Tornado Times, December 2019

Out with the old, in with the new Freshman Isabelle Freitas hooks senior Tobias Burrowes with a candy cane. With a semester under their belts, freshmen have begun to get used to the high school environment.

PHOTO BY JAVIER GARCIA

NEWS • page 2

OPINION • page 4

SPORTS • page 7

LIFE • page 10

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December 2019 @TornadoTimes

Vol. 11, No. 2 thetornadotimes.org

Mentors reflect on

Freshman Vincent Derose takes a break after filling out a survey about what clubs he is a member of.

Mentors will use these surveys to recommend clubs for mentees to join.

PHOTO BY MATTHEW SHANBOM

By Matthew Shanbom, Managing Editor

The mentoring program has influenced thousands of freshman and hundreds of mentors since it started in 2013.

“We wanted to match (freshmen) to give them some kind of experience,” said Assistant Principal Jill Samaroo, who has run the program since its inception.

The program utilizes sophomores, juniors and seniors who apply as mentors and are vetted by guidance counselors, teachers and assistant

principals, to guide freshmen along the tough transitional year and help in lessons on skills such as time management and studying.

“I reach out to them every week, and I make sure that they’re doing okay, that their grades are up,” junior Stephanie Vagelos said. “I tell them to contact me and we can work things out.”

While many freshmen dread the mentors when they arrive, the current mentors reflected on the experience as positive in the long term.

“I think as freshmen people

2 | News < December 2019 > @TornadoTimes

are generally upset with the mentoring program,” senior Lily Monaghan said. “Once you get into later years, you realize that the stuff you learned was actually important.”

While upperclassman who are now mentors may reflect positively on the experience, other upperclassmen do not remember it in such a good light.

“I felt like it was a waste of time because we never really did anything,” junior Bianca Santi said. “It would take me out of time that I could (have been) using to study and get

work done.”

While from the freshman point of view it may seem like mentoring is all about learning skills, the program actually has another goal in mind.

Prior to the start of the mentoring program, “a majority of the students (exiting the school) just felt like they didn’t belong to Pompano Beach High School,” Samaroo said.

Mentors use this philosophy to make their mentors feel as comfortable as possible. “(Freshmen) are getting to know one another, getting to know upperclassmen comfortable at this school,” junior Bria Kuntz said.

Still today, every grade has a gradual decline in the number of students with 350 students currently in ninth grade and 257 in 12th, a 27 percent loss.

This loss, while it may be large, is far less than before the mentoring program, according to statistics provided by Samaroo.

Prior to the start of the mentoring program, 40 freshmen exited the school. Most recently, only seven freshmen exited the school.

“Prior to mentoring, we had a large number of students exited due to low GPA,” Samaroo said.

To fill the missing seats, the school fills a dynamic number of seats in the summer before sophomore year.

One thing that has come up repeatedly in conversations with mentors is the cord offered for two years of participating in the mentoring program with good attendance and evaluations. For some mentors this is the primary reason they became a mentor.

“You want to walk on

n 7 year of program th

graduation day with bragging tokens,” sophomore Emma Parker said.

For other mentors, this was only an added benefit.

“I had already chosen in ninth grade before they had said there was going to be a cord,” Monaghan said. “I had already decided I was going to be a mentor.”

Even though the cord can impact the decision to become a mentor, mentors still want to help the freshmen and improve their ability to fit in.

“I think it pushes people to be a good mentor because they think, ‘I didn’t have a

good mentor so I want to be someone for someone coming into this school not knowing people,’” Kuntz said.

Administration has promoted the success of the program to other schools in the district.

Samaroo said the methodology has been proven to be effective in helping students adjust.

DATA COURTESY OF JILL SAMAROO GRAPHIC BY MATTHEW SHANBOM

Senior Lily Monaghan mentors freshmen Nathalie Cia and Kevin Dacruz about ways to reduce stress. The program chose to focus on this topic due to the stress that comes with midterm exams.

