April 29, 2006

Corona del Sol senior swimmer Nate Telep has chosen to continue his collegiate career at Louisiana State University. Telep said he signed his letter of intent from LSU after looking at other schools including Pitt, Hawaii, Missouri, Alabama and Louisville.

Telep has been an instrumental part of the success of the Corona swimming program and finished his high school career with a 65-1 dual meet record. He also was the 5A state champ in the 500 freestyle in his senior year.

Varsity softball at Corona has climbed back to the number-two ranking in state due to an extremely deep team.

“Everyone's really comfortable with each other on the field. We all trust one another to make the plays,” sophomore Ashley Hansen said.

Hansen is one of the few underclassmen on a team dominated by 10 seniors. Her batting average of .594 is second among 5A players in the state.

“Everyone plays a leadership role on this team.,” Hansen said. “Caylyn (Carlson) and I are the captains but everyone takes turns getting the others fired up and ready to play.”

This is the second time in recent years that the Aztecs have gone into state with a good shot at the championship.

“Buena is ranked first right now, and Horizon has always been a tough competitor, but we need to be careful of the Tucson schools since the past two years we have been knocked out by them,” Hansen said. “As long as we play our "A" game we should go far, it just all depends on which one of our teams shows up.”

With the overwhelming talent on the varsity squad, it is easy to forget the equally impressive feats of the junior varsity softball team. Due to the varsity losing no one to graduation after last season, competition was fierce at this year’s tryouts. Having ten seniors on the team forced younger players to fight for the few left over spots.

“Tryouts were intense,” Hansen said. “Everyone knew there was limited space available which pushed every girl to try out at their best level.”

The JV team has a 15-1 overall record and is undefeated in conference. With 17 members a part of this years talented squad, the effect of losing 10 seniors from the varsity will certainly be lessened.  Several members of the JV team could have started on varsity at other schools but due to the talent at Corona must wait one more year for their chance to shine.

The Aztec Varsity Track team is preparing for city and region meets with renewed confidence after qualifying numerous individuals for state. Corona track and field most recently participated in the Tribune Invitational as a final tune-up before the city meet.

“A lot of people had already qualified for state in their main events, so this meet they were trying to qualify in other events,” senior Mike Wrapp said.

The Aztecs have a 5-1 record in dual meets. As a member of the distance runners, Wrapp was able to finally reach his goal of qualifying for state in the mile.

“It feels good (to qualify) because it’s been something I have been working on since freshman year,” Wrapp said.

While preparing for state Wrapp has also focused on qualifying for the two-mile race.

“I need to run it in 10 minutes flat,” Wrapp said. “I ran 10:07 in my first try so hopefully I can qualify in city or region.”

Some of the numerous Aztecs to qualify for state include Brenden McMaster in the two mile; Phil Feinberg in high jump and long jump; Katie Cartwright in the 300 hurdles; Lindsay Dorweiler in the 800, the girls 4 by 800 relay team and the boys 4 by 100 team.