With winter sports having come to an end, spring sports are already on the rise. Starting on Monday, February 24th, spring sports began their tryouts. This spring season, girls and boys soccer, girls and boys lacrosse, baseball, softball, spring track, and tennis all were able to host their tryouts over the span of three to four days. 

Before tryouts even begin, a lot of athletes focus on getting in shape before their specific sport even begins. Whether it is attending off-season conditionings, playing a winter sport, or training on their own, student athletes are making sure they prepare adequately for the beginning of their seasons. 

“During the off-season for baseball, I worked on my pitching as well as my hitting. I had the opportunity to work with two former college baseball players who knew how to coach and instruct. I believe it is starting to pay off now that we are in season,” said senior Dylan Huggins. 

“To prepare for soccer during the off-season I would practice outside on my skills every day unless I could not due to bad weather. In addition to working on my soccer skills, I would also condition by going to the weight room when I could,” said freshman Joseph Triplett.

During the week of spring tryouts this year, a major challenge that many teams had to face was bad weather. With it raining a lot during the middle of the week, teams had to rearrange their tryouts to fit accordingly to the weather. 

“During our tennis tryouts, it was a little bit windy, rainy, and very cold. Although we had to face these difficulties during tryouts, we overcame them by dressing appropriately to the cold weather and picking the driest courts we could play on,” said freshman Hailey Marquise.

“For softball, it is very difficult to practice on our fields whenever it decides to rain. For tryouts, we were able to tryout outside on our field for one day, however, we were inside in the gym for the other two. Even though being inside limits what we could do, we were still able to adapt and have successful tryouts,” said junior Veronica Nickerson.

With tryouts having ended and the seasons just beginning, a lot of student athletes are excited to start practicing and get ready to start playing their sports. With scrimmages beginning in about a week for most teams, athletes are ready to make the most of the practices they have.

“This season for soccer, I am super excited to spend time with my teammates and play the sport I love. The best thing about playing soccer for Liberty is getting to play my favorite sport surrounded by wonderful people,” said junior Leslie Quiroz.

“As a senior, I am most excited to play one last time with my teammates. I am also looking forward to when we start playing our games because I think we have the potential this season to be a very good baseball team,” said Huggins. 

“For tennis, I am super excited for the matches because I have always enjoyed playing this sport for fun, but I have never thought about playing it competitively until now. Also, I am excited to learn more about the sport and grow as a player as the season goes on,” said Marquise.

With practices starting, students and parents are able to view the final rosters for junior varsity and varsity teams on Liberty’s new sports website, libertyhs.rschoolteams.com