Each season is a fresh start, but sport rivals usually tend to remain the same. All the spring sports are working hard with their biggest rivals in mind as they prepare. According to the varsity coaches and athletes for track, baseball and girls soccer, beating their rivals will be a competition this season, but it’s possible.

“Our biggest rival is probably Sycamore or Burlington Central. I feel like we enjoy beating those guys more than anyone,” social science teacher and sprints coach Patrick Ryan said.

Not only does Ryan think that the track team will succeed in beating the tougher teams, but he thinks they will go above and beyond and accomplish even more goals as a team and as individuals.

“I think we can compete with a lot of schools. We can make some noise down state this year, and maybe even come home with a trophy which would be really nice for this group of seniors. They have been really dedicated,” Ryan said.

For the girls soccer team, social science teacher and varsity Coach Scott Parillo says they’ve already shown extreme talent after only a few games so far this season.

“We’ve been having an incredible season, the girls are doing awesome,” Parillo said.

With their biggest rivals in mind, Sycamore and Dekalb, practicing their hardest and keeping up their best work is all Parillo hopes the girls will do.

“We aren’t going to do anything special to get ready to play against the teams, I just hope to get some scouting reports of the teams so we can take a look at those before we play them sometime this week,” Parillo said.

Along with those few sports, junior Jake Bilotta speaks for his whole baseball team when he says that he thinks they’ll play strongly against their rival, Yorkville.

“I think we have a good chance of beating Yorkville this year; our defense is pretty strong and our pitcher will do really well against them,” Bilotta said.

The team knows they have things to work on until then, though.

“We definitely need to work on our hitting,” Bilotta said.

The athletes are off to a good start. All the varsity athletes know what it takes to beat their rivals, and the upcoming games will show the outcome of all their hard work.