By Mikaelah Molifua and Amanda Keblar

North Star students and staff take much pride in their sports programs. From golf to football everyone shows their spirit and love of sports. Every year brings new players, new expectations, and new goals to achieve.
Volleyball head Coach Kristi Nelson-Hitz said, “ I expect my players to practice and play with passion for the game.” She explained that she is expecting her players not only to play with passion but to also show it in school. She expects her teams demonstrate good character and support teammates to a point where the squad is successful as possible. Her expectations for her varsity team include to make it to the state tournament.

Running their hardest again, Cross Country is on their way to success. Coach Matt Musiel says their team is a good mixture of upper classmen and under classmen leading the boys and girls. The girls have improved a lot and has a total of 30 girls. The boys are solid as usual. “Everyday they train hard on the roads, streets, and of course the track, and are getting in better shape. Some of our veteran runners have done a lot of work running this summer,” said Musiel. For varsity his goal is to make it to state, for JV it is to very be good and to be ready for next years program.
Last year’s football season was phenomenal! Coaches Doug (Earl) Nielsen and Mark Waller seem to both expect another great season. Coach Nielsen said that the teams are pretty committed to have another good season and to achieve their goals. From what he has seen from their recent practice, he thinks this season will be really good. He hopes with every practice and game they get better and at each game to not lose sight of anything. “In the back of my mind, I’m not saying we are going to be state champions, but I want to max everyone’s potential of doing their best,” said Neilsen.
Waller says that with every practice and with going over all the plays the teams get better and better with the fundamentals and the executing blocking and tackling. He said they spend a great amount of time going over videos of their plays. “I want to go out and have a good year. I do have to say that it is too early to tell how good I think this season is going to be, but I do hope we have a great season,” said Waller. He also went on to say that he wants to see 100 percent effort from each player. He wants to see good improvement in their blocking and catching.
Another season of fall sports means “fore” from our golfing Gators. Coached by Coach Scott Friesen, Girls Golf is on their way to another successful season. He stated that with one returning and three first time golfers, he says he sees a lot of potential in this season. They meet and practice every day in the Highlands and their putting is getting better, they have farther hits, and better scores. In this sport, the lower the better! He is hoping the weather won’t have a bad effect on this season.
One returning player, Kelsey Grundman, (11) says she wants to get to state this year. “I want to see improvement in their scores and have that improvement turn into better scores when they play,” said Grundman.
Another fall means another season of softball. “I think we have great potential,” says Taylor Flodman, a junior starter for varsity softball. “If we keep up the hard work we will achieve greatly.” First day of tryouts you could tell Coach Todd LaVelle was excited for yet another season. All the teams work their hardest out on the field. Each player gives all effort on the field. “I want to see 100 percent effort during practice and on the field,” said LaVelle, “I want too the teams getting one percent better every day. I’m looking forward to another great season.”
Boys Tennis is again working hard on the court. Last years teams had a lot of seniors so this year they had to have a lot of new recruits. Coach Matt Lickliter said their strengths are high energy, good attitude, and contribution and the weakness is inexperience with the new players, but they have been showing a lot of improvement and have been playing really well in practice. He expects to see a good season and wants his players to be enthusiastic about their games and practices. He especially wants to beat LHS. Like every other coach he wants to see full effort of his players and wants to defend their title in the Gator invite. He also wants to see improvement across the board. “I think we are doing great, we have undefeated recruits, and we are doing really well. So I’m just expecting to see hard work and a good season,” said Lickliter.
All the coaches are expecting to see good seasons, good effort, and improvement in all their players. No matter what, we are proud of our athletes at our school. GO GATORS!