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Fall athletes turn up the summer heat
(by Tony Lange - August 05, 2010)
Fall athletes turn up the summer heat
By TONY LANGE
Sweat, emotion and sometimes tears are left behind to dry. Many high school seasons end with a loss or an unsatisfactory finish. A sour taste can often linger.
For seniors, they graduate and move on. Underclassmen, look to stay motivated in the offseason.
For those students who compete in fall sports, summer is the time to turn up the heat. Getting physically fit and into a mindset that will outdo opponents is a process that involves weeks of training and the absence of a coach.
According to the Ohio High School Athletic Association sports regulations, coaching staffs are limited to a maximum of 10 days of contact with a team during June and July.
With fall sports teams often meeting more than 10 times during that two-month time period, off-season training usually is guided by the leadership of seniors. For many of them, it will be their last year to compete. Some have participated in their respective sports since kindergarten.
Morgan Liber
Chagrin Falls Tigers
Senior soccer goalie
Back for her third and final year as a starting goaltender for the Lady Tigers, Morgan Liber is one of those athletes who has played soccer since she was 5 years old.
Her varsity squad from last year advanced to the regional final where it fell in double-overtime to Shaker Heights Hathaway Brown.
"That was really a tough game. We left it all on the field. We did everything that we could," Liber said. "I think it really motivates us to keep going because we love having that taste of almost winning and almost going to states. That really drives us because we really want that."
Unlike her entire defensive line which graduated, Liber gets another shot at it this year. She hopes to go just as far this season, she said.
To prepare, Liber and teammates started training in the spring during open field time. Each off-season, they do a lot of juggling, playing and try to get as many touches on the ball before leaving for soccer camp at West Virginia University in July. They also do a white-water rafting trip while there.
"I get a lot of goalie training from great college coaches," said Liber, who does not have a goalie-specific coach at Chagrin Falls. "It's really good to get that touch on the ball and start the season off great and just get ready for the season coming up."
Throughout the summertime, Liber does a variety of workouts ranging for long-distance runs, sprints, bleacher steps, abs, core as well as jumping and diving drills for those difficult to block shots. She especially does a lot of upper-body strength for throwing and works her legs for punting, she said.
"I think every player should be fit. Even though I'm a goalie, I still do the requirements and complete my run every year," said Liber, who described her team tryouts as strict. This year, as one of the requirements, she and her teammates have to be able to juggle the soccer ball at least 50 times, she said.
"We have certain criteria you have to meet in order to be considered for varsity. If you don't meet the criteria, you cannot even be considered. We're really all for the fitness," she said. "We have to do a 1.5-mile run, 100-yard sprints, so we train for that."
"I love the girls. We are very close. We're like a family."
Sam Camiener
Solon Comets
Senior football lineman
At 6-foot-4 and 270 pounds, football workouts are a part of Sam Camiener's routine year-round. He even does it in the winter during his hockey season, a sport he's lettered in at Solon since his freshman year.
"I would lift after school and then go home, eat, sleep, and then I would go to hockey practice and I'd come home," Camiener said. "I've always been working out for football every day of the off-season."
This summer, he has been lifting weights with teammates at the high school gym for three hours every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he does speed and agility workouts as well as working in foot speed, conditioning and instruction.
"Being a senior, we encourage the players to come," Camiener said. "We'll call them and get them to the school to work out and give them rides. We push the limit to make each other better."
The Comets also do camp and instruction during the summer off-season, which involves breaking up players by position, working on form, going over plays and becoming mentally tough, he said.
"Seeing how caring our coaches are and knowing that every single player just wants to get better, it just motivates me, and not letting my team down," Camiener said. "I just want to win, so that motivates me every single day in the off-season."
At the end of their three-hour weightlifting sessions, Camiener said that he and his teammates do something called a burnout. It involves different activities such as push-ups or sit-ups nonstop for an extended period of time. It is to get ready for the fourth-quarter fatigue, he said.
"We would do it as a unit, as a team and if one person failed, then the whole entire team failed, so we'd start over," Camiener said.