PHOTO BY MATTHEW SHANBOM

thetornadotimes.org < December 2019 > News | 3

Senioritis bites!

Seniors must stay on track Senior year is weird. Some of us are schedule. taking five AP classes. Some of us got More often than not, by senior year, accepted into the colleges we want to go to students have perfected the art of puthalfway through October and are simply ting assignments off until they have just holding out until May. Some of us don’t enough time to complete them and earn at want to think about our future until we least a C. That’s all well and good in graduate. Some of us attend school less theory, but in practice, it results in than three times a week. Regardless of which of these categories you may fall into, however, it’s likely that there’s at least a CARTOON BY small part of you that’s ANDREA CASTELLANO eager to start the next phase of your life, be it college, going straight into the workforce or moving into your parents’ attic and becoming a full-time Twitch streamer.

The first quarter back to school is always some pretty mediocre the grades. Colleges look at your easiest. final transcripts, and be it an Ivy Teachers are still League or an instate, the school giving you time to get acclimated to your that you want to go to isn’t looking new course load. However, we’re well past for mediocrity. those first nine weeks. It’s imperative that So how can we avoid all students keep up with their classes, but senioritis? Time management. You may for seniors in particular (and the lucky have perfected the art of procrastination, few students who’ve had senioritis since but that doesn’t mean you should rely on it the day they first stepped into school their freshman year), keeping up with classes isn’t always easy. Seniors have to juggle college apps and applying for as many scholarships as possible in addition to their classes. Add on to that the fact that many students have leadership positions in clubs at school, or a job to pay for the many perks that come with being a senior, and you’ve got one stress-inducingly packed

4 | Opinion < December 2019 > @TornadoTimes

and allow your work to pile up. Make use of your Fridays off, your senior privilege, the hours you spend on binging the latest Netflix original. You won’t always have the privilege of wasting away the hours, and you should break the habit of doing so now rather than halfway through your freshman year of college.

Set deadlines for yourself.

Put your phone down and do the AP Lit essay you’ve been putting off since it was assigned three weeks ago, or study for the anatomy test you have in two days. The sooner you get your schoolwork done, the sooner you can get to applying for the scholarships you’ve been putting off, the sooner you can go out with friends.

It’s about balance and now more than ever, you have to ensure that your scale doesn’t tip too far to one side and set your whole life off track.

The only way out is through. Regardless of what it is you plan to do once you’ve graduated, regardless of how adamantly you hold stock in the belief that you get a clean slate once you leave high school, regardless of how monotonous it may seem when the future is ever so close, you still have to make it through these few months.

Most of us still have requirements to meet and things we want to see through. It’s going to be hard, but in the end, it will be worth it. These months still count, even if you’re convinced that they don’t. What you do now matters, and you don’t want to set yourself up for failure.

Freshman: Mentoring messes up my time By

Alyssa Jiggetts, Staff Intern For the past five years, the school’s mentoring program has promised to help incoming freshmen transition into their high school lives. While this program may seem good and progressive to parents, it truly is utterly useless.

The program forces students to take up their study hall time (which is supposed to be used for important things, like homework, studying or making

up missed work) to engage in activities that are supposed to “bring together students.” Honestly, a game of Apples to Apples or the Name Game doesn’t do anything for students other than waste their time.

To put in perspective how much students hate this aspect of mentoring, every time Ms. Dooling announces their arrival in my study hall, the entire class groans and complains.

To be fair, while the mentors themselves are great and understanding, the time spent doing anything is useless.

In addition to eating up much of the freshman’s time, the mentors themselves also experience a loss of their study time when preparing and par-

Alexis Schatten, Editor in Chief Eduardo Andrade, Managing Editor Matthew Shanbom, Managing Editor Javier Garcia, Sports Editor Kayla Gayle, News Editor Dr. Andrew Shipe, Adviser Staff Interns Avienne Adeline Samantha Bernstien Daniella Cale Ethan Del Campo Frankie Gowdy Alyssa Jiggetts Heather Koach Jennifer Nunes Emma Parker William Strachan

ticipating in the program.

