Greenhill Athletics has not won a Southwest Preparatory Conference (SPC) title this school year, and with ten opportunities left, the upcoming spring season offers the most sports out of any season. The championships are held mostly in Fort Worth, Texas with boys’ lacrosse being the only team competing in Austin, Texas. The SPC tournament starts on April 28 and will culminate on April 30.

Baseball:

The Greenhill Baseball team started the season off in the Hillcrest Tournament with wins over Parish Episcopal School and St. Marks School of Texas.

The Hornets are sitting at 4-1 in conference games with their only loss to Trinity Valley School.

They are looking much better than last year with a better record and team.

“We are a lot more confident this year than last year and have high hopes and are very confident going into SPC,” sophomore Cooper Rabin said.

Boys Lacrosse:

The boys’ lacrosse team is currently 6-3 with a recent win over Trinty Valley School.

Juniors Jadon Lee and Zain Crumedy average over 2.5 goals per game.

“I’m proud of our team this year and being a captain means a lot. I have an important role and can’t let the team down, ” Crumedy said.

The team has record numbers of participants this year, even fielding a junior varsity team for the first time in program history.

“I think it’s good that Greenhill had enough people for a JV team, it gives more opportunity to play,” sophomore Rhett Mulder said.

The team also has the opportunity to compete in the Texas State Championship against other private schools and public schools.

Girls Lacrosse:

The girls’ lacrosse team is led by seniors Katie and Lexie Stone. The twins verbally committed to Washington and Lee University to play lacrosse and volleyball.

Greenhill opened the counter season with a one-point victory over St. Stephens Episcopal School, with the final score being 15-14.

Head Girls’ Lacrosse Coach Cam Cook is leading the varsity team for the first time, and they also have a record number of players this year.

“Coach is very nice he always takes time to explain things and always has a positive attitude when doing so,” sophomore Garret Rathbun said.

Boys Track and Field:

The boys’ track team is led by senior captains Jaden Watt and Aaron Johnson.

The team qualified for Texas Relays where they ran the 4×100 and the 4×400 relay.

The team set a personal record in the 4×400 relay by six seconds. The coaches are very proud of them and their competitiveness.

“As a coach, it is always quite an honor to take members of our team to compete in a meet as large and prestigious as the Texas Relays,” Head Track & Field Coach Stacey Johnson said. “In my 25 years of taking teams to the Texas Relays, I must say this was the deepest most competitive Texas Relays that I have been a part of. The level of competition our athletes competed with was outstanding.”

They have high hopes for SPC where they hope to have many qualifiers. They will be running against 4A-size schools.

“We have to really begin to focus on achieving SPC standards and begin focusing on team rankings as we prepare to set our SPC competition roster in the coming weeks,” Johnson said.

The long-distance runners are also having a successful season.

Sophomore Chris Williams leads the team in the 1600 meter where he broke the school record time with a time of 4:22.51. This is 2.07 seconds faster than the previous record set in 2007.

The long-distance team includes mostly underclassmen with star runners being sophomores Williams and Gabe Shiloh along with juniors Alex Wetzler and Andrew Mann.

Girls Track and Field

The girls’ track and field team is led by seniors Celina Prieur, Kaylee Wilson and Leah Smith.

Like the boys’ team, the girls also qualified for Texas Relays where they ran the 4×100 and 4×400. They also hit a personal record by six seconds in the 4×400.

The team’s best runners and jumpers are spread out between all ages: underclassmen have the fastest times in the 100 and the 200-meter dash, the 800, the 1600-meter run and high jump.

The star runners are freshmen Nia Harrison and Dylan Considine, sophomore Lyna Kamgang and Smith for short-distance distance. For long-distance, the team is led by freshman Isabel Bhatia who has qualified for SPC in both the 800 and 1600.

The team’s jumpers are led by Harrison, Smith, Prieur, Wilson and sophomore Jenna Travers. They all have qualified for SPC in their respective jumps.

Softball:

The Greenhill softball team has revived its program.

The team almost did not have enough members to play last season; however, they now have over 20 athletes.

The team is very young and has several key underclassmen, and started the season with a record of 0-3, however, they recently improved to a record of 3-4.

They have outscored their opponents 73 to 49 in these games.

Girls Golf:

The girls’ golf program has been working hard this year to improve and compete at a high level, with a lot of the team focused on development.

“I got the opportunity to play in a tournament, I improved so much this season and that tournament put the cherry on top of it all,” Gigi Melucci said.

In Head Varsity Girls’ Golf Coach Thom Flinders’ first year, the team had five players; now, the group has expanded to 20.

“Coach Flinders being the new coach made me want to join golf because of his amazing personality and good coaching,” sophomore Zara Paul said.

The team is improving throughout the year, as in the most recent tournament three out of the five girls had a personal best round.

Boys golf:

The boys’ golf team consists of two seniors and five underclassmen.

“Having these underclassmen on the team is a pleasure,” senior Alex Perales said. “It seems like just yesterday upperclassmen were mentoring me.”

The team started the season with the Jesuit Invitational, finishing top five in an event with over 30 teams.

Perales shot a 74 (+2), sophomore Henry Zhong shot a 76 and sophomore Hayden Sampson shot an 80, marking the top three scores for the Hornets.

Next, the team traveled to Hawks Creek Golf Club in Fort Worth.

The Hornets finished in the top three, with three scores in the 70s. Leading the way was Zhong with a 74.

Finally, Hornets headed to Austin to play in the St. John’s Invitational. After that, they will travel to Fort Worth to compete In the SPC championships.

“We’re going to stay committed and try our best,” Zhong said. “Our goal for this year is top 3 [finish].”

Boys Tennis:

The tennis team is looking for revenge after a heartbreaking loss in the first round of the SPC championship last year.

“We took an unfortunate loss last year in the first round, but we look to come back even better this year and win the whole thing,” sophomore Tal Rogozinski said.

The team is dominating SPC in the regular season and is looking for more intense competition going into their match against Jesuit College Preparatory School.

Jesuit is one of the best teams in the states, and the Hornets performed well, losing 3-2.

It is important to have a well-rounded team because every match matters.

Girls Tennis:

The girls’ varsity tennis team is led by senior Sasha Motlagh, who has committed to play tennis at the University of Pennsylvania. This is her first year playing for Greenhill.

The team is 5-0 with wins over Hockaday School and Trinity Valley School where they won 3-2, and wins over the Episcopal School of Dallas, Casady School, and Oakridge School where they won 5-0.

They are the front runners in SPC and look to take home an SPC Championship.