Sports

7

Surveys show increase in stress-eating among teens

photo by Josh Cox stress.

by JoshUa coX

What do you do when you’re stressed? Some take a relaxing bath, some take a walk. All of us have our methods to try and take the stress off our backs, and it’s the same way with students at NS. But what do nearly half the students do to cope with stress? They eat. “I think everyone does it to some degree,” said NS senior Adam Cox. “There are people who are worse than others.” Not all students eat the nitely a variety. Some just snack on junk food, some really love to eat salty foods such as chips and crackers, and some just eat anything But why do we stress eat at all? “Stress eating is kind of a way to make us feel better,” said Heather Allred, counsel you up.” Using food as a temporary escape from our problems can be good, or bad. A little bit of stress eating can be good, just like a little stress can be good. “If I’m working on a stressful school project, I’ll be like, shoveling [food] down just to give me something to do while doing it,” Cox said. But, too much stress can really take a toll on your mental health and your physical health, if you eat too much. This can be a problem for teens that stress eat, because stress often affects teenagers more than other age groups. “It really depends,” said NS sophomore Shirley Xicotencatl. “But if you’re overweight or something like that, and you just keep eating more and more, it could be really bad.” In a 2018 American Psychological Association survey, it showed that teens tend to be much more stressed than adults. “Teens reported that their stress levels during the school year far exceeded what they believe to be healthy (5.8 vs. 3.9 on a 10-point scale) and topped adults’ average reported stress levels (5.8 for teens vs. 5.1 for adults),” according to the APA. Even things that may not seem important to adults can cause stress for teens. “Things to an adult that might seem trivial to them, seem earth-shattering to a teenager,” Cox said. Teenagers usually don’t even have more stressful situations than adults either, but teens are often not very well equipped to handle stress. “Adults have been in this world longer, so they know how to deal with those feelings of stress, whereas teenagers haven’t been here as long,” said Xicotencatl. Although stress eating is a normal challenge for teenagers, the ongoing pandemic hasn’t helped. In fact, it’s made stress eating much worse in adults and teenagers. “Generally, the two big things that make children emotionally eat are boredom and stress, and we have a lot of that, the children have a lot of that right now,” said Bärbel Knäuper, a professor of health psychology at McGill University. Although the pandemic is a problem, some teens are doing better than others, and it’s the same way with or without COVID-19. “People in families that normally struggle, their struggles have probably increased,” Allred said. “The people that have fairly effective health skills are probably doing better than others.” Even with healthy teens though, most still have their comfort foods. A way to escape the grip of stress, at least for a while.

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Sports

Voice of the North Sanpete Hawks

2 March 2021 www.nstimes.org

8

Drill team takes second place at state

photo by Carson Hadley Drill preforms their Dance routine during state competion at Utah Valley University.

by Abby bench

Resilient. e one word that perfectly describes their team, coaches, and season. After facing and overcoming multiple challenges throughout the school year, NS Drill Team’s competition season comes to a close, ending with them taking rst at region and second place at state.

Although all the girls really wanted to take rst at state, most of the girls look on the positive side and are thankful for what they got.

“Personally, I honestly feel so blessed since it was my rst year,” said sophomore Ava Lamb. “I remember Kiersten saying how many people would kill for second place. I’m glad we got to take something home.” ey brought back their second place trophy to add to the two other state trophies. ey’ve held their position for three years which is a success for them.

“Maintaining that second place and being top ve in the state for three years in a row is a huge accomplishment,” said head coach Kiersten Wheeler.

Being able to get second was de nitely an achievement for them, especially with all the trials they had to go through. is season was full of challenges such as both their coaches being pregnant, problems with routines, and of course, Covid.

“Having to adapt to covid. at’s probably the hardest thing,” said Lamb. “Girls were getting quarantined, girls were testing positive.”

Girls ge ing quarantined caused a lot of problems because their spot would have to be lled until they returned. is means that other girls would have to learn a new part in a routine that some of them don’t usually perform. ey put in the effort and were able to get through it.

Another huge problem for them was that they didn’t even know if they would have a season, a chance to actually perform. With all the uncertainty, it was hard to get into the spirit and have the energy that they usually have.

