With the end of winter only four weeks away, Urban athletes already are preparing for spring. Below, Blues captains offer outlooks for their teams.

Baseball – Albie Brown (’12)

For baseball preseason, we met in the Panhandle or jogged to other parts of Golden Gate Park to throw the baseball around and get our arms ready. After stretching, we completed our regular “throwgram” then did some relay drills to work on cut-off throws. It is exciting to see such a young team and that means Urban Varsity baseball isn’t going anywhere.

Track – Whit Henderson (’12)

Winter training for the track and field team consisted of a range of full-body conditioning workouts such as core work, squats, stair jumping, pushups, etc. We then did various drills or hill sprints aimed at improving running technique, efficiency and explosiveness. Lastly we did a track workout ranging from sprints to improve raw speed (to) tempo runs to increase aerobic power and efficiency. Once a week we went down to the weight room to focus more strongly on our upper bodies.

Soccer – Emma McCune (’12)

During the soccer preseason practices we worked on conditioning, agility and improving our touches on the ball. We usually went to Kezar (Stadium) twice a week to work on fitness, agility and strengthening. One day a week (we) played soccer at Hippie Hill (in Golden Gate Park) in order to improve our touches. Our hope for the season is that we maintain the team chemistry we found during preseason and that we stay consistently strong. We practiced mental toughness during preseason practices so that we will not lose steam by the end of the season.

Lacrosse – TMO O’Connell (’12)

For preseason lacrosse we focused on conditioning. We did a lot of running, working on our two mile times, running hills, and sprints at Kezar. We have also worked on our core strength and did some lifting. We have did a lot of stick work to make sure everyone has the basics down before the season, then ran more advanced dodging, defense and shooting clinics on the weekends.

Tennis – Trevor Gutierrez (’12)

We all know we need to get our acts in gear and really work hard in order to have successful season. In that regard, this preseason we all committed to holding practice matches (when the weather permitted) against each other to have extra experience going into the regular season. Our team is going to be strong this year and has the potential to have a really exciting season. With matches coming up in the next couple of weeks, we’d all love to have some support out there.