Winter: a cold dreary season that makes everyone want to bundle up and stay indoors. Managing to stay warm this season is the Robinson winter sports teams. There are 7 total teams that make up the winter season, boys and girls basketball, soccer and wrestling, along with the co-ed competitive cheer team, all of which have gone to at least a district championship.
Basketball is one of Robinson’s most popular sports. The boys’ team, with an overall standing of 16-12, made it as far as district playoffs against the Gibbs High School Gladiators, losing 56-77. Scoring an average of 62.2 points per game, the team is ranked fourth in the 4A District 10.
“[The season] had its ups and downs and we had our moments but we always found a way to come back stronger,” Basketball Player Ikeef Williams (’24) said
Williams continued by saying that the most memorable point in the season, even though they lost, was the district championship and that they made the most of it. Alongside the boys’ team, the girls’ basketball team traveled to Lakewood High School on Feb. 7 for the district playoffs, ending the season with an overall standing of 16-10, scoring an average of 56 points per game.
Soccer has become a sport that the students of Robinson regularly attended and even in the unusually cold and rainy climate that these games took place in, both teams prevailed with the boys’ overall standing of 12-9-2 and the girls’ being 12-7-1. Captain of the boys’ team, Tristan Davilla (’24), highlighted that the biggest accomplishment for the team this season was winning districts for the third time in a row.
“Being able to push through some tough games and go further than we did last year. With those accomplishments, it really helped us to come together overall as a team and bond well,” Davilla said.
Wrestling is a sport not many at Robinson first think of when they think of sports to watch. It is more of a single-person sport rather than a group effort like in basketball or soccer, yet still consists of two teams, boys and girls. Many of the athletes on the teams are headed to the regional championships and then some may head on to the state championships. Dominic Hernandez (’24) pointed out that the most challenging match the team as a whole faced was the Riverview duel.
“They are a pretty tough team and Coach Montero always knows what he’s doing to get a win. We had some great wins and some losses. But we got to the last two matches and we put in a forfeit and bumped up Arron McCarty to get the six points we needed to beat them. Then he pinned the guy and we won,” Hernandez said.
Cheerleading is typically something many people in the athletic world debate over. Is it a sport? Is it not a sport? Looking at competitive cheerleading specifically, it is impossible to think of it as anything less than a rigorous sport. After gaining second place at Plant High School for the Western Conference qualifiers, the team then moved on to the state championships. Following that win, the team earned third place in the semi-finals, moving on to acquire 6th in the finals. After heading to Nationals in Orlando at the ESPN World Wide Sports Center, the Knights got a school record-breaking fourth place.
“Something that stuck out to me this season was the amount of dedication and perseverance we have as a team. We are in our second year of rebuilding the program and it has been so extremely humbling and rewarding to go through all of the trials and errors that we have had together. This season began with us having close to nothing and we have grown tremendously,” Soleil Olivo (’24) said. “We made so many core memories and had an amazing time with each other. We’ve built this unbreakable family bond that is admirable, this season has been honestly life-changing.”
As these sports retire until next season, it’s time to look toward the future of the next season for these athletes, many of those who participate in the winter season will move on to their beloved spring sports.