This summer, detail has been his main focus, he said. He wants to make his team better and give his best.
His passion for the sport also helps motivate him to work hard, he said.
"I just love the sport. I love how it's played," he said. "There's no other sport like it where there's contact every single play. The atmosphere of the games are just great, our school spirit is tremendous and I just love playing here at Solon, and I love playing the sport."
Jonathan Moritz
West Geauga Wolverines
Senior cross-country runner
Training for cross country in the summer time is a six-day-a-week routine for Jonathan Moritz. The West Geauga senior has been running cross country and track and field since he was in seventh grade.
In the off-season, he runs each week day with his teammates, does his own workout on Saturday and usually rests on Sundays, he said. His team usually meets at 9 a.m. to avoid the summer heat, work on core and stretches for 15 minutes and then do a 45-minute run.
"The stronger you are core-wise, the more endurance you will have," Moritz said.
On Mondays, they do a long run, Tuesdays a field workout, Wednesdays a speed or repeat workout, Thursdays a long run and save a fun workout, such as ultimate Frisbee, for Fridays, he said. The team usually does about 20 to 25 miles each week.
Moritz said running with friends helps motivate him.
"It's a lot easier," he said. "It makes it more fun when you have people around you and you're talking and you're telling jokes and you're still getting a good workout in."
A lot of the time they run by the Polo Field on Chagrin River Road, Moritz said. But, his favorite place to run, he said, is the West Woods of the Geauga Park District.
"I just like running in the woods. Most of your cross-country running is usually done in woods. Is does clear your mind. Whenever I'm stressed out, I run," Moritz said. "I hate running on a treadmill. I do, but it's just not the same. It's monotonous. Running to the wall for 45 minutes, it's just boring to me."
The Wolverines have been working on getting more people into the running group this summer, Moritz said. That increases the competition level and the ability to succeed because there are more people to fight off varsity spots from, which there are seven of.
"That's what I regret. I know I could have done better," he said about last season. "That's why I really want to improve, because this is the last year I will be able to do it."
"I've actually started to push myself to go farther than what I believe I can do. The majority of running is all mental. If you don't have the mental mindset to succeed, you won't do good. You need to be fit in order to run, but the majority is mindset."
Ally Bates
Kenston Bombers
Senior volleyball player
Back as a most improved player from last season, senior Ally Bates still is working to get better at her game.
As a member of the Kenston volleyball team, her summer consists of open gyms six hours a week, two team tournaments in Toledo that are each three days long and a Cleveland State University camp at her home gym, which lasts six hours a day for four days.
The week after school lets out, the returning players get together and start to work out as a team, Bates said. The open gyms are three days a week and are run by the seniors. The last half-hour is usually conditioning.
"We do up-downs. That's when you lay down and then you run and then lay down, do a sprint, lay down again and sprint," she said. "And then we push towels across the gym like this," she continued as she motioned the close-to-the-ground technique. "It kills your thighs. We do wall-sits. It makes your legs, like, shake. I think towels are the hardest."
They also do a lot of technical work too, she said. They take tennis balls and simply snap their wrists to spike them over the net. It helps for hitting, she said. They also stand on platform boxes while a teammate tosses a ball up to them to spike. It gives them additional practice for hitting, she said.
Bates, who plays volleyball year-round, said a big part of the off-season is before the summer months from January through May when she plays Junior Olympic volleyball.
"I just know that I have to do that to play for the school. If I didn't play JO, I would be so out of shape," she said. "It's not really mandatory, but it's expected to play."
One aspect of her game that she is concentrating on this summer is getting used to her new setter, Bates said. She has gone from last year's Kenston setter, to her Junior Olympics setter and now is readjusting to this year's Kenston setter.
"I have to get used to her sets," she said. "My hitting can always improve. It's repetition."
She also is working on being a team leader as a senior this year, Bates said.
"We really wanted to go to states last year," she said. "There are five seniors this year. We want to win the CVC (Chagrin Valley Conference). We want to be undefeated still and not ruin the streak," she said about the 50-plus conference winning streak.
"That's our main goal," Bates said.
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