Girls soccer. Girls tennis. Boys cross country. Three different sports, three different teams, one thing in common.

They all have something to prove. They all want to prove those who doubt them wrong and show that they are strong, capable and ready to win. Though the three teams are doubted this year for different reasons, they all want to show that they are not weak, but are in fact stronger than ever before. And most importantly, they all want to create a legacy to pass on to future teams for them to look up to and strive to uphold. But sometimes, pressure and expectations from others can get in the way of this determination.

No Pressure, No Motivation

“[Girls soccer’s last season] definitely wasn’t as good as I had hoped, but losing gave us an edge and has made us want to do better this season,” junior Alissa Paterson said. “I think the losses might actually help us improve and motivate us to work harder.”

To Paterson, the disappointing results of previous seasons define her approach and the way she prepares for future seasons. Although the team’s losses last year have led to lower expectations from others regarding the success of the team, she and her teammates will not take this as an opportunity to relax. Instead they are determined to try even harder than before to be more successful in future seasons.

Paterson believes the team will have a much better experience this year because last season, with a new coach and a team consisting of an unusual number of freshmen, it took the girls long to build a strong foundation and get to know each other well as players on the field. This season, she looks forward to a tighter-knit team and the chance to further improve upon strategies from last year.

“Pressure to a certain extent helps me, but a lot of negative feedback from coaches or teammates brings my game down and makes me lose my focus,” Paterson said. “This year, I’m going to change my attitude and try to believe in the team and our ability to win.”

Clearly, although pressure can motivate a player, it can also be detrimental. Nevertheless,  Paterson has decided to forget about it and focus on what is important: being there for her team when her expertise is more necessary than ever before. Along with the expectations to do better than last year, there is also an added responsibility to being a part of the team as an upperclassmen. She believes that because several key players graduated last year, she and her fellow upperclassmen will have to step it up a notch, a thought that was daunting at first, but now has made Paterson determined to play her best this season.

Success that comes with a price

While the girls soccer team hopes to prove that they are still a strong team that is capable of qualifying for CCS, the girls tennis team, after winning CCS and NorCal the past three years, must live up to the high expectations of previous years.

“It’s almost expected that every year we’re going to win, but at some point, that cycle has to change,” girls tennis coach Gene Fortino said.

According to Fortino, he and his team are planning to take the season game by game and point by point, rather than worrying about the expectations from others. As a coach, he tries to be laid-back and makes an effort to not put unnecessary pressure on the players. As a team known

for being consistently successful, he knows how much stress the girls already have on their shoulders and does not want to further add to that weight.

Fortino is proud of his team for having remained strong throughout a difficult period of losses and injuries last year and believes they are capable of handling pressure in a calm and composed manner once again.

Much like her coach, captain senior Nicole Stomakhin has lower expectations for this year, but still hopes to be able to live up to the team’s glowing reputation. With the graduation of most of their top singles players, Stomakhin is unsure about what is in store for the team this year.

According to Stomakhin, when the team won CCS and NorCals last year, many were surprised and even shocked. This reaction really showed her how much of an effect the players on a team have on the expectations set for it. She admitted that the loss of those players had taken a toll on the overall strength and skill of the team, but was not aware of the extent to which that loss had changed the way people viewed the team. However, Stomakhin hopes that hard work and dedication will more than make up for what the team currently lacks in raw talent.

While she hopes to qualify for CCS and maybe even win it, at the same time, she doesn’t want to set unreasonably high expectations for the team.

“This year is different because our team isn’t as strong as it was last year,” Stomakhin said. “Even making it to CCS or winning it would be a huge accomplishment for us, while last year, everyone pretty much expected us to win.”

While some players get nervous and distracted under pressure, for Stomakhin, the feeling of knowing that her friends are watching and rooting for her motivates her to play to the best of her ability. Though the expectation to constantly be at her best, both physically and mentally, can occasionally become hard to manage, as a captain, she believes the team is depending on her to stay strong and dedicated throughout the season.

Dealing with disappointment

Unlike girls tennis and girls soccer, last season, the boys cross country team did not have a black and white season that was clearly either good or bad. Finishing fifth in CCS, they had a relatively successful season, but the captains of the team are not ready to stop there.

“I feel like we could have done better and I think we had a lot more potential as a team,” captain senior Rohan Choudhury said.

Although he was proud of what the team accomplished, Choudhury felt they could have done better, which is why they hope to win CCS this year by making good use of the strong pool of runners that they have and staying strong together. Choudhury also admitted that even though every year it gets harder to win as they lose seniors that were a crucial part of the team, the losses motivate the athletes to train even harder. According to him, the feeling of knowing that you could have done better and are capable of more or knowing that you have done better in previous years can be a tough mentality to get over.

“[Performing below expectations] really affects the way you train in the off-season because you want to do everything you can so you don’t have to experience the same disappointment again,” Choudhury said. “It makes you train a lot harder and you’re excited to come to practice every day.”

Choudhury’s co-captain, senior Akshay Thontakudi thinks that because the team has not performed exceptionally well the last few years, there is not as much pressure as there might have been had they exceeded expectations previously. This will allow the team to focus on improving as much as they can without having to worry about expectations.

Whether they are a player on the field, a coach or a parent on the sidelines, past seasons affect everyone involved with a team. Teams are constantly looking for ways to improve and change to become better than they were previously and as a result, the stress that comes with those expectations can sometimes be overwhelming. As past players graduate, they leave behind a team that isn’t the same without them. However, it is important for teams to recover from this and realize the importance of not dwelling on the past and starting fresh every season, with the hope of leaving their mark and creating a legacy to be upheld for years to come.