Month: December 2018

By Drew Olaviano

 

The PHHS Pirates JV Football team played their last regular home game against the Leland Lions on the football stadium in Nov. 2, 4 p.m.

With the team’s tough loss against the Lions at 14-21 during the senior night, Friday Night Lights, their overall record came to a close at 5-4.

The Pirates’s game against Leland started off well with both teams kicking off to 7-7. The Pirates were able to advance their score, and by halftime the Pirates led by a seven point lead at 14-7.

After halftime, however, the Pirates fell short. Despite the lack of scoring from both teams, the Lions pulled a breakthrough. The Lions scored quickly against the Pirates during fourth quarter. They led the entirety of the fourth quarter with the result of 14-0 and it was clear that the Lions finished the game with a tough loss for the Pirates.

The Pirates have lost, however, despite the tough loss and fallouts throughout the entire season with injuries and overall team plays, there are still high expectations for the next season.

“Overall season, I mean, it was difficult, but I think it turned out pretty good. I mean, we came together at some point, but there (are) times where we (lose) and where we kind of played individual football, but it still worked out at the end. We put our best, the end result was the end result,” said Outside Linebacker Diego Renteria on his feelings about the team’s performance.

Many players agree that this year’s season was tough, however stay motivated that they’ll improve more before next season starts. Many people enjoyed the tough fight against the Lions despite the loss and were met with warm applause from the audience who thoroughly enjoyed the difficult fight.

Many of the audience members stuck throughout the entire game and even stayed to watch the varsity team compete against the Lions’ own varsity team. Morale was high, many staying to buy food and support their team. Piedmont Hills’ special guests of many junior cheerleaders also raised the morale high for the team and audience. Despite the loss, the football team stuck around in high spirits to thank the opposing team.

Overall, the season ended with an estimated win-loss rate of about fifty percent. The team are now hoping to improve their overall record in the future once the next season starts. However, the team will have to enhance their performance as both an individual and as an entire group.

“(We’ll improve) definitely (on) our speed and offensive plays,” informed Renteria on the specifics of where the team’s improvements will be focused on.

The future is unknown, however the team are aiming to reach a desirable future once the next season comes through, knocking on the door.

Their strong desire to lead the league with a better performance will be shown next season. Once next season rolls into the season, please go out and support the team!

By Andrew Wong and Rex Ly

 

Winter season is approaching soon and the wrestling team is back with a fresh new start. With returning members and new recruits joining the team, Coach Bacillo Monterroso ensures that he prepares every team member with strong training from the basics until the members in the wrestling team are prepared for upcoming matches. Every week, the team meets up during Tuesdays through Thursdays. Generally, the team starts practice at 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. and each day of practice is about two hours long.

“I was interested in joining and I wanted to know what wrestling was like. I want to be able to wrestle properly because I know I’m not ready for actual matches yet, but I’m expected to be a little experienced at wrestling,” stated junior Alan Nguyen.

The training is expected to last until February so that every single member of their team can prepare for their first competitive match. The team are preparing to compete against Fremont, Silver Creek and any other high school in the East Side Union District.

However on such occasions for practices, team members can participate in events called the Duel Week which is another term for a team scoring system. During duel week, team members and other teams from different schools compete in skirmishes. When a wrestler wins not only does the wrestler score, but it goes to the entire team however the points awarded are dependent on the conditions, unlike other sports such as boxing and golf.

“Our future plans for the Piedmont Pirates is to get back into the A league. We started off as that in the A league, as the highest competition 3 years ago, and we’re escalating now this season to get back up there. We have a few big tournaments coming up as well as dual meets. The tournaments that we’re shooting for are around January 7th and 14th. We want to win all of our home matches to show some good techniques, so we’re strengthening and conditioning in techniques and adding everything into the game plan,” said Coach Monterroso.

Not only team members can participate, but everyone is welcomed by the team to participate and join the club. If you’re ever interested in the sport of wrestling, consider joining the wrestling team. Even if you have no experience at all the PHHS team welcomes anyone who may want to join.

By Terry Tang

 

Senior Samantha Tran and sophomore Tyanne Tran are sisters who ran in BVAL (Blossom Valley Athletic League) and are qualified for CCS (Central Coast Section) Cross Country Championship.

S.Tran had been doing cross country since middle school while her sister also joined in middle school to compete with her sister.

“I choose to join cross country because when I was in middle school, I watched my sister run XC and I wanted to be as fast as her and I also wanted t push myself to see what I’m capable of accomplishing!” said T.Tran

“I think this year was a rough season for the team because we didn’t have summer conditioning. It was pretty tough getting back in shape for most of us and adjusting to different workouts with new coaches and all,” said S. Tran

Cross country usually have conditioning in the summer, but this year started on the second day of school. This is the first year that they have not made CCS. Despite not making CCS the team has still managed to maintain their spot in the A-League. The team usually run two miles every day to build up their strength and stamina to prepare themselves for the cross country meets.

“I think our team put our hearts out into the courses and we really did the best we can give the circumstances of not having summer conditioning,” said T. Tran.

“I was surprised that my sister and I made (it into) CCS because competition was really though this season,” said S. Tran.

Cross country meets are usually held at Montgomery Hill. T. Tran’s time was 20:48 with her older sister S. Tran following close behind with a 21:01.

Some of the schools that competed in BVAL included Westmont and Independence. Piedmont Hills is one of the top teams as they are in the A-League.

“We run different distances every day because we usually want to work on different areas to improve our running. An example of this can be like a long run can help improve our endurance while a short run will help improve our speed.” stated varsity cross country runner Alex Sen

This year’s CCS has been delayed two times due to the poor air quality and has been set to Sat. Nov. 17.

Coach Tan Nguyen and Coach Elisa Bryant have experience in running with not only just cross country, but also with track and field, weight training and dieting. They have degrees like kinesiology to help their players and also work out isolation practices in case a player gets injured. Assistant Coach Brandon Nguyen himself is working towards a Kinesiology degree which can help him in future careers like a personal trainer or full time coach.

“The coaches really believe in our abilities and they motivate all of us to push ourselves through our mental barriers. They help build strong team bonds to make us feel more confident as a team. I appreciate them for everything,” said S. Tran.

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