This is part two of a two part series featuring area seniors in spring sports. The start of spring sports is upon us, so we took the opportunity catch up with the athletes of those teams to see what they are doing to prepare for the upcoming rivalries and to offer some perspective on the season ahead and their plans for the future.

VIEW PART 1 – Ellwood City Spring Sports Q&A

Riverside Track

Jenna Hayson

Grade: 12

Events: 4x800m relay, 400, 800, 4x400m relay

How many years have you been in Track? 4

What do you feel is your biggest strength in track? 800

What is your favorite part of it? being with my teammates

How have you and your group been getting ready for the new season? All of us have been working super hard since the beginning of the season and some of us through the winter as well.

Who do you feel is your biggest rivalry this upcoming season? shenango

What is one skill you have learned from track that you will utilize in your future and how? Work ethic; by making goals and working to achieve them in track and other sports, I can apply this to my school work in college, and to my future career.

What has your favorite memory been over the years? placing 6th at WPIALs in the 4×800 last season

What are your future plans after graduation? Will you continue to play sports after high school? I plan on attending Colgate University to study environmental geology. I haven’t decided if I will play sports in college.

Megan Zelch

Grade? 12

Events: 100m hurdles, 300m hurdles, 4×400 relay and I sub into triple jump, long jump, or the 200m depending on where I am needed for that meet.

How many years have you been in Track? 6 years; since middle school

What do you feel is your biggest strength in track? I think my biggest strength is the 100m hurdles.

What is your favorite part of it? My favorite part of track is the social aspect of the meets. Most of the time during a meet, we are standing or sitting around waiting for our events so it feels like I’m just hanging out with my friends. I also like to meet and talk to my competition- it sounds strange but everyone is super friendly.

How have you and your group been getting ready for the new season? A few of our girls did winter track this year, which is great because they have been preparing since December, so they have a great start already. Besides that, we have been practicing hard and trying some girls in new events to see where everyone fits in. We have had a few scrimmages which have looked good for us. We have a great team this season.

Who do you feel is your biggest rivalry this upcoming season? I think our biggest rivalry this season is Shenango or Mohawk. They are both really strong teams but we are also a strong team.

What is one skill you have learned from track that you will utilize in your future and how? In track I’ve learned how to find motivation from myself. Track is an individualized sport, and your outcome is based on how you individually do. So I’ve learned how to motivate myself at practice to try to do the best that I can each time. It’s all about how much effort you decide to put in. I can take this with me in my future when I meet difficult obstacles in my life.

What has your favorite memory been over the years? My favorite memory from track was from my freshman year when we were at the MAC invitationals. This meet is very long because there are so many schools there. By the end of the meet, most people were done with their events, so there was a huge crowd of athletes from all different schools in the middle of the football field. In the crowd-everyone was having fun: there was a backhand spring competition, dance competition and I think some people even did backflips. It was so fun to hang out with random people that all had this one thing in common— track and field.

What are your future plans after graduation? Will you continue to play sports after high school? My plans are to go to college majoring in Environmental Studies. I do not plan to be on any sports team in college but I plan to stay active with intramural sports and maybe club teams.

Riverside Baseball

Logan Greer

Grade: 12

How many years have you been in Baseball?  I have played baseball for Riverside for 4 years, however one of those years was unfortunately canceled due to COVID-19.

What do you feel is your biggest strength in Baseball? I feel like my biggest strength in baseball is my pitching abilities.

What is your favorite part of it? My favorite part of pitching in baseball is the feeling of knowing that you’re the one controlling the game. The whole field and game is based on you and what you do.

How have you and your group been getting ready for the new season? My team and I have been working extremely hard to prepare for the upcoming season, we have been conditioning and practicing every day after school, and even over the winter we were practicing pitching in the gym. A lot of the guys have also been hitting the gym to lift as well.

Who do you feel is your biggest rivalry this upcoming season? I feel like our biggest rivalry this year will be Ellwood, as we are the most competitive with them in almost every sport.

What is one skill you have learned from Baseball l that you will utilize in your future and how? One skill that I have learned from baseball that I can use in my future would have to be the way I have to work with a team to complete the task at hand. I think that this is an extremely important skill to have as most careers include working in groups or teams to overcome jobs or tasks.

What has your favorite memory been over the years? My favorite memory over the years would have to be when I was playing for the Colt League team this past summer. We were able to battle our way through the playoffs to make it to the championship game, and even though we lossed it showed a lot as our team had so much fun doing it.

What are your future plans after graduation? Will you continue to play sports after high school? My future plans after high school include going off to college. I have committed to Allegheny and will study computer science and engineering. I will continue my golf career in highschool and I would love to be part of the Allegheny golf team next year.