With the first of December comes a brisk cold outside and hope of snow for the holidays. Also starting is winter sports, the most popular being basketball. Lots of students come out to the games to support the team and have fun with friends.
Senior Jojo Huletz says, “[I like coming to the games] because it makes me feel involved with Roosevelt.”
There is also a lot of anticipation to find out how the team will do. An anonymous junior says,
“I believe the girls are going to do alright and the boys are going to suck.”
So far this season the girls varsity team have lost a non league game against Olympia High School and won their first Metro league game against Ingraham. The boys varsity have won a non league game against Northwest School and lost their first Metro league games against Ingraham and Eastside Catholic. Both the girls and boys JV teams have yet to play their first games.
The junior also says that the boys, “need to step up their game.” This students says she likes to go to the games, “to watch the teams play and I really like the girls cause they’re so passionate.”
While the athletic director of the school Matt Katinas is hopeful for both teams during the season, he does recognize that with the new coach there are some added challenges with the players figuring out a new style. He says, “There have been some adjustments, especially for the upperclassmen…they’re trying to learn a new system and learn different expectations.”
One thing that Katinas is trying to work really hard at this year is sportsmanship. Many of the league refs have been quitting and that means there are less quality refs for the games.
He says he tries to watch the games objectively and finds that “the refs are wrong like 90% of the time cause either our fans aren’t happy with what happened or their fans aren’t happy with what happened and that just isn’t the case. It’s our perspective [that we] see it the way we want to and they see it the way they want to.”
Katinas tries to remind people to respect the game and the refs and the other team and make sure that our fans our cheering for our team not against anyone else. At the games he puts up a sign that has expectations for fans and hopes that people will just be more respectful and not allow themselves to get too heated at the games.
Overall, the season is just kicking off and so far it’s not looking great for the guys team while the girls team has shown passion and may have a chance. Everyone will have to wait and see what happens throughout the season, but everyone can agree it’s important to have rider pride and support the teams.
Photo by: Roxanne Alabastro
