Seniors Off to Make Their Mark in the NCAA

Rachel Nelson

Senior Rachel Nelson has been playing club volleyball since she was 11 years old and will continue to play next year for California Polytechnic Institute (CalPoly).

“I’ve accomplished a lot of my goals volleyball-wise by sacrificing my social life at times,” Rachel said. “It definitely gets hard juggling volleyball with school since we travel out of state a lot. I’ve also had to learn time management and not giving up.”

Rachel plays Division I volleyball and is often gone for multiple weekends in a row.

“I pretty much have no life in club volleyball season,” Rachel said. “I’ve had to do a lot of training on the side too to prepare me for Division I since they expect you to be in really good shape when you show up in August.”

Erin Hicks

Senior Erin Hicks is attending Santa Clara University in the fall to run Division I cross country and track.

“This year I have accomplished my goals in running by really focusing on track,” Erin said. “Last year I played lacrosse during track season and had to miss a lot of track practices, and this year I knew it was going to be my last year of track at LAHS. In order to concentrate on my running I chose not to play lacrosse.”

Erin plans to work with her college coach next year on improving her speed and developing a stronger kick at the end of the race.

“Right now my 3200m PR is 11:08 and my 1600m PR is 5:10, so if I don’t break 11 minutes for the 2-mile at CCS semifinals then that will certainly be my goal for next year at college,” Erin said.

Spencer Wells

Spencer Wells will be playing on the boys basketball team at UC Santa Cruz next year. He hopes that once his shoulder heals he will be a starting player on the Division III team.

“I love basketball because the feeling of teamwork and success pours into everything you do in life,” Spencer said. “I love the feeling of winning and sharing that experience with other people. I love the competition and it drives me to do my best at anything I participate in. It also keeps me in shape, focused and organized.”

He is excited for the challenge of playing tough teams next year.

“I am looking forward to playing great competition as we have three Division I teams on our schedule for next year,” Spencer said.

Scott Stephens

Scott Stephens will be competing on both the Division III varsity swim team and water polo team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) next year.

“It has always been a dream for me to play [water polo] at a collegiate level,” Scott said. “Ever since I was a kid my parents and I have always joked about them coming to see me play in college. I can’t really envision my life without either of these sports. I plan on doing both because they complement each other.”

Scott is excited to be an NCAA athlete next year.

“I am definitely looking forward to knocking some heads on the East Coast, maybe turning some in the stands,” Scott said.

Eric Safai

Eric will be running cross country as well as indoor and outdoor track at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

While Eric also loves playing soccer, he doesn’t know if he will be able to play competitively.

“[School soccer] may be out of the question, since it would conflict with running,” Eric said. “My coach probably would prefer a full commitment.”

Eric said running at MIT was not originally part of his plan.

“I tried to look towards college without sports as a selling point, but with MIT it worked out well,” Eric said.

Eric said his concern isn’t time management, but rather the nature of a long-term sports commitment.

“I think that MIT is going to be a lot of work, but a lot of fun,” Eric said. “Talking with some of the runners currently on the team, it sounds like sports and school are pretty easy to manage as long as you stay focused. The thing I’m really worried about is becoming exhausted physically, since I’ve never trained year-round.”

Sean Kawaguchi

Sean will be playing golf at Dominican University, a Division II golf school in San Rafael, CA.

“It’s a huge relief to be done with the college golf process,” Sean said. “I decided on Dominican because I really liked the school and knew it would be a lot of fun to play golf there.”

Sean has worked hard on honing his skills.

“I’ve worked really hard to accomplish my goals,” Sean said. “I fly down to Las Vegas once a month for a golf lesson and I play every weekend. When I’m not playing for fun, I’m competing in tournaments around the area.”

Paige Logan

Paige Logan is playing volleyball and basketball and throwing at the California Institute of Technology this upcoming school year. Her goals for her first year of college athletics are to help the basketball team qualify for the conference tournament and to break the school’s shotput record as she can already throw further than it.

“I’m just excited I get to keep doing all my sports at the collegiate level,” Paige said. “I get to have fun with them since it’s a chill Division III program and still have enough time for academics and friends.”

She has played club sports in addition to her school sports for the past few years and has found they improved her own personal skill for team sports such as basketball and volleyball.

Mairead Mahoney

Senior Mairead Mahoney grew up around crew but only began to row during her freshman year.

“I always knew that I wanted to try it,” Mairead said. “When I started out, I was on a small team that no one knew about. We didn’t win anything and we didn’t expect to.”

Mairead is going to be a member of the UC Berkeley Crew Team in the upcoming school year.

“At the moment Cal has the top women’s crew team in the country, and I am really fortunate to be able to be a part of that,” Mairead said. “I worked really hard at school and at practice for four years to be able to have this opportunity presented to me.”

Katie Crum

Katie Crum will be joining Gonzaga University’s Division I women’s soccer team next fall.

“I want to push myself to the next level and am not ready to stop playing soccer competitively,” Katie said. “Also, it will be a nice transition to college having a whole team of all different grades of people that I will already know before school starts.”

Katie has played soccer since a young age and has always loved the “team atmosphere” and the “super competitive spirit” of the game.

Katie is looking forward to traveling all over the West Coast to play some of the best teams.

“All the free gear at the beginning of the season will be awesome,” Katie said.

Tessa The

Tessa, having played golf since she was young, has decided to continue playing the sport at the University of Colorado at Boulder next year.

“I’ve liked golf since I was a kid, mostly because I used to think hitting a white ball around was easy, but as I started to play it more I realized how tough it was,” Tessa said. “It’s an activity that can be played for a really long time and requires a strong mental aspect.”

Next year, Tessa is looking forward to traveling and also being a part of a girls team.

“Our school only has a guys team, so this will definitely be a whole new experience for me,” Tessa said.