Band Profile
LIFESTYLES
page13
Jonas Brothers song review
SPORTS page14
page3
College Scandal
page7
Izzy Talk
page6
OPINION
TEDx
NEWS
ENTERTAINMENT
THE EPITAPH
Wednesday, April 3, 2019 Vol. 56 Issue 6 Homestead High School 21370 Homestead Rd, Cupertino, CA 95014
PLAYER OF THE MONTH: MEGAN O’NEILL Removing ‘I can’t’ from her vocabulary fidence, and now he is starting to see it pay off. “She’s trying more stuff. She used to say last year ‘I can’t do that,’ so we had a talk and removed that from her vocabulary; there’s no more ‘I can’t,’” Strotman said. Softball has impacted O’Neil beyond boosting her self-confidence. The sport has taught her life skills, even those as simple as looking a teacher in the eye when they’re speaking to her, she said. “I definitely would’ve been a complete brat and in juvy or something by now if I didn’t play softball,” O’Neill said. “It’s kept me in check and its shaped me into a better person.” The most important aspect to her is her team’s ability to stay goofy while on the field. “Before the games we go into our shed, we have our little meeting and it’s always nice because we have some good laughs in there and we say our goals,” O’Neill said. “We just have fun [out] there. I think they relax me when we joke around and it makes me play better.” Strotman said O’Neill has the most fun out of everyone on the team and she reminds him that the number one goal is to enjoy yourself. “I am ultra competitive and I
[always] want to win, but she will make some [people] crack [up] at just the right time ... that floors everybody and that’s a reminder,” Strotman said. Though O’Neill is quick to lighten the mood, she still gets down on herself for her mistakes. “I mess up a lot, but I can get over it,” she said. “It’s a hard thing to [overcome]; when I used to mess up I’d just shut down. But now with my teammates, they don’t get mad at me.” Strotman said he doesn’t mind players being hard on themselves, as long as the mistake is acknowledged, the lesson is learned and they move on. O’Neill said she plans to continue to play at HHS through her senior year, but she does not currently have a desire to play college ball. However, she definitely has the skill and love for the game to play in college if she desired to, Strotman said. “I don’t know that Megan wants to play in college anymore; I know that she gave up club ball. But she certainly could, and I’m going to do everything I can to encourage her,” Strotman said. “It’s a hard thing to be a college athlete, but if you’re going to go there and put all the work in the classroom, might as well have some fun while you’re there.”
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unior Megan O’Neill has played on the varsity softball team as catcher since her freshman year, and has been playing softball since she was eight years old. Although catching was never what O’Neill envisioned for herself, she loves her position. “I like it because I get to help my pitchers, who are my close friends,” O’Neill said. “Also because I throw really well [and] I feel like I’m in charge. I see everything happen. I lead the field.” Head Coach Scott Strotman said he has also been impressed with O’Neill’s catching abilities and overall athleticism. “She’s worked hard at the craft of catching, she’s always been kind of naturally a good hitter, big strong gal, swings hard and she is pretty fearless in the batter’s box,” Strotman said. “She’s not intimidated by anybody.” O’Neill’s athleticism does not end with her size and strength; she is also fast and gradually steps out of her comfort zone to test her limits, Strotman said. “If she just gets out of her own way, she’s a much better athlete than she even knows,” Strotman said. Last year, Strotman worked with O’Neill to build her self-con-
WE
By Eden Pollitt
Photos by Eden Pollitt
Photo illustrations by Eden Pollitt Illustration by Jacqueline Beaufore
“WE OVER ME” is the team’s new motto to promote a better group mentality. O’Neill has been playing softball since she was eight years old. She found her love for softball playing for the Mustangs.
TRACK SEASON OFF TO SUCCESSFUL START Season continues to progress with a 12-2 record
Photo by Harley Anderson
TRACK SEASON SUCCESS builds up early on with 12-2 rocord and record—breaking meets.
By Harley Anderson
C
onsistency, strength, progress. These are the cornerstones of the JV and varsity boys and girls track teams. Just four meets into the season, the teams have propelled
themselves into a 12-2 lead. Both boys teams are undefeated, and the girls teams have lost one meet each. “Every time we step on the track, a lot of miraculous things happen,” coach Kenrick Sealy said, “so we’re not limiting our-
selves as to what we can and cannot do.” And so far, there have been no limits. The team has already broken two school records. In the first meet freshman Collin Fan broke the 2013 long jump record with a jump of 21 feet, Sealy said, beating the previous record by one foot and two-and-a-half inches. Another success for this season was with freshman Varun Saraf, who broke a 50-year-old freshman school record at the Azusa Pacific Meet of Champions, when he ran the 800 in just 2:07, Sealy said. “I was really happy and surprised when I saw that it had been standing for 50 years,” Saraf said. It was months of preparation that led to him being able to break the record, Saraf said. Remaining motivated, especially during the offseason, is another
factor that led to his success. With these two records and an undefeated start to the season, the varsity boys team’s main focus is maintaining that equilibrium. Sealy said distance runners keep their consistency at practice by upholding their mileage and doing interval workouts for balance. Sprint practices are similar. Sprinters run at least a mile for the warm-up and then stretch together for ten minutes before launching into sprinting practice. Things are different this year for sprinters, since the sprint coach is only available to attend Friday practices, Sealy said. This lack of leadership at remaining practices throughout the week has caused the sprint runners to rely on each other to progress and maintain that momentum. And clearly, that teamwork has paid off.
Photo by Claire Torii
BOYS VARSITY IS undefeated so far this season. Sahil Morchi (12) ran the 400m at FHS. PAGE BY JACQUELINE BEAUFORE