By Angel Rivera 

​Saturday October 7th was a victorious day for the East High Eagles as they triumphantly fought for a win against Monroe High School for a special homecoming game. The pure passion for the sport was shared among many that day, as they pulled off their first win of the season. The Eagles showed that teamwork can you push through tough moments. The set up for the homecoming game showed our East Eagles’ spirit as a section of Culver Road was blocked off to allow the Rochester City School District marching band to perform in the streets and march onto the East High football field to give a show that no RCSD field has ever seen before. The marching band made history, giving the first on-field performance that a Rochester City School has had.
This halftime show brought team spirit on to the crowd there to support the Eagles, thus encouraging our Football team to perform ambitiously and to push through and defeat our opponent. The electrifying roar of the support from the crowd elevated the energy, the sheer thrill of seeking a first down on each drive encouraged our noble team to keep their dominance as the game progressed. The end result was a victorious win for the East High Eagles as they won their first home game.

By Robin Kettles 

​As of December 9, 2016 cheerleading became a sport. According to International Olympic Community (IOC), cheerleading will be going through the process to become in the Olympics. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “sport” is defined as an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment, while “cheerleading” is defined as a sport involving the performance of organized cheering, chanting, and dancing in support of a sports team at games. So both of these definitions basically is saying that cheerleading is a sport meanwhile others will say it’s not a sport it’s an activity.
 
Sport and activity are two different things. Activity is defined as “the state or quality of being active.” If that’s the definition for activity then that means all sports are activities. Cheerleading is a complex, physical, hard-working, and teamwork-oriented sport just like any other sports but the difference between cheerleading and any other sport is in cheerleading you do not take any breaks. For example in football, players get to take 3 timeouts each half which is 3 minutes each time out and a halftime which is about 15 minutes so all together they can take 21 minutes throughout each game. Meanwhile cheerleaders don’t have any timeouts; they just have to dance, stunt, tumble, and jump for a whole 2 minutes and 30 seconds without taking one break which is a lot if you have to put someone in the air who is heavier than you. Also football players have a lot of safety equipment while cheerleaders don’t. The only protector they have is that their flyer stays in the air or doesn’t injure themselves or the base.
 
Cheerleading is in the top 5 most dangerous sports,
in fact its number 4. So cheerleading is most definitely not “just an activity.”
 

By Joel Alicea 

​East’s 2017 Varsity football season is nearing its end with a current record of 2-5.  And although this season hasn’t been the most successful season for our Varsity football team, it was a very productive season.
 
The team got off to a bad start. Coach Erick Mundorff said, “We had a season of ups and downs. We played a tough schedule and we underachieved against some better teams. We were young and some guys lacked experience of playing football at the high school level.”  Senior Varsity football player James Rivera said, “The experiences I have learned is that a team is not a team when everyone doesn’t play as a unit.”  Chemistry is a big component of playing as a team.  It was clear that at the beginning of the season, chemistry wasn’t good amongst the players and it led to a bad start.  As chemistry started to build, they came together and began to win games.
 
Despite the ups and downs they had throughout the course of the season, Mr. Mundorff and the coaching staff have developed a plan to improve for next year. They have some new offensive plays that will help them.  Mundorff said, “This will make our team more successful and more versatile.”
 
As film composer John Powell once said, “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”  Even though this season was tough, the players and coaches all learned from their mistakes and are ready to change and improve for next year.

By Bijaya Thapa 

​The Boys’ Varsity Soccer team really stepped up this season and improved drastically compared to their last two seasons. During the last two seasons, the East High Varsity Soccer team has had no more than four wins and this season they already have six wins going into sectionals. According to Coach Cybulski, “They have been doing a lot of drills on ball control and working on conditioning.”  He also says, “We are a second half team and we never give up.”
 
East High School was led by the two captains Edi Muka and Bijaya Thapa with Edi being the top scorer and Bijaya being the top assister. Bijaya said, “Conditioning and positioning are crucial factors in soccer and we have been working hard on perfecting them.”  Edi also added “Players on the bench have a crucial role in this success and all of us are united like a family.” This season, East High has had more passes and assists compared to the last 5 years and they haven’t given up going to sectionals.  The East High Boys varsity team has made East High School very proud and have united like never before through hard work and togetherness.

It’s finally that time of the year again! East High School's Varsity baseball team is eager to finish what they started. Although doubted for being a city school they have learned and accomplished things that nobody thought they would. Varsity head coach Kyle Crandall offers some insight on the team so far.
“[Baseball] is one of those sports that is misunderstood by many people. Not many people enjoy it the way it the way I do.” Crandall said. “Preparing for games is very important but knowing your team is more important than trying to know your opponent. Also we have to make sure we are prepared defensively and offensively,” Crandall added.
Coach Crandall believes coaching has an important relationship to teaching.  “Well it goes hand and hand. Teams who work the hardest are better prepared for success, same idea goes in life,” Crandall says.
East High School's first baseball game is Thursday, March 30th at home at 4:30 against SOTA if you are interested. East High fans are encouraged to come out and support your team. 

John Segarra

Modified, JV, and Varsity players, start getting ready for softball tryouts on March 6th after school here at East High School. Softball is one of the most common sports played in high school. This sport is a good way to stay active and develop many skills. This also motivates you to make better lifestyle choices.
As a teenage girl, you have many things going on in your life. You worry about a whole lot of things and sometimes you can use a distraction. Softball can motivate you to make better and healthier choices. It’ll motivates you to eat healthy and try to work out more. You’ll probably want to get better at playing so that will make you want to practice even more. Softball can also help with your social relationships and team working skills. You work with all your teammates to win the game, and you also get to play with other schools so if you’re shy this might help you too. “I love playing softball because I used to get bullied a lot and playing softball made me feel better.  My teammates are also a big part because I consider them my family,” said Senior Saranne Kaufman.

