By Kim Ly
BASEBALL
After an extremely successful season last year where they played up until Division III CIF quarterfinals, they were promoted to Division II and have high hopes for the upcoming season.
The Barons’ team is stacked this year with multiple committed players who were also notable players last year. Junior Tim Grack has verbally committed to University of San Diego, senior Ryder Brooks committed to University of California, Irvine and senior Blake Wentz committed to Biola University.
“We had a condensed season last year [due to COVID-19] where we had to play 28 games in 10 week instead of 12 so that was a challenge on pitching but we ended up having a good year,” head coach Deric Yanagisawa said. “This year [we] return with eight starters. We’ll have a full regular season and…we’re set to have a good season.”
This season, they’ll continue to play in the Sunset Surf League where they’ll face Division I’s No.6 seed Huntington Beach High School (HBHS), Division I ranked Los Alamitos High School (LAHS) and Division II ranked Edison High School (EHS). With such high competition, the boys have been working throughout the off-season.
“These kids put in a lot of extra time playing their sport. They could spend up to about 15 to 20 hours a week for our baseball program. They’re a special group of kids that put in a lot of extra time—they’re good, hard working kids,” Yanagisawa said.
SOFTBALL
The girls ended last season with an overall record of 12-13 and 7-2 in the Sunset Wave League. They went all the way up into the quarterfinals for Division V CIF playoffs. This year, they’ll be playing in Division V again where they’re the No. 1 seeded team and have high hopes of winning CIF.
“I’m hoping to win—get into CIF, win League…and go far through CIF playoffs,” head coach Richard Aldrich said.
In League, they’ll be facing off against Division IV’s No.1 seed Newport Harbor High School (NHHS), Division VI ranked Corona del Mar High School (CdM) and Division VII ranked Laguna Beach High School (LBHS).
This season, the girls are focused on improving together as a team alongside working specifically on their offense.
“[The number one focus for this season is to] keep getting better and play[ing] as a team, not as individuals,” Aldrich said. “[Specifically,] we’re trying to get a lot of hitting done—we need to put runs up on the board. So, we’ve been focused on hitting and situational defense.”
BOYS’ GOLF
Boys’ golf is coming into the spring season with high hopes after a more-or-less lackluster season last year. Due to COVID-19 and the inability to practice, the boys struggled throughout.
“This year, we’re able to practice and do things as a team whereas last year, we weren’t—we weren’t able to practice, we didn’t have use of our home golf course. It was very difficult. I was also doing the boys and girls together so it was very, very stressful and my time was very stressed between the two,” head coach Carter Keyser said.
This year, they’ll be heading into the season with lots of practice and determination. One notable player to watch is senior Oscar Nguyen who made it to the second round of Division IV CIF individuals last year. Though, other than Nguyen, the team is mainly composed of newer players who are looking forward to bettering their skills.
“I think we’re looking forward to improving on last year. Last year we finished third place in our Wave League—we did lose a lot of seniors last year, so I think these guys that are new to varsity are excited,” Keyser said. “It’ll probably be more of a transition year—because, again, these guys are new, they haven’t seen a lot of the golf courses that we play, but I’ve seen improvement in all these guys that came back this year.”
Despite the difficulties of having to train a mainly new roster, Keyser and the team look forward to the upcoming season. Their main goal as of right now is to simply get back onto the fields and play golf like they did pre-COVID-19 and get stronger as a team.
“Hopefully, we can make a run in the Wave League—hopefully, we can do better than third like we did last year—surprise some people. I just think you’re gonna see us improve as the year goes on and get stronger and stronger and hopefully that carries into more victories and success this year,” Keyser said.
BOYS’ TENNIS
Boys’ tennis has been one of FVHS’s top sports for many years. Last year, they were champions in both doubles and singles in the Sunset Surf League. This year, they’ll continue playing in the Sunset Surf League as they face Division I’s No.2 seed, CdM, and Division II ranked HBHS and LAHS.
For CIF, they’ll play in Division I once again this year.
Though, one struggle they’ve been facing and will have to overcome is the loss of players. The majority of their roster last year consisted of seniors who’ve graduated; other players were lost due to transfers.
“We lost a lot of players from the last two years and we don’t have that depth coming into this from the JV team. So, this year—we’ll do fine, but next year, we’ll be looking forward to next year to see how we can rebuild and go from here,” head coach Harshul Patel said. “Because we’re losing a lot and lot of players from our team, so, this is going to especially [be a] special year for our team before we got to start riveling deep.”
