Sports are a very important part of the South community. Even with busy lives and rigorous academics, athletes manage to show up to practice, be their best selves, and be positive with their team. Here are some words from a few South athletes from the Fall season.

South’s Ultimate Frisbee was off to a great start this year with a lot of new players. Practice was productive and constructive, and the number of new incoming players shows promise for the Spring season for both the open (boys) and mixed (girls/gender inclusive) teams. “A massive highlight has been seeing the new players get so much better already, especially for those that have never played,” said Ingrid Noren, a senior and 7 year player. Even though frisbee isn’t as recognized around the school, players make sure to promote the team and make a fun environment for everyone. Noren added “I think we could do more to publicize our team since it is such a great community, has good sportsmanship, and is very inclusive.” Their season ended in October, however, they will start back up in the spring with more players and even greater opportunities.“I’m looking forward to continuing with a great season and how we develop as a team and seeing how the team grows,” Noren said.

This year the Girls Tennis team has gotten more complex in comparison to previous years. In the past, they’ve had enough players to split into JV and Varsity Teams. However, this year the size of the team has made it so they only have one Varsity team. This was due to the number of seniors that graduated with the class of ‘22. “Even though we had a lot of seniors graduating, the team still has the same vibe. We all know each other, we’re all happy,” said Lily Kania, a senior and a 4th year player on the team. The tennis team has run into some other problems of its own, where they have less funding than most sports and have to also travel a mile to their courts in order to start practice. “We have to walk to our courts which aren’t on school property, I can request a bus, but there’s no guarantee it will show up,” said Alex Lehman, alumni and Coach of South High Tennis. Even with all of this, the team still manages to keep its spirits up.

Soccer is one of South’s most recognized sports. Big events like Super Soccer Saturday and massive rival games on our home field, leave the bleachers packed. The student section, parents, and cheerleaders show up excited and riled up for games. One game this season resulted in a South win against Roosevelt, with a 4-2 score. Fans even travel to other schools to support the teams. Liam Edwards, a senior, 4th year player, and 2nd year member of the Varsity team, described the season. “We started our season strong, but then started losing. But we are hoping we win our next few games.” Edwards continued, “We promoted a lot of the team this year. We started an Instagram page and reached out to all the incoming freshmen to get more people to come out and it worked.” They had returning players as well as a number of new players from all grades and skill levels.

While the Fall sports have concluded for the 2022 season, this year has brought some hope for a new era of sports at South.