Over Easter Break, students had the opportunity to take time off from school by travelling overseas, sleeping in, catching up on their favorite TV shows, and hanging out with friends. For most student athletes, however, their work didn’t stop over Easter break.

Over the break, women’s badminton, golf, and men’s tennis didn’t have scheduled games. Before break, however, the men’s tennis team managed a close 3-2 win against Archbishop Curley. This is the team’s first conference win, after dropping to the ‘B’ Conference this season.

Women’s badminton and golf also had matches the day before break. Badminton was the more successful of the two, beating Bryn Mawr 4-3. Golf made a little bit of progress in their season so far by taking a 1.5-19.5 loss against Loyola, which is small, but perhaps encouraging. This is improvement from the 0-21 loss against Gilman in the beginning of the season.

The men’s lacrosse team had a game towards the end of Easter break against Saint Peter and Saint Paul School. The team lost 11-13, but they still have a winning record of 3-2 as they approach the second half of their season.

The women’s lacrosse team had a bittersweet break.  They lost one game against Spalding, 10-11, but won one against Garrison Forest, 14-10. In the former, two of the goals were scored by junior Caroline Haggerty, and the rest were evenly distributed to eight of her fellow teammates. During the winning game, junior Mackenzie Reese scored over a third of the team’s goals, adding five to the total of 14. Senior Erica Bodt added her own “hat trick” of three goals in addition to four assists.

Both the men’s and women’s track teams  had a meet at North Harford on April 14 and placed first in three varsity events. Junior Rebecca Driver won the 300-meter hurdles, junior Derek Alban won the 800-meter sprint, and the team of Alban, senior Andrew Ellis, junior David Knaide, and freshman Mark Pickett won the 4 x 800 meter relay.

Also in this meet, junior Austin Markley tied the record of Malcolm McMillan, class of ’11, for the 100-meter sprint and set a new school record for the 200-meter sprint. So far this season, he has earned 120.5 total points. The women set a new record as well. In the 100-100-200-400 meter sprint, the team of seniors Heather Kirwan, Elisa Rehak, Taylor Hooper, and Megan Battaglia landed a time of 2:12.6.

Having three games over Easter Break, the men’s baseball team’s record suffered when they won their first of these games and lost the next two. The first win was by a single point against C. Milton Wright in a morning game. The private schools proved to be more of a challenge, however, as JC lost to Calvert Hall by 10 and Loyola, 4-5. However, the Loyola game had a drastically different outcome than the first time JC played them, which had resulted in a 10-point loss in the beginning of the season.

Softball, unfortunately, also suffered a 10-point loss against Rising Sun on April 11. This loss drops their record down to 2-2 after the promising 2-0 start to their season.

Now that half the spring athletic season is over, the athletes will have to step up the intensity in order to progress into the playoffs and hopefully take a shot at the conference title.

Miranda Ripken is a Sports Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com