Category Archives: Sports

Sports

Boy tennis looks to serve up their competition

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The boys are swinging their hearts out for a successful season. Coach Brian Banas and Selena Kim are looking forward to another exciting season of boys tennis. This year, they hope for a more triumphant season than last year as they finished with a record of 4-12.

The boys open the season with a four to one loss to Woodridge on Monday, March 30 and have been rained out a few matches since then.

Last year, the boys shared the NOC Lake Division title with Brush.

“We look forward to another tough contest with Brush during the NOC league season,” Banas said.

They have a young team this year but also have returning players, sophomore Spencer Crawley at first singles, junior Ben Koch, junior Jaret Wilmoth, senior Alex Petrovski and senior Ben Switalski.

“We are a young team with a lot of potential,” Crawley said.

The program added five freshmen this year’s team, in- cluding Zach Zline and Cody Kowalczyk who will be seeing some varsity action.

“The youth on our team is exciting because we have a nice group of players who will be able to learn and improve together over the next couple of seasons,” Banas said.

Their biggest goal is to continue to develop their young players as they build toward tougher competi- tion in the Suburban League next year.

“I want our team to do the best it can, and personally, I would like to make it to districts,” Crawley said.

The team always look forward to the NOC Tourna- ment at the end of the season.

“We hope we can capture another league title for Stow, particularly since this will be our last season of NOC competition,” Banas said.

Sports

Girls Track and Field run away with victory

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By Lindsey Houck

The girls track and field team has enjoyed their success the last couple of seasons and hope to keep the trend going. The official start to their season will be at the Don Faix Invitational hosted at Crestwood High School on Apr. 4.

“Our team this season looks really strong already. We have some awesome talent coming in from a few freshmen, and our upperclassmen are truly much stronger than they have been in our past seasons. I’m really excited for this upcoming sea- son,” sophomore Kayla Thompson said.

With losing a couple important seniors, the girls are still confident in leading the team to victory once again with a help of returning athletes.

Among those athletes is senior Sam Shaver, the defending Northeast Ohio Conference River Division MVP. Shaver qualified for states in not only the 200, but also qualified for nationals in the 800 relay and sprint medley relay. She also holds four school records total in individual and relay events.

Another key returner is senior Tiffany Pryce, who has qualified for states in hurdles in past years. She is also a two-time national qualifier in the sprint medley relay and shuttle hurdles relay.

Added to the mix is junior Jessie Stout and sophomore Kayla Thompson. Stout has quali- fied for nationals in the long jump and 800 re- lay, while Thompson was a national qualifier in the sprint medley relay last season.

“My goal this season is to help the team get our 6th NOC win, and I hope we can get as many people we can to states and nationals,” Thompson said.

In the past five years, the Lady Bulldogs have won the River Division championship in the NOCs. This may be the final year for the NOCs, but the girls are looking to claim one last title.

Returning seniors along with Pryce and Shaver are Abigail Dunn, Allison Brewer, Caitlin Helfeldt, Cassidy Wood, Courtney Bradford, Kelly Vantrease, Mara Diewert and Shelby Brown.

Stow has finished second overall in the Division I district meet for the last two years and have compiled a dual meet record of 55-11, with the help of head coach Aaron Morris.

“I am looking forward to another undefeated season and hoping our team places first at districts,” sophomore Chrissy DeMarino said.

Sports

Softball team pushes off a strong season

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In sports, it is very hard to be as successful as soft- ball has been. As winners of three straight N.O.C. River Division championships, this year’s team is looking forward to continuing its success under head coach Doug Hawkins.

Coach Hawkins is a 10-time returning head varsity coach for the girls and knows exactly how to lead a team to success.

“It has been very fun playing for Coach Hawkins,” senior Sadie Jones said.

Jones is a four-time returning varsity player and knows what it takes to win.

“Coach Hawkins is pretty laid back, meaning we can play relaxed. Taking off a lot of pressure has been a huge part of our success the past few years,” Jones said.

While winning three straight champi- onships, one may assume a fourth is easy to get; however, it is far from easy.

“Our two biggest goals are to win N.O.C. again and to make it to regionals. We have some pretty tough teams on our schedule this year like North Canton Hoover, who has won states four times in a row; however, we are very confident in ourselves, and we feel like we can com- pete with any team,” Jones said.

After losing three important seniors, the team leans on all four classes to pro- duce wins for the team this season.

“We have a really deep and strong line- up,” junior Landry Slider said. “Everyone plays their part well and if we continue
to play the way we know we can, we can accomplish what we have the past three years and even more.”

On April 1, the team traveled to Parma to take on Valley Forge in their first game. In a five inning, 28-1 victory, the girls proved they have tons of power.

“I really look forward to playing Hoover because they will be a challenge for us,” Slider said. “I’m also always very excited to play our rival Cuyahoga Falls.”

The team stands at 9-1 as of April 22 following their impressive 4-3 victory over division opponent Twinsburg.

This victory makes the team now 3-0 in division play.

During the weekend of April 23-26 the girls will compete in the “Rock-N-Fire” tournament with their first game being played at Hoban High School with a 7:00 p.m.

start time.

Sports

Speech and Debate hosts second annual Ultimate Frisbee Tournament

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Flying discs took to the football field as the Speech and Debate team looked to crown the high school’s Ultimate Frisbee champion.

The Speech and Debate team held their second annual Ultimate Frisbee tournament on Apr. 25. The fundraiser brought in eleven teams, ranging from 5-8 players each, and a total cost of forty dollars to enter the tournament.

With a round-robin system of play, all eleven teams played against each other. They were then seeded, based off their amount of wins and losses, into a single elimination tournament bracket where only one team could reign victorious.

“Last year we raised over 600 dollars [for the Speech and Debate team], hopefully this year we will come close to that again. We have concessions and other various items being sold and so far it has been a big success,” junior Speech and Debate member Cameron Stebbins said.

The competition kicked off with four separate games going on at once. Ultimate Frisbee demands a high level of endurance and team chemistry, as not one player can control the whole game. Some teams were able to reach these demands and others fell to a flying disc dismay.

Teams that could not find their success on the field certainly could seek revival at the concession stand where they served, “drinks, hot dogs, memes and more,” as sophomore Speech and Debate member Mitchell Norman said.

In the end it was the Floopy Doo Dee Doo’s who arose victorious and won the 2015 Speech and Debate Ultimate Frisbee Tournament. Team members of the winning team include: Matt McCombs, Jordan Wolfe, Jack Wadsworth, Matt Levine and Kyle Austin.

Stebbins said, “We have had great support from the school and it looks as if this year’s turnout was just as, if not more, successful than last year’s event.”