Sports - Page 24

There are some stories about Georgetown Day School (GDS) athletics that the school hears about all the time: the women’s varsity soccer team’s season of undefeated league play, Ziyah Holman’s victories in track and field, and the women’s varsity softball team’s recent Independent School League championship title. Beyond the popular teams, there’s the crew team, which endures exhausting practices that take place before the sun rises, yet remains untriumphant in most competitions. Through spending early mornings together every day, the crew team becomes notoriously close. Alyssa West, a freshman on the crew team, compared the team’s culture to the cross

I played junior varsity baseball this spring and, at full team practices, I had the opportunity to work in the batting cage with newly hired varsity coach, Jonathan Kane. Between his emoji-littered team emails and aggressive use of non-existent hashtags to get the team riled up, Kane’s electric personality has made an impact on both the baseball team and GDS athletics communities. Since I did not have the opportunity to play on his varsity team, I wanted to interview him to learn more about his coaching philosophy.   Q: When and why did you start playing baseball when you were

At this point in Washington Nationals history, it almost seems normal to watch the divisional competition come to a stop while the Nats sprint away from the pack in hot pursuit of yet another 90-plus win season. Despite offseason improvements made by divisional foes Atlanta and Philadelphia, the Nationals, especially Stephen Strasburg, observed as 2017 National League Most Valuable Player, Giancarlo Stanton, who has a career .313 batting average along with three home runs against the Nats pitcher, departs for the New York Yankees as just one of many casualties of the Miami Marlins’ fire sale. Unlike the Yankees, the

Don’t sleep on freshman Ellie Sepúlveda. She is quietly one of GDS’ most elite and top-tier athletes, even though most GDS students don’t know it. In fact, most people don’t fully understand the nature of her sport, rock climbing. But Ellie doesn’t let this lack of recognition discourage her. As a member of the Sportrock Alexandria climbing team, and part of GDS’ own rock climbing team, she trains for over 20 hours a week. She also competes year-round in the USA Climbing youth program, in all three categories of competition: bouldering, lead climbing, and speed climbing. Still, Ellie aims even

When one thinks of video games, they usually think of immersive, fantastical worlds and stories so outlandish as to only be possible within the digital world. Sports video games, however, occupy a niche for gamers hungering for a more realistic experience without sacrificing any of the immersiveness provided by other video games. For many years the sports gaming scene has been dominated by EA (Electronic Arts) Sports. The company’s long-running franchises include FIFA Soccer, Madden NFL football, and NHL hockey. In addition, EA produces a line of basketball titles under the name NBA Live, but California-based 2K Games prevails as

In the last edition of the Augur Bit, my colleague Alexander “Thomp” Thompson met with Physical Education Department Head, men’s varsity lacrosse Head Coach, and chicken connoisseur Taylor Brown. After a thought provoking conversation that left Alexander and the rest of our community speechless, I knew it was my destiny to trek down to the Level One Fitness Center and delve deeper into the identity of the man, the myth, the legend: Taylor Brown. Q: What were your thoughts on the New England Patriots being crowned Super Bowl 51 champions this past year? A: As a small tear crests his

Disappointed, bewildered, and looking for revenge are just a few ways one could have characterized the GDS women’s varsity soccer team at the end of 2016 fall season, after they had found out they had been relegated into the second division of the Independent School League (ISL.) Another way one could characterize them was relieved. For years the GDS women’s soccer program has been producing NCAA Division I and Division III-caliber athletes at a much higher rate than other GDS sports programs. Such players include class of 2015 graduate Hannah Natanson who is a forward for Harvard University, and class

Georgetown Day School (GDS) has never been a particularly athletically-focused school, but some sports are still more prominent than others. Ice hockey players at GDS have long been neglected, and with reason. Fewer than 10 students who play hockey out of more than 500 in the student body is hardly enough to field a team. This situation, however, is hardly unique to GDS. Hockey is not a very well-represented sport in the DC-Metropolitan area; yet, in 2003, a group of students from Woodrow Wilson High School set out to change that underrepresentation by giving local kids a chance to play

Following one of Anthony Belber’s iconic inspirational speeches, the GDS running hoppers placed 2nd overall for the women’s team and 4th overall for the men’s team today at the 2017 DCSAA Indoor Track Championship meet! No better way to spend Valentine’s Day than at an all-day track meet…and yes, the women did get those cool DCSAA sweatshirts for coming in 2nd! Congratulations to all athletes who “ran good” today! 🙂