Time wasted that could go into homework or studying is now pushed to after school, which is generally taken up by clubs or activities. So, it turns into a vicious cycle of stacking your time between homework and activities, which all could’ve been solved with the mentoring gone.

From another perspective, one could argue that most of the problems that come with mentoring could easily be fixed by acquiring better time management skills, and it’s a valid point. Most of what people complain about mentoring is that it takes away from doing their homework, but they could easily finish it if they just

Tornado Times is produced by: Pompano Beach High School 600 NE 13 Ave. Pompano Beach, FL 33060 Phone: (754) 322-2000 Email: pbhsnewspaper@gmail.com Website: thetornadotimes.org Twitter: @TornadoTimes Print issues in the 2019-20 school year are planned for October, December, Februrary and April.

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planned and worked around the schedule.

However, the program does raise qualms as many mentors seem to be doing it only to obtain a cord. Moving forward as upperclassmen, the program will have no impact on our high school career whatsoever.

Yet, for the current mentors, it’s only an opportunity to gain another chord while simultaneously wasting our time.

The thing with mentoring is that it has very good intentions and potential. Instead of wasting time doing “fun” activities, time could be spent helping students through their homework or projects if needed. If not, then there’s really no point in them being there.

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thetornadotimes.org < December 2019 > Opinion | 5

Past perfect Young fans know only Dolphins cursed

By Javier Garcia, Sports Editor

Here’s a fun fact: the Miami Dolphins have not won an NFL playoff game in my lifetime, a whopping 16 years. Instead, the team gave me, along with all the other die hard fans, a little tease of success by making the wild-card games twice, once in 2008 and another in 2016, and being blown out by more than double their own points both times.

Let’s start with the numbers before my opinion comes out. We’ll keep the window of time from 2003 to present, my lifetime.

In this span the Dolphins have completed 16 NFL regular seasons, four of which they

broke positive, two broke dead even and finally, a much larger count of 10 losing records. To put that into perspective, the Dolphins have had a winning record only 25% of the years we’re looking. The Dolphins have a .441 win percentage over the course of 16 regular seasons, winning 113 of 256 games.

As if the numbers weren’t enough, specific seasons have left a sour taste in the mouths of fans. If you’re a Dolphin fan, I’m sure you already know which season is coming up first, the 2007, 1-15 season.

I have loose memories of this season, and of those memories, what I remember the

most was the day my father came home from a game and was ecstatic. His celebration would make you think the Dolphins just secured a spot in the Super Bowl, but no, they had just won their first game, with only two games left to save themselves from a winless season. To this day, my father stands by the fact that he, along with the other 20-year-old men with him, cried when the

Meet the coach: Jenkins hoops it up again

By Eduardo Andrade, Managing Editor

After several years away from coaching, Alex Jenkins is back, taking over as head coach for the girls basketball team.

Basketball has been a lifelong game for Jenkins, who organized his own recreational team at a sporting goods store when he was only 15.

Since then, Jenkins has looked to get involved in coaching in anyway he can. He has previously coached boys basketball and football for the school, and has worked on programs outside the school.

“Developing the game of basketball, the game of football, for what it does for young people, you know, it was an avenue for people to develop discipline to balance their life,” Jenkins said.

Jenkins was influenced early in life by little league coaches who left an impact him beyond the court, and he hopes to be able to replicate some of what they did.

“They were more than coaches,” Jenkins said. “They were like fathers to me, and that’s an image I always liked. And it carried over because even coaching now, you know, you have that sense of responsibility. Kids that are at athletic they have more than just basketball problems, more than fundamentals, you know, just basic life problems. So being able to coach athletically, also turns you into a coach as it relates to everyday life.”

