Paityn Tabor ’23
Editor-in-Chief and Sports Editor
As the leaves have begun to change here in the Forest, so have our athletic seasons. With fall sports coming to an end, winter sports teams are beginning to pick up steam. Winter sports teams here at the College typically use the first half of the fall semester as their preseason and coaches use this time as an opportunity for their teams to get stronger in the weight room and simply get reacclimated to the sport. That way when the season arrives at the end of October, their players are ready to get rolling.
“Overall, the transition from fall preseason to winter goes pretty smoothly,” explained women’s basketball senior captain Annie Lally ’23. “It just requires more mental toughness and attention to detail for longer, full-on practices and games.”
The competitive nature of sports is what most athletes live for and fostering healthy competition within the team is a key component for success. A competitive practice environment allows each player on the team to improve and also contributes to bettering the team, as a whole.
“Once the season starts, it is significantly more competitive and guys start battling for roles,” said men’s hockey senior David Cohen ’23. “It is also an exciting time, because all the work we put in, in the off-season and preseason can now be turned into team results.”
For one athlete in particular, the transition from fall to winter sports can be especially difficult. Iman Shepard ’23 is a senior on both the women’s soccer team and the women’s hockey team and has had to make the transition from soccer to hockey her entire career.
“Transitioning between hockey and soccer is difficult, but it’s also something I’ve been doing since I was five,” explained Shepard. “My endurance is built during soccer season and translates into hockey. The sports themselves are very different but fundamentally they carry the same ideas such as finding and creating space, moving the ball or puck quickly, and ultimately being team-oriented.”
After all the work our winter sports athletes put in during the fall, whether that be playing another sport, training in the weight room, or simply getting in some extra reps, the winter season cannot seem to come soon enough. After a busy fall, winter athletes are hungry to begin their seasons and start competing for championships once again.
