Preview:

Winter sports came around the corner and I got to interview a few players as well as the girls varsity basketball coach. Forest Grove High School offers girls and boys basketball, Swimming, Wrestling. The seasons came in quicker than the players thought and its time to see how much dedication these players are going to have to play a good and fun season.

Girls basketball:

With the successful season of last year’s Varsity team, taking first in the league, the girls hope to have the same fun and success in the upcoming season. With the excitement and hard work let’s hope the Vikings will show their spirit and push to have a wonderful season.

I got to interview a varsity player to see how she was feeling about this season. Ashlynn Dawson is a junior at Forest Grove High School and is planning to go to college, wanting to pursue basketball there as well. Ashlynn had just moved to the Forest Grove School District from out of state so I asked her how she was feeling about her first basketball season here. She told me “ I’m nervous, but a good kind of nervous!”

I talked to her more about how she liked basketball and how it was like at her other school. She also told me some advice she would have like to know about basketball and it was “ Don’t focus on the negativity, focus on what you can do to help your team.” She told me that at her other school she had focused more on the negative and wished to have focused more on improving as a team.  

As Ashlynn and I were done talking I asked what advice would you like to give any new basketball player… Her advice is “ Don’t think to hard, you play better when you having fun!”

Wrestling:

I got to interview a varsity wrestler, Gavin Rice, a junior here at Forest Grove. Gavin plans on attending college if there are opportunities for him and said if wrestling was one of those, he would for sure continue on with it. I asked Gavin how he felt about this season and he told me, “ I feel great about this season everything seems to be piecing together…” They have a match Friday, December 7th, held at Westview High School. I’ll give a follow-up story to see how the match went!

I wanted to get further insight on how the team practices for the wrestlers so I asked Gavin what a typical practice was like for the team. “ Practices are whatever we make it, whether you take it easy or push yourself to the limits… we all set our own limits.” After knowing how these wrestlers set their own limits and try to improve I wanted to know if Gavin had any improvements he believes he can achieve this season. “Everyday we get better throughout this season so I’ll have to just push myself more.”

I really got to understand the sport a lot better in this interview, so if putting myself in someone’s shoes who doesn’t understand wrestling I asked Gavin if he could give any advice to future wrestlers. This is what he had to say, “ My advice to future wrestlers is to stay calm through it all and stick through it. Everything will come together with time, you just gotta work hard.”