6 | Sports < December 2019 > @TornadoTimes

Some of Jenkins happiest moments coaching came with his sons, whom he both coached for and with.

At the Pompano Yellowtails, Jenkins coached his sons in football. Later on, he and his youngest son would coach JV football together and his oldest coached boys basketball with him.

“Being able to do that and they played a part in that, that meant a lot to me,” Jenkins said.

Jenkins has already made some impressive accomplishments as coach. His first goal was “to get girls out” for the team, which struggled to field a starting lineup last year. This year he has a full JV and varsity roster.

“They told me once, ‘if you build a house they’ll come,’” Jenkins said. “(We) just kind of communicated, picked up Coach (Richard) Nagy as an assistant; he’s a very likeable coach. On the campus, you know, he and I have kind of a community between the two of us. And the girls kind of like us as it relates to classroom, so I think that carried over, you know, just believing in girls, telling them they didn’t really need to know how to play the game, just something they can learn.”

However, such growth comes with its downsides. Much of the team has very little experience playing basketball.

“This whole year is going to be about

fundamentals. Learning how to dribble, knowing you can’t double dribble, you have to put the ball on the ground,” Jenkins said.

Such an inexperienced team has left Jenkins facing a new set of challenges most coaches never have to deal with.

“The day they were like ‘Coach, put me on the bench. I don’t want to get in,’” Jenkins said laughing. “I’ve never heard that before. I’ve heard, ‘Coach, can I get in?’ So I’m excited about it.”

To overcome this, rather than going straight to the court for the first practice, Jenkins took his team to the drawing board, going over the basics of the game.

“This is Pompano … most of our students here are academically strong,” Jenkins said. “So I took advantage of that and turned it more into a classroom setting, to teach the fundamentals of the game. If you can take a girl that day one knows nothing and by day 10 she can understand the game, you’re doing well.”

Jenkins hopes to prepare the team for future success and grow the program to be ready to compete.

“What we’re going to try to do is build a program, not necessarily the focal point being winning this year, moreso just coming together as a unit, a group of young ladies bonding,” Jenkins said.

Oakland Raiders players take down Dolphin Marcus Thigpen on Sept. 16, 2012.

The game resulted in a Dolphins victory 35-13, but the team finished the season 7-9. The team has had one winning season since 2009.

PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA Dolphins won that game in overtime.

Here’s the problem with being a Dolphins fan: They suck, but not enough for

you to lose faith in them from the beginning. They’ll beat good teams, and look good while doing so, and then two weeks later lose to the New York Jets. They are good enough to make you shoot out of your seat and cheer them on, and then the next drive it looks like there’s a little-league team substituted in for half of the positions on the field. For example, the season after 1-15, they went 11-5, a promising turnaround and a step on a path of redemption. They had a chance in the playoffs that year as well, but as I said before, they choked the wildcard game. Then, the next four seasons after they fail to break even. From 1-15 to 11-5 to below 7-9 (and worse) for the next four years. Two words: classic Dolphins.

On another note, here is the best thing with being a Dolphins fan; the 1972 sea-

son. In order to really cover all the things that make up a Dolphins fan I have to talk about the ’72 season. It would be treason to call yourself a Dolphins fan and not know about the ’72 season, for your eyes to not glimmer with pride when that year is brought up. The undefeated season, the perfect season, the 17-0 season. They even won the Super Bowl the following year as well. Those glory days are the time every Dolphins fan wishes they were alive, and if they were, they wish they could go back and never leave. The Dolphins are just a small ember of the forest fire it used to be, perhaps burnt out in its former glory, leaving nothing left but ashy remains from its blaze of magnificence, the curse of past perfection.

Santos strikes gold in state swim meet

By Javier Garcia, Sports Editor

Junior Raphael Santos brought home the gold from the state swimming meet in Stuart on Nov. 8. Santos maintained consistent placements leading up to states, winning the 50-meter boys freestyle in districts and regionals, and finishing runner-up in the 100-meter boys freestyle in regionals and states after winning the district event.

