“Tryouts were competition. Girls were giving it their all because there was a chance that they could get cut. We walked in there thinking we had a chance at getting into varsity, and walked out thinking we didn’t have a chance at all,” said Cristie Samaha (9). At tryouts, student athletes found themselves running out of breath, enduring sharp cramps from all over their body, having their feet ache, and dealing with sweat pouring down. All throughout this week, students seeking to join a spring sport have been under a whole lot of pressure to perform their best at tryouts. The spring sports at Falls Church High School are baseball, lacrosse, soccer, softball, tennis, and track & field. All tryouts took place after school, starting at varying times depending on the sport. “Tryouts were really fun but competitive,” said many student athletes that tried out for spring sports.

Tennis tryouts were kicked off with a quick warm up, involving lots of stretching. Returning players and players that could hit and serve well participated in challenges and matches. Meanwhile, others hit balls served by the tennis coach. This helped see if progress had been made from the last practices and determined whether the technique of the athlete needs improvements.

On the first day of track and field tryouts, the warm up was running two laps around the track field as well as extensive stretching. “Tryouts were simple and to the point. We learned the schedule and became familiar with the warm-ups and stretching,” said Daniel Nguyen (9). Students ran in multiple heats separating the girls from the boys. They ran a 150 meter dash, a 100 meter dash, and ended with a 50 meter dash. Sprint drills including high knees, butt kickers, Frankensteins, etc. were also done. For other sports like softball, the girls were timed on their running and throws.

Members on the soccer team started off the first day of tryouts by doing warm ups along the width of the soccer field. The coaches then split up the athletes into two randomly chosen teams, in which they scrimmaged for the rest of the time. To keep the soccer players on their toes, the coaches switched up the teams every once in a while to see how different the interaction was among different people. All throughout tryouts, coaches made decisions of the people that they thought would perform best on the team. For tennis and lacrosse, cuts were made on Wednesday, September 22, 2017. On the other hand, soccer cuts weren’t made until Thursday, February 23, 2017. Those who have made it on the team are getting both physically and mentally prepared in order make sure that the season is off to a great start!