Commentary: Unrecognized sports at Corona del Mar

When someone mentions sports at Corona del Mar (CdM), what comes to mind? Perhaps soccer, football, tennis or volleyball?  What about those sports that are not as popular, such as softball, equestrian and wrestling? At CdM, several sports get a lot of recognition, but some get very little. Even though equestrian is a club at CdM, a couple of students get equestrian as their independent P.E.

“A club that does not get recognized at CdM very much would be equestrian,” said sophomore Kayla Daruty.

Why not? All are very competitive in their own ways. Two reasons may be that not as many people join these sports, or that the budget is too small.

“When we go to equestrian after school there is only a couple of girls that do it,” said Daruty.

Though equestrian is small in number, they work hard year round.

“After school about four days a week we go and ride our horses and then in the fall we do shows in San Juan Capistrano,” added Daruty.

The equestrian team puts in a large amount of time, so that they can get good outcomes.

Along with equestrian, wrestling is an uncommon sport at CdM according to freshman wrestler Sam Hurwitz.

“Since the team is not that big, you get a lot of one-on-one time with the coach,” said Hurwitz.

All of the attention each wrestler gets from the coach shows when it comes to competition time.

“During our practices, we drill moves and practice to get better,” said Hurwitz.

Even though wrestling is not particularly well-known at CdM, the students involved work very hard to become a better team.

“During our season in the winter we practice every day of the week and then we normally have a tournament or meet on the weekends for about nine hours or more,” Hurwitz said.

“My friends and I have won a match before. Even though I spend nine or more hours wrestling, I still think that it is a ton of fun,” Hurwitz added.

As we can see the wrestlers at CdM put multiple hours of work into wrestling and many times they get good outcomes.

Along with wrestling, softball has a very small team that is not very popular at CdM.

“I think CdM is not that well-known because in the last couple of years we have been having trouble getting our name out there. This year our skill level is much higher than it has previously been,” said senior Brooke Franson.

Softball had a tough time getting girls to come out to play, but this year the softball team has 16 girls.

“Our season starts in spring, and we practice three times a week. In the off season, we practice every day if we do not have a game,” Franson said.

The softball team puts in a lot of hours to get ready for their games.

“I really encourage people to come out and watch us this spring, because softball is extremely entertaining and our team has a ton of potential to do well this year,” Franson said.

Even though the last couple of years they have not been at their best, this year the softball team thinks that they will do pretty well.

Even if not all sports get the same recognition that others do, some of the lesser known sports at CdM are trying to reach out to more people and become better teams. Perhaps during some part of this year, you should go watch some new sports that you have never thought of cheering for before.  You might be surprised at what you see.

Photo courtesy of Kevin Chang.