“I feel like over the summer we knew that there was a chance that we might not go to state, that it could be cancelled,” said Lamb. “So the energy was still there and it was still fun but it wasn’t like we were pushing towards this goal because we didn’t know if we were going to have it.”

Eventually, they knew that they were going to be able to compete and they gave it their all and pushed themselves to do the best they could.

“When we went to region, that was the day for me that something clicked,” said senior and drill mistress Shalyce Cook. “I feel like every girl had a di erent mindset and that mindset really trickled down to everyone. Everyone felt that change and that switch and it really was a good thing for my team.”

Having a positive mindset is important to most of the girls. Having that mindset and having a goal and a purpose really helped them to improve.

“One of our mottos is practice with a purpose, so there was a short period of time when I wasn’t able to be at practice but it didn’t ma er,” said Wheeler. “ ey still needed to come and they knew they still needed to practice with a purpose.”

One way they “practice with a purpose” is for both the coaches and the girls to have a goal in mind and remember and stick with that goal till the end.

“You just have to keep the end goal in mind,” said Wheeler. “Our end goal was obviously state and to do really well at state, and so we always made sure to practice with a purpose and to always keep our end goal in mind no ma er what they were dealing with that week.”

As the year went on they continued to improve both as individuals and as a team. Everyone works on being be er and learning more.

“It’s not just your rookies coming in that need improvement and need to work hard, it’s your rookies and your veterans that come in and need to improve, and so it’s awesome,” said Wheeler. e coaches don’t believe in seniority. Everyone gets treated the same and everyone works hard. Talent is more important than seniority on drill.

“Kiersten doesn’t favor seniority at all. She says that a lot,” said Lamb. “I knew I’d have to push myself if I wanted to be in the dances and so I feel like as a sophomore it really wasn’t that di erent.” No ma er how long you’ve been on the team, the coaches expect you to work hard and push yourself. So does the team. Even when they’re exhausted they continue to give it their all.

Whether they’re on or o the oor, the drill girls are expected to do their best in everything. e coaches want them to succeed in dance and life.

“I’ve put it on myself to try to be the best example that I can be and to try and keep our team united and things like that,” said Cook. e lessons that both the girls and coaches learn from each other the relationships they created will stick with them they’re whole lives.

“I think overall it’s really given me sound ground. I feel like I’ve made lifelong friends, I’ve learned life long lessons,” said Cook. “I’ll never forget it.”

photo by Carson Hadley ond in military, second in dance and fourth in show.

Swim team breaks ve records at state competition

by KennA cooK

Despite major setbacks of 2020, the swim team has been doing be er than ever before. An overall of ve records were broken between the two days of state and state nals. And for the rst time at NS, two freshmen quali ed for state in individual events.

State swim competition was held in Bountiful, Utah, at the South Davis Recreation Center. State swim took place on Friday, Feb. 12 and state nals took place on Saturday, Feb. 13.

Six swimmers from the girls team quali ed for state, and all six girls came through for nals. Senior Hope Christensen broke the girls 100-yard Freestyle record with a time of 58.43. e girls 400 free relay team came seconds within breaking or school record. e girls team placed 14th overall out of nineteen teams.

Nine boys quali ed for state and eight came through in nals. e boys 500-yard Freestyle record was broken twice in one night, rst by junior Joseph Holbrook, followed by fellow junior Gideon Palmer with a time of 6:02.69, breaking Holbrooks record by four seconds and breaking the previous record by thirteen. Kaysen Smith set a new record for the boys 50-yard freestyle with a time of 24.42, breaking the previous record by 0.05 seconds. e 100-yard backstroke record was broken by Kason Ericksen with a time of 1:06.76, taking a li le more than a second o of the previous record. e boys team placed 11th overall out of twenty one teams. Brady Smith, the rst freshman from the boys team to qualify for state in an individual event, quali ed in the 100 backstroke.

“To be honest, it’s pre y amazing,” said Smith, although his state placement wasn’t intentional. “It kind of just happened,” said Smith. Nevertheless his PR (personal record) in the 100 backstroke comes only a few seconds away from the school record. Senior Hope Christensen, one of the best swimmers on the girls team currently holds all eleven of the girls records. She has been on the NS swim team since she was a freshman.

“She is an incredibly hard worker and dedicated to improving herself,” said David LaTomme. “It gets harder to say goodbye to [the seniors] every year.”