Though the results may make it look easy for Santos, he faced challenges in his run of success.

“One of my biggest challenges this year was staying self motivated and coming to

practice as often as possible,” Santos said.

In order to hone his skills and body the junior knew he would have to sacrifice free time, with practice Monday-Saturday and gym workouts Friday-Sunday, so he dialed in and drove through the work.

“I overcame the doubt and hesitation by focusing on swimming and making sure I would not get distracted from my work,” Santos said. “But once I was past that, the work came natural.”

Santos ultimately knew that he had to put in the time in the gym and water to get his goal he had from the beginning.

“States was my goal going into the sea-

son,” Santos said. “And now that I have it, states next year is my goal.”

He had a goal in mind coming into his junior year, and once he realized the commitments it would take, he made them. He won every 50-meter freestyle race from the first meet of the season to the last.

Santos will continue swimming in the off-season for the Pine Crest swimming club, striving to improve beat his personal record as he prepares for the Speedo Winter Junior Championships Dec. 11-14 in Atlanta. .

“It keeps me in the water and racing,” Santos said. “That helps maintain the desire to put in the time and effort.”

He gives most of the credit to the gym, where a three-day-a-week routine put him in racing shape.

“I usually don’t do too much lifting, but this year I went a lot more often with a bigger appetite to lift,” Santos said.

The thrill of victory has motivated him to continue training hard.

“I’m mainly grateful when I look back on winning states,” Santos said. “It acts as a reminder of the work I knew I had to put in, and that if I put it in, I can take it.”

Junior Raphael Santos stands in front of the trophy case in the gymnasium lobby. Santos earned his place among the trophies by winning the 50-meter freestyle and finishing second in the 100-meter freestyle at the state championships on Nov. 8.

PHOTO BY JAVIER GARCIA

thetornadotimes.org < December 2019 > Sports | 7

December

16-19: Midterm exams 17: Soccer vs. Ft. Lauderdale 17: Basketball vs. Plantation

January

6: Basketball vs. Everglades 7: Soccer vs. Cardinal Gibbons

8 | Calendar < December 2019 > @TornadoTimes

8: Final cap & gown order 8: Soccer vs. Coral Glades 9: Basketball vs. Coral Springs Charter 10, 17, 24, 31: SAT Prep for juniors 14: IOC meeting 14-15: JROTC Experience Day 21-23: Multicultural show auditions 22-23: Mentoring 27: Prom early bird sale

February

4: Boys basketball 4-5: Mentoring 7, 14, 21, 28: SAT Prep for juniors 13: Multicultural show 19: College Fair 21: History Fair 24-26: FSA Retakes

Football team finishes strong, beats Pembroke Pines 21-0

The boys football team won its final game of the year last Friday Nov. 1, beating Pembroke Pines Charter 21-0 and finishing the season with a 2-8 record. This cements a two win improvement over the last season, when the team failed to win any games.

Where is the “why”?

Let me make something clear, Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of the year with many things for all types of people to enjoy. That said, it seems to be microscopic in comparison to the holiday it precedes , Christmas.

Regardless of so much being accompanied with Thanksgiving, Christmas outshines it, literally, but is that a good thing?

Give second thoughts to your second cup

For all the coffee drinkers out there who can’t go a day without their Iced Macchiato from Dunkin’ Donuts, you are technically addicted to a stimulant. So, in official terms, you are a drug addict.

While coffee is great for keeping you up after your all-nighters, it can have multiple added effects like increasing headaches, agitation, and anxiety, and at this school, anxiety is high.

thetornadotimes.org < December 2019 > On the Web | 9

Left: Seniors Julia Cerretta, Tomomi Sawaguchi-Souza and Taylor Graham pose with the flags of the countries they went to at the Rotary Club’s Country Reveal. Cerretta went to Finland, Sawaguchi-Souza went to Croatia and Graham went to Peru.

