Wooster High athletic teams welcome the official start to seasons
By Brian Questel
August 3, 2011
447
For nearly 200 students at Wooster High School, the school year has begun.
The academic portion of their lives is still three weeks away, but the athletic aspect to it has evolved into two-a-days, long, sweaty practices and sore muscles. That is to be expected, no matter the sport, as early summer workouts have taken on a different tone and urgency.
Its gone very well so far, said Wooster High football coach Mike McCreary, whose team went 7-3 a year ago and 4-3 in the Ohio Cardinal Conference. The days have been great. It hasnt been super, super hot, the kids are working hard and we havent had any injuries, so everything is going well.
McCreary and his staff welcomed nearly 80 players on the first day of practice, including 50 in the top three grades and 28 on the freshman team. Included in that list are quarterback Devin Daugherty and running back DeVonta Anderson.
We have high expectations and a lot of talented people coming back, said McCreary. Weve got our quarterback coming back and thats not to put pressure on Devin, but that makes a tremendous difference there arent too many things he hasnt seen. DeVonta is 200 pounds coming through the line right now and last year he was 170. We have some very talented players a whole host of kids who can catch the ball.
On defense we lost a lot of personnel, but the kids coming back are talented and have worked hard, so were excited to see what they do.
Wooster opens at home at Follis Field against Garfield August 26.
The numbers are good for Stan Burris and his tennis team as well.
We have 17 girls out and seven letter winners, said Burris. We have seven kids back who can play, including our number one, Sami Murphy. Shes been our number one all four years and its nice to have her to rely on and have that strength at the top.
Everyone is ready to go. They played over the summer and weve already played a couple of challenge sets. We have a good mix. Hopefully we can go out and get it done.
Wooster opens August 15 at Perry, giving them two weeks to prepare.
Usually it seems we only have eight days, so its nice to have the two full weeks, said Burris.
The Wooster High girls soccer team, which was picked to win the OCC, returns a veteran cast among its 34 rostered players.
I think its great to come out and have a purpose doing drills, said WHS coach Les Wudarzewski. Now we have a goal. During the summer were looking at girls and doing drills, and now is the time to start pushing it. Our intensity is not where it is supposed to be yet, but every day were cranking it up.
It has gone as well as expected so far. We have three weeks of practice to get there.
Wooster opens its season at Cloverleaf August 23.
Boys soccer coach Brian Hansen has some holes to fill after winning the OCC crown a year ago, with a dozen seniors missing from last years team.
We have some good numbers (41) and a solid freshman class, said Hansen. The first couple days are always the toughest because you are going over rules and expectations but we had a good first full day of practice. They worked hard. We told them, You came in shape. The pack was pretty tight. Normally when the guys are running you have guys lagging behind but we only had a few. They got into the drills and kept the pace up.
Wooster opens its season August 23 at Orrville.
The Generals volleyball team is in a hurry-up and wait mode. It opened camp August 1 but wont play its first official match until August 27 when it opens at Massillon.
Well have almost a month of practice before we play, so there is no rush, said Jen Snowbarger, who has 33 girls out to help fill the four holes left by graduation. Were going to work on fundamentals and take it slow and make sure everyone understands what were doing. You always have scrimmages to mix things up and see the things we need to work on to improve.
It always seems like a long time, but before you know it the first game is here.
It will be here in a hurry for her father-in-law, golf coach Mark Snowbarger. The Generals tee it up August 8 and have three tournaments the first week and two the following week.
Tryouts started August 1, said Snowbarger, who is down to his 14-man roster. He only has two returning golfers with varsity experience on a roster dominated by five freshmen and five sophomores.
We only have one senior and our two guys with the most experience are our only two letter winners. We lost our main three to four players, he said. Our first match will be Monday at Brunswick and then we play Tuesday and Thursday. We will have five tournaments in before school starts.
We will be young this year, but that will give us some experience for next year.
Nikki Reynolds has high hopes for her girls cross-country team, which is coming off its first regional appearance in school history last fall.
Even though it has been hot, its been cooler than earlier this summer, said Reynolds. The girls are getting acclimated to running with each other – they have been running by themselves or in smaller groups. Right now we have rookie band camp and vacations, so Im guessing we are going to end up with (numbers) in the high teens or low 20s.
We return our top seven from last year, which is good news for any team that happens to, she added. We have several girls who have been running hard and trying to break into the top seven. Im excited to see how the pecking order works out.