Tori Day, the girls rst ever freshman to qualify in an individual event, quali ed in the 200 free, 500 free and the 400 relay.

“I’ve never been pushed this hard to swim at this level,” said Day. She has been swimming for three years with the Mt. Pleasant Betas. She feels that the one thing that has helped her swim her best this year are the newly acquired coaches, Rachel Keller and Jo-Anne Riley. con ict with three coaches.

“I don’t see that happening here,” Said David LaTomme, who has been coaching our team for three years. e three coaches have worked together and blended their coaching abilities together in a way that both LaTomme, Smith and Day agree to be pro table to the team. “We work well with each other and communicate well with each other,” said LaTomme.

As his parting words with all his swimmers until next year, LaTomme le this:

“Don’t give up, because if you do, you will regret it,” LaTomme said.

photo provided by Marcy Curtis Laramie Roberts stares down his opponent at state wresting tournament. Roberts took second overall in his weight class.

by SIRI hUnTInGTon

e wrestling team capped o a successful season by qualifying all varsity wrestlers for state and having three wrestlers place in the top six at state. Senior Laramie Roberts placed second, junior Kylan Taylor placed h, and junior Kasey Curtis placed sixth. “ e three guys that medaled, deserve that medal. e 3A classi cation was a tough classi cation,” said head coach Spencer Dyches. “Probably pound for pound, one of the toughest classi cations in the state and each one of those young men proved that they were deserving of that. You are going to earn what you get and that is what wrestling is. Each one of those young men won their medals respectably.” is past year has been crazy for everyone, and for NS wrestler, Kylan Taylor, it was no exception. roughout the season he fought through an MCL injury as well as having COVID. But Taylor was able to push through it all and take fourth place in region. He then went on to take h overall in the state tournament. State wasn’t easy for Taylor, especially when he lost his rst match of the tournament. “I kinda came out of my rst match and wasn’t that focused and just over thought a lot of things and ended up losing,” Taylor said. Even though he lost, which put him in the consolation bracket, he realized something very important. “A er the rst match I kinda realized that I’ve got to step it up here or else my season is over,” Taylor said. “So [I] just had to push through or else I’d get beat out.” A er ba ling his way through the next three matches, Taylor made it to his last match of the state tournament to wrestle for a chance at h place. “I was wrestling a kid I had already wrestled before and I’d beaten earlier so I wasn’t that nervous about it, but I still was a li le bit because it was my last match of the year,” Taylor said. “But I just got out there and pretty much just wrestled. [I] didn’t really have any struggles and then I was just really happy that I pulled out, in the end, to take h.” Taylor has put in a lot of time preparing for his matches all season long, but much of his energy right before the match comes from warming up. “[I] go out there 10 minutes before my match and get jumping around and get a sweat going,” Taylor said. “I like to drown everything out and get focused and think about what I’m about to do.” Taylor used that edge to come out with the top athletes in the state, despite a season riddled with a lot of time out due to injuries and COVID. Kasey Curtis’s season, on the other hand, was relatively normal, giving him the chance to have a 34-8 record, with a sixth-place nish at the state tournament. “Kasey had never placed at state so it was a huge accomplishment for him. He ba led into overtime to place in the blood round,” Dyches said. Even though Curtis was able to have a good season, he didn’t have as many matches as he would have had in a normal season. During a typical season, the wrestlers usually get about 60 matches total, but due to COVID this year, they weren’t able to have weekend tournaments. is signi cantly dropped their total matches to only 30 to 40. Other aspects of the season that changed due to COVID were where state took place, as well as the length of the tournament. Normally, state would be held at UVU with it being a two-day tournament, but this year Juab hosted it as a one-day event. Despite these changes, the atmosphere of the tournament wasn’t negatively a ected. “It’s always a di erent feel. ey usually have it at UVU, which I don’t know why, but it scares me a li le bit,” Curtis said. Not only does state have a di erent feeling but crazy things can happen just like at any other sport state tournament. “ ere are kids that win all season long and get beat or kids that you don’t see win very o en and for some reason they just ip a switch and win lots of matches,” Curtis said. “ ere are [also] some teams that come out and compete a lot be er than others. It’s just a totally di erent feel than the actual regular season especially with this COVID where we didn’t get as many matches as we usually do.”

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