Seniors reflect on canceled spring sports season

PHOTO: Davis High field hockey team players celebrate senior night. Field hockey was one of the fall and winter sports that was able to celebrate its senior team members before school closure (Courtesy: Kris Christianson).

By Morgan Kong,

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

Senior Graham Segel was in Japanese class when he heard the news: school was cancelled. The coronavirus outbreak had effectively suspended school and all extracurricular activities, and as a swimmer on the Davis High swim and dive team, Segel’s senior season was no exception.

Later, Segel would find out that the remainder of his season was cancelled, and the practices that Friday afternoon and Saturday morning were the last times that he would swim for the high school.

Other terminated spring sports include badminton, baseball, men and women’s lacrosse, softball, men’s tennis, track and field, and men’s volleyball.

Senior Cory Kodira, who is a hitter on the men’s volleyball team, is frustrated and disappointed by the cancellations. Last year, the volleyball team did not make it to their playoffs, and he was looking forward to having another shot.

“This year was supposed to be a redemption year,” Kodira said. “The fact that it was my senior year makes it suck that much more.”

Chris D’Angelo, senior and lacrosse player, also hoped his team would go to playoffs this year. He and his friends wanted their senior season to end on a good note, so they worked hard in their off-season to achieve that.

“This season we wanted to make a statement. Last year wasn’t our best, in fact it was the first time we ever missed playoffs in our program’s history,” D’Angelo said. “We came out this year ready to shake up the league.”

Seniors Noel Riely, Sophia Young and Collin Yee expressed similar sentiments. Swimmer Riely and golfer Yee were both eager to qualify for their respective state championships, and lacrosse player Young thought that her team would have a successful playoff season.

Senior and badminton player Emma Chang believed there was a lot of potential for her and doubles partner senior Emily Cao to perform well at sectionals. She was disappointed because the badminton league tournament was supposed to be hosted at DHS for the first time this year.

Senior Abby Lo’s season was promising as well. Lo runs and jumps on the track and field team. After her junior year did not go as planned due to an injury, Lo wanted to improve her scores and compete at state championships like she did sophomore year.

“I was really hoping to have an injury-free, competitive and memorable senior season,” Lo said. “I worked hard on physical therapy and strength and conditioning during the off-season and it’s pretty disappointing to not be able to try to [break my personal records].”

Besides wishing for a great final season, Lo was excited to have a leadership role on the team. “I always felt like the long and triple jumpers were a very tight knit and fun group and I wanted to help pass that culture on to the younger jumpers,” Lo said.

Similarly, Yee and Segel feel that they lost the opportunity to be leaders on the golf and swim teams, respectively. 

“[The other captains and I] were really able to facilitate a good team spirit this year, and we had fun cheers,” Segel said.

Seniors Josh Catacutan, who plays baseball, and Brooke Imamoto, who plays softball, also miss the team aspect. “The thing I miss most is just being out there everyday with my teammates,” Catacutan said.

Imamoto, in addition to being enthusiastic about the camaraderie, is not planning to play softball later and was “excited to get one more chance to do everything again.”

Also, while Riely will still swim in college, she regrets not being able to appreciate her final moments on the DHS swim team.

“[I was] excited to celebrate all the “lasts”—last leagues, last sections, last banquet—but now those all happened junior year and I didn’t know it,” Riely said.

Segel agrees. “You don’t get the opportunity to go all out, knowing that you don’t have a time after this. […] At the end of it all, my last time swimming competitively was at some random meet,” said Segel, who does not plan to swim in college.

Young was excited about another aspect of her senior season– senior night. After seeing her upperclassman friends enjoy their senior nights, Young had been awaiting her own since she was a freshman. 

However, Young is grateful that she was able to compete with her teammates for the outset of her senior season.

“I am happy for the part of the season that we were able to play,” Young said. “I’ve made some of my favorite lacrosse memories just from those short two months.”

Young continues to keep in touch with her team over Zoom calls. The women’s lacrosse team catches up with one another through the video conferencing service, and also sends each other at-home fitness challenges. Some of the challenges include competing against one another to see who can hold a plank for the longest, or who can do the most push-ups.

The swim and baseball teams are connecting through Zoom as well. The swim team even has calls with other schools, like Saint Francis. 

Riely’s club team, Davis Aquamonsters, continues to do dryland workouts through Zoom. Additionally, the high school swim coaches have a Google Classroom where they post workouts and assignments.

Track and field coaches have also posted workouts online for specific event groups, and the athletes check in with each other regularly. The softball team is training using an online pitch recognition program, where players watch pitches and decide what kind of throw it is.

For Riely, these online and at-home workouts keep her in shape to swim in the fall, where she has committed to competing on the UC Davis swim team.

“I’m more grateful than ever that I chose to swim in college, because it means I have four more years of swimming ahead of me,” Riely said. 

Catacutan will be playing baseball at the University of Nevada in Reno. Lo is currently unsure of which college she will commit to. Young and D’Angelo plan to play their sports in college, and Yee is considering walking on to the golf team at UC Santa Barbara.