Moving On, Moving Up, or Moving Forward

By Junior Duran, Evelyn Reyes, and Jason Yee, Staff Reporters

Photos by Evelyn Reyes and Irene Sanchez

A version of this article appeared in issue 2.

As the end of the school year approaches, Viking athletes are considering their next steps. Some are graduating while others are preparing for their next season.

§

Diego Hernandez (‘24) has played soccer since he was little and it was his first sport growing up. Hernandez said, “I wanted to do it in college because it’s been a dream of mine to go into pro soccer but now I want to go into refereeing. You could say I lost interest in it. I loved playing but after some events that occurred I preferred to be a referee than be a player. Even though refereeing is a stressful job it’s actually fun. And I’ve already met more successful people in refereeing than as a player. I have instructors that have gone to the furthest levels in the referee world and I’m able to learn and fix my mistakes and hopefully within less than 10 years you’ll see me doing college or even MLS games as a pro referee.”

Marleen Mendoza (‘24) plans on doing soccer and volleyball but is mainly focused on soccer for the rest of the year and see where that gets her. In college, she would like to play soccer but it would be a different experience for her since it would be different in place and even with teammates. Marleen always had an interest in playing soccer and liked it because of her favorite player who is Megan Rapinoe in the women’s USA national soccer team.

Alexander Guerra (‘23) said he does not expect to play soccer in college. His family pushed him to play soccer when he was younger and he came to love the sport. However, he said he is not sure he would do well at the college level. Guerra would reconsider if he were offered a college scholarship to play soccer.

Darlene Murillo (‘24) said she would like to play both basketball and volleyball for her senior year. She said, “I like volleyball because I grew my love from it from a past coach, Coach Belen [Brionez].” But Murillo prefers basketball because it has always allowed her to escape from her problems. If she gets the chance to play in college, she’d take it.

German Montreal (‘24) said he will continue football and possibly track his senior year. Montreal will most likely be playing football during his college years because he prefers football over track. He said, “Football is more intense and though track is fun and helps me boost up my speed, I prefer the adrenaline rush I get from football.”

Emma Michel (‘23) said that she will not continue to wrestle in college due to multiple injuries from wrestling. She has wrestled for MVHS since she was a freshman. Although Michel said she enjoyed wrestling because “it’s a very fun sport” and she enjoyed community support, she wants to focus on academics.