The Game Wasn’t Close. It Still Mattered.

Three athletes from Redwood’s spring sports explain ther mindset and theories on “easier” matches, games, or meets.

By: Lucas de Lima

Here at Redwood High School, our strong sports programs are a sense of immense pride. This pride has been built throughout 70 years of success in Tulare County and dominant league play.

Currently in the East Yosemite League (EYL), titles have come often for the Rangers sports programs. With over decade-long streaks of league championships in Boys and Girls Tennis, four straight seasons of undefeated league titles in Varsity Girls Soccer, and many more.

In these title-winning campaigns, Redwood has commonly dominated games en route to the championship.

How do the athletes feel about these easier contests? What it their mindset going into easier contests?

Junior Varsity (JV) Boys Tennis player Joey Abbott, ’26, says, “My mindset is [to] play carefree, you know, to not be stressed out. Just to enjoy it and play my best,” on how he goes into a match he knows that won’t be as challenging.

This years’ JV and Varsity Boys Tennis teams have been perfect in EYL play throughout the first seven matches, with Varsity winning each match by a score of 9-0, and JV by a score of 5-0. There are three matches left in EYL for the Rangers.

Abbott himself didn’t lose a single game throughout his first six EYL matches, winning his singles matches 8-0.

Boys Varsity swimmer Samuel Feierbach, ’25, says, “Whenever we go against easier teams, our coach lets us pick our events out of a hat, like a lottery. We swim events we never really swim. So I mean, it’s kind of fun and lighthearted when we go against teams that aren’t as good as us.”

JV Softball player McKayli Worley, ’27, has a consistent mindset, saying, “Honestly I have the same mindset for every game: to work hard and do my best, and don’t be timid.”

JV Softball has picked up a handful of dominant victories this season so far, winning 15-3 over the Lemoore Tigers, 15-2 over the Tulare Union Tribe, 11-1 over the Sanger Apaches, 21-0 over the Hanford West Huskies, and 24-0 over the Porterville Panthers.

JV Softball is also undefeated in EYL so far, with a record for 2-0 and eight games left to play.

During the match to stay focused on the goal of finisnhing the win, Abbott says, “For me, I take deep breaths if I get unfocused, and I think of a song just in my head and I just start singing it in my head [to] get locked in.”

“Feierbach takes note of his competition, saying, “turning your head every so often seeing where the guy is and seeing how many yards you can put on him.”

Worley keeps the energy up. “Usually we like chant, and then it makes us stay engaged,” says Worley.

Do the athletes ever feel pity for their less-talented opponents?

“Usually yeah. Usually they come up to me after and say, ‘You know you’re really good. Are you a senior?’ And I say, ‘no I’m a junior.’ And so like I feel pretty bad sometimes,” says Abbott.

“No absolutely I do, it’s demoralizing [for them]. I mean we do have something special here obviously. We have a bunch of athletes, we have a bunch of talent here at Redwood, but I think that has a lot to do with the boundaries for school. All the home builders are building on the northwest side of town, so Redwood has a giant population,” says Feierbach.

Worley says, “Sometimes, but we like to cheer on the other team. Like if the pitcher is doing really good we’ll tell them that, and if someone made a good play on the other team, we’ll tell them that they did a good play, so it makes it a little bit better.”

Even though these matches may seem as if they don’t hold much value at all, for the athletes themselves, every game matters.

“Every match matters because for me I want to prove to myself that I can beat anyone in EYL, and we’ve been undefeated for [11] years, and I just want to keep that streak alive,” says Abbott.

“Mostly because it’s like for our egos, I want to say. We race so we can talk trash to each other. You know, kind of like [a] fun teasing. It’s all fun and lighthearted, we take it. So we just race to rip on each other,” says Feierbach.

Worley says, “I think [every game] matters because every rep counts, and you learn more if you lose. Or if you win, those reps matter.”

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