Anika Zepeda

Junior forward Ali-Raza Rizvi dribbles the ball across the field as he searches for a teammate to get an open shot. The boys JV soccer team came out on top with a win 3-1 at Parkway South to give momentum heading into the rest of the season. “Although in soccer I try to keep my mindset the same against every team I play, against rivals the intensity rises before the game even starts,” Rizvi said. “In order to prepare for these types of games, I let the intensity fuel me to play even better than normal games.”

#BeatSouth was the motto for the beginning of the fall season when the varsity softball, field hockey, all levels of the football and soccer teams and all levels of the tennis team came out with wins over South. 

“Our athletes certainly spend a lot of time improving their craft and preparing and focusing on winning. I am always excited for our student-athletes and coaches when their hard work manifests itself in competition with a win regardless of the opponent,” Athletic Director Brian Kessler said.

The boy’s varsity football team defeated South 21-6 with sophomore running back Tyree Simms leading the way.

“My mentality was to just play ball and to not get out of my element,” Simms said. “[If that happens], mistakes will be made and that won’t benefit me nor the team.”

For the football team, every year they look forward to playing other schools in the district, and when they get their chance to finally play them, it motivates the players to play harder.

“Since South is our game opener, and they’re another rival, we’ve got to beat them. There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it, or else we will hear about it from them for the next upcoming year,” junior linebacker Jailyen Jones said. 

The soccer team soon followed the trend of beating South when all levels came out with wins.

“Everyone had really hyped all the guys up on social media, so we just wanted to keep the train rolling against South,” sophomore and central defender Alex Spangler said. 

Varsity boys soccer conquered South in penalty kicks and sophomore midfielder Matthew Parnas scored one out of the three goals. 

“They were up by two goals with 10 minutes left to go, and we scored a penalty kick and a header goal within two minutes to tie the game. Then we went through two periods of overtime with no scores until we went into shootouts and won, and that was the best feeling ever–plus [South’s] student section was pretty rambunctious,” sophomore midfielder Mason Paul said. 

Girls varsity softball has nine wins on the season, but to the players, the win against South was the most meaningful win.

“I was like, ‘don’t make a mistake,’ and my teammates were picking me up. It went really smoothly because we were all working together as a team really well, and our pitchers were having a good day,” sophomore third baseman Allie Judd said. “[The team] felt really determined to win against another Parkway school, so we knew we had to step up our game to win.”