The 2016-17 school year is coming to a close, but the school’s sports teams are already gearing up for 2017-18 as offseason workouts are the focus of athletic periods.

“I’m not sure what else we would do if we weren’t prepping for season,” volleyball player Jenna Wenaas said. “Since so many of the volleyball girls play volleyball during the summer, I think it’s still beneficial to do it in the spring because we will continue to get better throughout the summer. We’ve been working a lot on conditioning and weight, so strength and also just getting into new positions.”

Current freshman, sophomores, and juniors are adjusting to playing without seniors as a sneak peek into next season.

“It’s different because, me I’m going into my senior year, it makes me have to step up and be the leader on the team instead of kind of relying on Jordan (Hamilton) and Rebecca (Lescay) to be that leader,” basketball player Katelyn Burtch said. “It makes me and some of the other girls step up and fill those shoes.”

For the football it’s a slightly different process as the team can have 18 spring practices which allows them to do some different things than strength and conditioning exercises.

“There is a thought process behind ‘oh okay they’re gonna do it at the end of school, then have a large break, they’re gonna forget what they did’ but you get more time to evaluate your guys,” assistant football coach Justin Koons said. “I think that’s the benefit of spring ball. We are evaluating our talent and our players that are going to step into those varsity spots for next year.”

Even sports that recently completed their seasons are taking advantage of offseason workouts.

“We do a lot of scrimmaging drills and work on defending mostly because that is our weak spot,” soccer player Coleman Hatfield said. “The point of having practices now is getting to know each other and getting to interact with one another and figuring out each other’s strengths.”