Top right: Cerretta poses at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Cerretta traveled to Finland’s neighboring countries almost every weekend during her exchange trip.

Middle right: Sawaguchi-Souza poses with her host Croatian family at the airport. All of Sawaguchi-Souza’s classes were taught in Croatian, so she learned the language very well.

Bottom right: Graham poses with Rotary friends in Huacachina, Peru. Graham learned to sandboard while on her exchange trip.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF TOMOMI SAWAGUCHI-SOUZA, JULIA CERRETTA AND TAYLOR GRAHAM

Returning exchange students readjust

By Alexis Schatten, Editor-in-Chief

Of the 255 students in the class of 2020, three students decided to join the Rotary Exchange program after attending a class assembly for sophomores. Seniors Julia Cerretta, Taylor Graham and Tomomi Sawaguchi-Souza spent their junior years in Finland, Peru and Croatia, respectively.

The three seniors returned to Florida over the summer and have since had to readjust to life both in Florida and at Pompano.

“I’m still adjusting,” Graham said. “I miss not worrying about college or my GPA.” Graham didn’t take any classes during her year abroad, instead opting to focus more heavily on immersing herself in the differences in culture and language Peru had to offer. However, she only needs four credits to graduate because she took dual classes during her sophomore year. Both Graham and Sawaguchi-Souza are early admission students, so they take classes exclusively at Broward College.

Cerretta, however, is the only senior that didn’t have the option for senior privilege. Unlike Sawaguchi-Souza and Graham, Cerretta chose to stay on campus for her senior year because she “wanted to have the full senior experience,” in her words. She is currently taking U. S. History in addition to the required classes

10 | Student Life < December 2019 > @TornadoTimes

for seniors.

“I have five core classes and that’s kind of difficult,” Cerretta said. “Coming back and sitting in class and trying to focus and going from one class to another, to another, to another, and then lunch and coming back (is hard because) when I was (in Finland) I went to one class and then had a break.”

Although getting used to school is hard, Ceretta says that she feels as though her year abroad has prepared her for college. She said it would be easier to adjust because she experienced more freedom and she got to choose which classes she took and when to take them.

“It was a lot like college,” Cerretta said. “I chose all my classes and I decided to take afternoon classes because I didn’t want to mess with waking up early.”

The three seniors have all applied to colleges for next school year. According to Sawaguchi-Souza, exchange programs look really good on applications.

“I think that colleges really like to see that high school students went on exchange,” she said. “Not only is it impressive to see that a 16 year old managed to live in a different country for a year, but it shows maturity, responsibility and global awareness.”

Top rail on bottom

Freshmen deal with stress of transition

By Daniella Cale, Staff Intern

No more than four months ago, freshmen were at the top of their school: they were the oldest, the most experienced and best prepared, yet as they enter high school, they’re back at the bottom with no clue how anything works.

Among this year’s group of freshmen, there are five common issues they seem to agree on: organization, time management, workload, social life and pressure.

“It was hard for me in high school,” ninth grade counselor Lori Carlson said. “I do remember feeling worried about making friends specifically, though.”

Transitioning from middle to high school can be a scary experience for some since it’s so different from middle school: the school is bigger, the grade levels aren’t as separated, the students behave differently and even if it’s not hard, it’s almost like a culture shock to some.

“Being social in a new school is very difficult,” freshman Angelinna Mallozzi said.

“The environment is completely different, and that ends up changing the people as well.”

Though socialization seems to be a recurring problem, out of the 100 students who were polled, most chose learning how to manage their time as the hardest part of entering high school. Following time management was the hardest part to 34% of students, followed by dealing with the workload at 25%, being well organized at 18%, socialization at 15% and then overcoming the pressure of high school at 8%.

“The biggest (issue) is time management,” Carlson said. “The Fridays that students have off are important. Many students wake up at 11 or 12 in the afternoon and then go on their phone only to find that it’s now three (o’clock), and none of their work is done.”