Sports provide a distraction, but in a good way. You can’t play if you have bad grades so it motivates you to do better in school too. There are many other sports you can choose from. If you’re interested in trying out, mark March 6th on your calendar.  Hope to see you there!

Wilnelly Rodriguez

East High’s golf team is recruiting new players.  Spring golf is right around the corner and Coach Flagler is looking for students who are interested in playing.
 
Coach Flagler discusses the upcoming season and describes the organization of a typical practice. “Well we always start off with stretching and then after that go on to work on short shots. We also work on drills for our longer shots.” Coach Flagler has many coaching goals for this next season, especially for at least one of our players to qualify for sectionals.  
 
Coach Flagler has been playing golf since he was a young boy.  He became interested in coaching at East when there was talk of starting a team.  “There was an opening when I first came here and I have always played since I was little,” states Flagler. 
 
If students are curious and would like to know the time commitments and obligations for plating this sport, Coach Flagler said, “We have matches on Mondays and Wednesdays, practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but if a player makes sectionals they have to go on the weekends.¨
 
Golf has been a sport Flagler enjoys and he would love for students to come and play. If you have any questions on when are tryouts please go to his office in the gym. 

John Segarra

Spring baseball season is right around the corner and Coach Street and Coach Crandall feel it is never too soon to start warming up. Early morning indoor practices started in late November to prepare the team to get an early start for the upcoming season.

Last year East baseball team ended the 2016 season with a 20-3 record while making it all the way to sectionals. The East Eagles will be starting their new season without six of their all-star seniors from last year and will need to find some new outfielders. The coaches are taking steps to improve their program so they are as good as or better than last year.

New indoor practices are being offered to the team this season. Each Wednesday morning practice is offered from 6:00 a.m. to 7:15 a.m. in the upper gym for all JV/Varsity players. There are benefits of the early morning practices for each player. Coach Street states, “Well, there are no other sports that we could interfere with that early. Also, their arms will be fresh by the time the season gets here.”

There are also benefits specifically for pitchers and catchers.  “The hopes are for the majority of pitchers and catchers to show up and mainly work on location and speed because of the new rule they put up for high school pitch counts,” states Street.  The new rule Coach Street is referring to is a proposal by the New York State public high school association to implement a mandatory limit on the number of pitches a baseball player can throw within a certain time limit.

Getting up so early can be difficult for players and coaches, but Coach Street is motivated by “knowing how important it is not only for the coaches but for the players. It's a motivation for the players to come to practice knowing that we could make it to another sectional championship.”
The team is always looking for new talent. If baseball is one of yours reach out to Coach Crandall or Coach Street for more information.

John Segarra

The Winter Sports season is beginning at East High and there are many sports to play and watch.  The winter sports for 2016 will be Varsity Bowling, Freshman/JV/Varsity Boys Basketball, JV/Varsity Wrestling, Varsity Cheerleading, Varsity Indoor Track, Varsity Boys Swimming, Modified Cheerleading Club, Modified Girls Basketball, and Modified Wrestling.
 
The sports tryouts will begin on November 7, 2016. Our new athletic director is Eric Robinson and for any questions you can reach him at extension 2107. Tryouts will be in the gym after school. All students please make sure you have a physical already done by your doctor of the school clinic because you will need it for your requal papers. For any requal or physical questions please see our school nurse. She will be happy to help you out. Don’t miss out on playing or supporting our winter sports!

​Mariangely Cotto

Many scholars participate in sports at East and it seems there are some differences between boys and girls sports.  East High Athletic Director Eric Robinson explains that there are 45 sports teams at East, which is an extremely high number.  Some people suspect that certain sports are given extra funding and others are not funded much at all, but Mr. Robinson explained that this is not the case.  “All sports here at East are funded. Some sports even fundraise for extra money for the teams. For example, football and basketball fundraise for their money. We as the staff do not benefit at all from these fundraising,” stated Robinson.  This means all the extra funds go straight to supporting the teams.
Some sports are not offered at East, which limits scholars’ opportunities to play that sport.  Robinson states that the reason was “because there was not a big enough interest.  If there's not enough interest we cannot start a team.”  An example of this is girls’ soccer. For years there wasn’t enough interest, but now if there is more interest, the team will start back up.  But what about the girls who want to play even if there’s not enough interest to form a team?  Robinson stated that “If there is not enough girls for a team, we partner up with SOTA for some sports, and they will go there.”
If a girls’ team doesn’t exist yet, and a girl doesn’t want to combine with another school, she might have the option to play on a boys’ team, depending on the sport.  Mr. Robinson clarified by saying, “If there is a girls’ team already they have to play on the girls’ team. That’s also for the boys as well, but boys and girls can play on the same team if they want to.”  For example, both boys and girls can be on the same cheerleading team.  Also, there are rarely girls’ football teams, so what if a girl wants to play football?  “There is not a girls’ team for that so if a girl wishes to play football she may,” stated Robinson.  “By law they have to. Title nine is a law that states girls can play if they surely wish to, they can’t be turned down, they also can’t disqualify the team if they play as well.”
These rules are made for fairness between boys and girls, but there is still inequity in equipment and resources.  It took years for the girls to get a new softball field, and Mr. Robinson agreed that this is a problem, but it is changing.  “We are trying to change that because it’s not fair that the boys get more than girls at times. It took a while to get funding for the girls but it happened, and they got a new softball field,” he assured.

​Saranne Kaufman