One notable player to watch this season is junior Alan Ton who will be playing for the Barons once again. Last year, Ton was deemed an All-American for boys’ tennis and this year, verbally committed to the United States Military Academy.
Despite the difficulties they’ve faced, the boys are resilient and head into the season with excitement.
“This year, we’ve buffed up a lot of [competitiveness] for our team, so we’re hoping to learn and compete really hard to get our boys ready [for] the tough competition,” Patel said.
BOYS’ VOLLEYBALL
Boys’ volleyball’s previous season consisted of a 1-5 record in league and 4-9 overall.
Since they had a 44% win rate last year, they didn’t move onto CIF-SS playoffs. This year, they have been demoted to Division V and, like other sports, will be required to win at least 50% of their games or win a lucky card to make it to playoffs. Though, their chances look higher this year as they’re the No. 7 seed in Division V.
League-wise, the boys will face many challenges this year as their league has only seemingly become even more competitive. In the Sunset Wave League, they’ll be facing Division I/II’s No.10 seeded Los Alamitos High School, Division I/II ranked Marina High School and Division III ranked Edison High School.
The boys are also faced with the difficulty of having to play with an almost entirely new starting lineup as the majority of the starters last year graduated. Nevertheless, their season seems bright.
CO-ED SWIM
While swim competes at the same meets, they’re divided between boys and girls in terms of scoring. Last year, they placed 2nd in the Sunset League. Their league is extremely competitive with almost all schools competing in CIF Division I with the exclusion of Huntington Beach’s girls’ team ranked Division II, Marina’s girls’ team ranked Division III and Marina’s boys’ team ranked Division II.
FVHS’s boys’ team had also improved this year, moving up from their previous ranking in Division II to Division I.
Despite the high competition in their league, the team remains optimistic and is looking forward to the season.
“[The team has felt] good so far [with the upcoming season]. So, hopefully we have a strong season; pretty excited with all of the swimmers we have this year,” head coach Christine Locke said.
Like most other sports, COVID-19 had made it difficult for teams to truly bond with one another. This year, the swim team wishes to change that.
“I want everyone on the team to really bond and get to know each other and then also to just get everyone super strong and then stoked for swim season,” Locke said.
CO-ED TRACK AND FIELD
FVHS’s track and field team, like the swim team, is divided between boys and girls but compete at the same meets. They go into season this year with highly anticipated senior runners Kaho Cichon who won the 800 meters in Division I CIF finals and is ranked fourth in California for the 800 meters, junior Benjamin Prado who was deemed the Daily Pilot’s boys’ cross country athlete of the year and junior jumper and runner Jonathan Yu who’s ranked 10th in California for triple jump under their belt. Other notable athletes consist of sophomore runner Diego Alonso and senior Leah Ferris, senior jumper Lucas Le and junior jumper Laney Wang.
Last year, the girls won Sunset Surf League while the boys won Sunset Wave League; both had won their respective leagues for the second year in a row.
Recently this year, they’ve been facing challenges with having enough athletes in each event and financial support due to COVID-19. Though, they’re managing to overcome these issues as they come together as a collective.
“Our numbers are a little bit down but recently we’ve been adding a lot of people from other sports which is great,” Bivens said. “The numbers are coming back up so the energy’s back up but really, when there’s less people, we just coach them harder and they tend to get more individual attention. In a weird way, they benefit from that.”
Now, with COVID-19 restrictions greatly loosening, the team’s overall morale and momentum is rising higher than ever as they’re now able to have multiple athletes compete in one event.
“[We’re looking forward to] having full numbers of kids in all the events rather than just having one kid in an event…When there’s multiple kids in every event,z they encourage each other and usually they rise together,” Bivens said.
Their season looks bright as their team is filled with multitudes of strong athletes. Though, at the end of the day, their main goal is simply to be healthy and compete as hard as they can, regardless of the results.
“The winning comes from doing all the little things right. Whether we win or not—we just want to make kids strong, fit and healthy and reduce stress and anxiety,” Bivens said. “If you come out to see us, you’re going to see a team that’s unified in spirit, heart and mind; we smile a lot—we compete hard. You’re not going to hear profanity—you’re going to hear kids that are excited and motivated to do well.”
Lylyan Yenson contributed to this article. Boys’ volleyball head coach Morteza Shiari did not respond to inquiries for an interview.
