With high school sports, comes state championships, loud student sections, and well losing seniors. But some teams have had larger losses than others when it comes to seniors, and can affect the future of certain programs forever. Blake Wayman, a cross country and track athlete, has experienced big losses in their program as last year they lost 4 seniors that were some of the best in the state. The team now consists of five seniors and most all the rest are sophomores. “As young as they are, they shouldn’t rely on the seniors, rather than work hard themselves.” says Wayman. As much as it seemed their team struggled, they did qualify for state, but that’s when things hit them. “We had higher expectations that we didn’t achieve. We were on the way to being a great team, and all we had were 2 races, but then a bunch of foot problems and all our guys getting sick and we were out” said Wayman. 

But filling the shoes of past senior accomplishments is no easy task. The 2021 football season was one of the best Arlington has ever had. Going top 10 in state, losing 1 game in the regular season. Yet, as much as we had been very successful, we had lost 22 seniors that year that included star QB Trent Nobach, wide receiver Levi Younger who is a current record holder, and star defensive linemen Quinton Yon-Wagner. So would this year’s Arlington football team accomplish what they did? “Yeah I do believe we tried to do the same stuff” said a varsity football player who wants to be unnamed. Looking at the roster, Varsity was full of sophomores and juniors and a minimal amount of seniors, ” We lost all of our Seniors and so its mostly Sophomores now” he said. Varsity ended the year 3rd in 3A and lost in the same spot last year’s team did in state. With half the team we had last year. “I do believe we have a potential championship in our future, because I think our freshmen group we have now is good, but could improve to be one of the best” he said. 

 Now, the case for the softball team is much different. Why? Because we have no clue what is to happen. Last year, the softball team had lost a couple of seniors like Kailyn Thai and D3 commit pitcher, Lizzie Durfee. Although they didn’t get too far in state, they did however become more successful than most other years past. “My freshmen year we made it to districts. Sophomore  year we didn’t really have a season. Junior year we had a short year, no playoffs. Then senior year we went to state and got top 8” said Durfee. “ I’m pretty sure before my senior year we hadn’t gone to state since 2013, and we had broken that streak.” Lizzie was a starter all 4 years they played and she led the conference in strikeouts in her Fres times and bad times and helped lead us to state” Lizzie now plays for Monmouth college in Illinois where she has already been promoted to team captain. 

Not every team though, lives up to expectations as 2 years ago, the 2020 varsity baseball team had one of its best years. 12-1 was their record and only having 2 close games the entire year. Reidar Vane, the best pitcher and one of the best hitters on the 2020 team who now plays for Skagit Valley had great success with the Arlington team over all 4 years. “I accomplished a lot in all four years I was there. We went to state every year, and made a good run at it with good baseball players and good coaching. I had a great time in Arlington” said Vane. “ I think not only the coaching we had in Arlington but also big impacts were made off the field, which we had guys every year going to Cuz (Dome) every year at six in the morning before school, the older guys looking after the younger guys, just chemistry and all our side work was a big impact to why Arlington was so good” said Vane. But not many realized that Vane and plenty others that season had a breakout year, with Cole Cramer having the best batting average with .488, the most home runs and stolen bases. Reidar and Jeren Eldridge both with no errors. But little did they know how much of a decline last year’s team was. With Aiden Green having the only good batting average with .371 and 6 others that were under .300 by quite a bit. Even so, they still didn’t do too bad. Then on the topic of how up and coming athletes of Arlington can fill the shoes of them, and Vane had this to say, “ You know I really hope so, looking at the talent coming in, we do have a couple of big guys coming in, not from middle school but the Freshmen and sophomores, I know we have good talent throughout the program and I mean building years are always great, I think last years Arlington was defiantly a building year compared to the talent that was in the program but I think the next few years of Arlington will be amazing”

So who knows what the future holds for all these different sports, and if they will leave a positive or negative impact on Arlington forever.