Rants and raves

T
he latest trend on social media seems to be rants and raves, and sports is not immune to the phenomenon. As we near the end of the fall sports seasons at Newcastle High School, I decided to express a few rants and raves of my own.
It’s no secret that more than one of our teams has experienced their fair share of adversity this year, but I’m going to start with the raves because there are many despite the win/loss records.
Rave No. 1: Junior Hannah Gross is tearing it up in swimming this season! In every swimming event that is available to race, Hannah has qualified for the state meet in her first time out, and in 4A time. Just this past weekend, she proved she could not only hold her own against 4A swimmers, but beat nearly all who got in the water with her, and 3A competitors were nowhere to be seen. 
Rave No. 2: Bradyn Frye, the lone senior to stick out four years with Dogie football, is making a name for himself and that name is the Swiss Army Knife of the squad. He rotates from quarterback to running back to receiver on offense. He boots every PAT, punt and every kickoff, he’s on the receiving end of the latter two on special teams. He’s in the game on defense as well, so rarely is he off the field.
Rave No. 3: Underclassmen have stepped up and played at a level they maybe weren’t quite ready for on the gridiron and have done so quite admirably. They are gaining immeasurable experience and have persevered and maintained a positive attitude despite the adversity they’ve faced.
Rave No. 4: The Lady Dogies volleyball team has shown the utmost class by choosing to help clean up bleachers after their games on the road. I’ve never seen that done, so these young ladies have raised the bar and represented NHS and Newcastle exquisitely.
Rave No. 5: The volleyball team has maintained positivity, they have kept their eyes on their goal and have continued to improve their game throughout the season. Though it would have been easy to get discouraged, they have made improvements to their game every week.
Rave No. 6: Young volleyball players are showing some incredible growth after being thrust into varsity competition which is a big jump from middle school play. Jaylen Ostenson racked up some pretty impressive numbers these last couple of weeks of play which should bode well in the coming years, especially because she is just one of many in that class who are doing some pretty good things on the court.
Rave No. 7: The cross country men got second at the Regional meet on Friday! They’ve been tough all season and have worked hard to pack run to improve their team scores. They have run in some challenging environmental conditions, and have dealt with injuries that have sidelined their top runners, but they consistently push through to help each other to top finishes all year.
Rave No. 8: The Lady Dogie Cross Country runners have fought through injuries all season but all five were on the course last Friday and finally were able to put up a team score at their Regional meet.
There are of course some rants.
Rant No. 1: Injuries! I hate that cross country, swimming and football have been plagued all season long with injuries that have impacted not only the teams, but also the individuals who have missed out on part — if not most — of their season.
Rant No. 2: I’m bummed that there are so few upperclassmen who went out for football, that the younger kids have been thrust into playing up before they might be ready.
Rant No. 3: Star Valley and Jackson are still part of 3A Cross Country. That is all.
I’m happy to see that there are many more raves than rants, and I’m looking forward to seeing what our teams are able to do as they finish out their seasons.