Having an extra day off gives students more time to finish the work that several freshmen say is a lot, but by using their Fridays correctly and maybe even establishing and sticking to a schedule, they can

possibly overcome this common issue.

“Organization and time management go hand in hand,” Carlson said.

In order to correctly manage your time, you need to know what you need to get done in the first place and how work there is. A big workload can be taken care of quickly with good planning.

“I write down everything and set reminders and timers on my phone,” freshman Bryanna Downing said. “Sometimes I even write on my hand to make sure I remember something.”

On top of the educational issues many freshmen face, some students struggle with emotional problems as they transition to high school.

“I feel like the pressure is very hard for most people to deal with simply because some feel they are not ‘good enough’ if they don’t get high grades, and others are pressured to do well by strict parents,” Mallozzi said.

And though many things can cause confusion and give new students a hard time, there are also many ways to overcome these things. If you aren’t able to make your own solutions, you can go to staff members, such as Carlson, for help.

“Every day, I have at least a couple of kids coming to me,” Carlson said, “No one should be afraid to ask questions because they are definitely not the only one.”

Between the mentoring program, meetings that focus on improving specific skills and personalization for academic and social learning (PASL), the school does many things to help freshmen adjust to high school. Some freshmen, however, think that the school shouldn’t have to give so much help, and that improvement comes with experience.

“If we don’t ever figure things out on our own, we’ll never really learn,” Downing said.

Freshmen Maximus La Puerta and Ayan Jaouhar work together to complete an assignment.

Freshmen have to use their study hall time wisely to balance their busy schedules.

PHOTO BY ALEXIS SCHATTEN

thetornadotimes.org < December 2019 > Student Life | 11

The girls soccer team had a record of 2-4 after a 5-1 win against Plantation on Dec. 5.

“We all want to win, so we’re working on learning together,” senior central defender Lily Monaghan said.

After receiving an influx of new players, many are playing out of position, sometimes switching positions each game. This has resulted in communication on the pitch suffering.

“We struggle with making sure we’re talking on the field,” Monaghan said.

The team’s next game is Dec. 13 at home against Pembroke Pines Charter.

The boys soccer team had a record of 1-51 following a 2-2 draw against Plantation Dec. 5.

“I feel like this season feels a bit more game-packed,” junior Steven Katz said.

“We had very few practices before the first games, and we have had two to three games a week.”

The team is also adjusting to its new players, after several key members graduated.

“It’s hard for the freshmen to adjust to this hectic life of sports, so we sometimes have not as many players at practices or games,” Katz said.

The team’s next game is at home against Pembroke Pines Charter on Dec. 13.

The competitive cheerleading season began with two mini-competitions on Nov. 20 and Dec. 2.

“These events are perfect to introduce the new girls on the team how competing is and give them a feel of what performing in front of an audience is like,” sophomore captain and flyer Brooke Sacca said. “We did really well for what we performed with.”

The boys basketball team started 0-3, taking Piney Grove Boys Academy to overtime in a 71-64 loss on Nov. 26.

“This year I feel like we have to work together as a team,” freshman guard Eric Campbell said. “Once we accomplish that, then I believe that this team can go places.”

The next home game will be against

Hollywood Hills on Dec. 12.

The boys JV basketball team lost its first game of the season to Western on Nov. 25. Freshman forward Micah Williams has faith in what the team can do this year.

“You know I feel like as a whole we are getting together as more of a team now instead of as individual players,” Williams said.

The team’s first game back from Winter Break will be against Stoneman Douglas at home on Jan. 21.

Girls basketball was 0-3, coming closest to victory in its first game, a 20-16 loss Nov. 19 against Taravella.

“We are a young team with a majority (of) underclassmen, so we need to continue to grow our skill,” sophomore Kobie Jay said.

The team will have a three-game homestand on Dec. 11, 12 and 17.

JV girls basketball will have its first game of the season Dec. 18.