes a lot of extra energy to be involved with both programs. We make the scheduling work though, since girls lacrosse practices are after school at those times and boys soccer goes later at night. ”

“It results in me running practices for about 5 hours, usually in the rain, which is tiring, but it’s also a lot of fun,” admitted Carney.

The conflict doesn’t just affect Campolindo athletics. Since outside teams and organizations also use Campolindo facilities, these organizations have had to cooperate with Campolindo teams to decide who gets to use the facilities and when.

The most affected teams have been basketball (winter), boys’ volleyball (spring), soccer (winter), lacrosse (spring) and track (spring), according to Rogers.

Junior Emma Van de Wyngaerde participates in girl’s basketball and lacrosse, 2 of the most impacted sports. “…a lot of the team bonding that happens at the beginning of the [lacrosse] season I have to miss because I can only go to about half the season,” she said. With her basketball team’s high seed in the NCS playoffs, it’s possible that her winter season could extend all the way through March.

Girl’s lacrosse practice times from 3:30-5:30 overlapped with girl’s soccer, a winter sport, so lacrosse had to hold their tryouts on the lower field while soccer occupied the turf. Sophomore lacrosse player Jacklyn Wang said, “We’re in the lower field. In the mud.”

“Soccer usually gets priority. Because lacrosse isn’t that big at Campo, so it’s not as ‘serious’ as girl’s soccer… I mean, I understand, because honestly girl’s lacrosse hasn’t been the best these past few years, but it’s not fair sometimes,” added Wang.

Sophomore Chloe Guthrie is another one of the many students juggling 2 sports during the winter and spring overlap.

“Lacrosse tryouts were last week and I couldn’t go because I have soccer, so once NCS is over for soccer, then I go to lacrosse,” Guthrie said.

Although lacrosse tryouts and soccer practice overlapped this year, Guthrie says, “It’s not that difficult because even if I have to miss lacrosse tryouts, it’s really easy because you just have to go to one practice and have sort of your own little tryout.”

In Guthrie’s opinion, the coaches do a good job to accommodate the practice times of both sports for a smooth transition. “Our coaches are flexible and they’re really understanding because the lacrosse coach is Shane and he coaches boy’s soccer so he understands that we have soccer and we have a commitment to finish the season off. He’s okay with overlapping and coming in late from soccer or any other spring sport,” she said.

Wang agreed, “I think [Carney] does communicate pretty well with people.”

In an effort to coordinate balanced facility use, Rogers is often in contact with her coaches. “There have been discussions and compromises between coaches and facilities to minimize the negative impacts and get each team or athlete as much practice time as possible, given the circumstances,” she said.

“During the overlap, the boys soccer program is gearing up for and playing in the NCS playoffs, while girls lacrosse is getting started with their season. There is a lot of excitement during that time frame from the players in both programs, so it keeps me excited to work with everyone,” said Carney.

Rogers believes that the coaches do a great job in accommodating each other, making compromises to ensure everyone has some facility use. The spring sports coaches are especially conscious of the schedule, holding tryouts for athletes that would have otherwise missed them.