As the spring sports season begins to pick up, many athletes are eager to begin a new season with new goals and new teammates. Hopeful individuals experience the anticipation that comes with trying out for a team and the subsequent doubts about whether or not they will make it. One question that comes to mind for some nervous freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors is “Has the overall competitiveness of spring sports increased?”
Varsity baseball player junior Frankie Polichio has been playing the sport since kindergarten. He said, “baseball is super competitive – especially at Campolindo. [But] our coach never really makes cuts. There’s always a spot for somebody and a job for somebody, whether it be either playing in the field or being like a team guy and just being there for the team and supporting everybody.”
In contrast, senior beach volleyball player Every Uziel said “I do notice an increase [in cuts]. Maybe I want to say about a 20% increase in the amount of cuts? It’s not too drastic, but there were definitely more cuts this year.”
Uziel commented on the large number of cuts for both girls’ volleyball, which takes place in the fall, and the current season of girls’ beach volleyball. “I think, overall, [volleyball] is a sport that is competitive and lots of cuts are [made] when [creating] the teams,” she said
She noted how beach volleyball’s popularity has increased from when it was first introduced as a Campo sport.. In addition, Uziel said she noticed a large percentage of the girls who played volleyball in the fall season were interested in trying out in the spring.
While beach volleyball experienced a plethora of players showing up to tryouts, boys’ lacrosse faced a much lower turnout. Junior Nolan Knightly has been playing lacrosse for almost his entire life. He “played JV freshman year and varsity both last [and this] year.”
Knightly explained, “[For lacrosse] you need ten to play, but to actually feel like a team, I’d say you need at least sixteen…We’ve actually struggled to have a varsity team this year. We don’t even have a JV team”
Senior Peyton Tallarico is an experienced softball player and has been playing the sport for around 11 years in total. She said, “I played LMYA when I was really young, and then I played travel ball for a year and then I’ve played here [at Campo] for all four years.”
Girls’ softball only has a varsity team this year and has not had a JV team since the year before Tallarico’s freshmen year. When asked if she considered softball to be a competitive sport, Tallarico responded, “I think it’s a competitive sport. I think it’s not as competitive as some other schools in the area because we don’t get as big of a crop of people coming out as a lot of other schools do, because they live closer to travel ball areas.”
Tallarico said that softball, “…had cuts this year and cuts my sophomore year so it’s definitely not a no-cut sport.” Tallarico also noticed that there has not been a large increase in the number of cuts this season, and said her sophomore year season only had “a handful of cuts.”
Tallarico added that softball had a large number of people at tryouts. “I think this year specifically it’s increased [in the number of people coming to tryout] because of the amount of freshmen and new sophomore players that we had come out. I think there are only five returners and we have about fifteen or sixteen girls on our team, so we have about ten new people,” she said.
Overall, the number of cuts depends on the sport. While some sports experience a growing popularity, others face challenges in getting enough participants to form teams. One thing is for certain: the demand for selective sports remains ingrained in our community.
