Volleyball

Volleyball hopes to build on last years success

Granite Bay alumnus Travis Vincenzini will head an entirely new staff of coaches for Roseville High School girls volleyball this year.

Vincenzini played volleyball all four years at GBHS and then went on to play NCAA DII volleyball at Alderson Broaddus University.

He could not continue to pursue his goal of post-collegiate volleyball due to injuries and two major surgeries. Despite the injuries, Vincenzini still had a passion for the game, and wanted to continue being around the sport in any way possible.

“I knew I had a passion for the sport and if I was not going to be playing, I wanted to be around the sport as much as I could,” Vincenzini said. “Coaching was a great option where I could utilize my skill and knowledge of the game, and give back to the community.”

Vincenzini previously coached for boys Synergy Force, a competitive volleyball organization, and is also continuing to coach for the GBHS JV boys team in the spring.

With new coaches in freshman, JV and varsity teams, the staff is still learning the ins and outs of the program, but Vincenzini believes the RHS has “a strong group of girls.”

“I believe that Cindy Simon, the previous coach, had a very respectable program here and I would like to see that continue,” Vincenzini said.

Senior Jessica Donahue thinks that Vincenzini has done a great job running the program thus far, and she says that she has even noticed some parallels to last year.

“I like what he has done so far and you can definitely see some similarities to last year with Ms. Simon,” Donahue said. “It’s a lot of time drills and if you don’t get something done then we condition or have other punishments.”

Donahue also believes that the way that Vincenzini is handling the team’s relative inexperience has set them up to succeed this year.

“This year we have also done more skill drills because we lost so many seniors from last year’s team,” Donahue said. “And because of how many girls on this year’s team haven’t played club, they haven’t had exposure to all of the skills that you can learn. ”

Baseball

Baseball team looks to rebound with new coach

Following Lance Fisher’s departure from the baseball program, Greg Zanolli plans to fill the position of varsity coach this upcoming season.

Zanolli’s long history in the area prompted him to take advantage of the open coaching position at RHS. Previously, Zanolli was a manager of both the freshman and JV teams, before becoming the varsity pitching coach at Oakmont High School.

“I live in Roseville, so the Roseville [High School] position was a great opportunity to coach in the town I live and in a community I have coached in for a long time,” Zanolli said. “Roseville has a rich tradition that I would like to continue.”

Zanolli has been around baseball for most for most of his life, coaching for the past 15 years, including the last seven at Oakmont High School. After starting his career as the freshman manager,

Zanolli moved his way up in the program and eventually become the varsity pitching coach.

Last year, the Tigers fell short of making it to playoffs, ending the year with a 9-18 overall record and losing their final 12 games. Zanolli get the Tigers back to there winnning ways.

“They didn’t finish last season the way they would have liked,” Zanolli said. “We are looking forward to turning that around and getting back to the playoffs on a consistent basis.”

Zanolli believes this is a realistic goal based on the team’s success in the previous seasons, not including last year’s. He is willing to push the team to not only have a good season this year, but plans to instill a winning mentality with the teams in years to come.

“The Roseville baseball community is used to success,” Zanolli said. “They won a Section Title just 3 years ago, and that’s the type of success we will strive to achieve every year.”

Senior Nate Lemos feels the team didn’t reach their full potential last year, but is looking forward to a better season this year with “new philosophies from a new coach.”

“We came to a halt as far as winning came,” Lemos said. “We didn’t win a lot at the end, but we are looking forward to rebuilding this year and hopefully going back to playoffs.”

TENNIS

Tennis gets first new coach in five years

The girls varsity tennis team is heading into the 2017 season with a brand new head coach. Dana Duncan will replace former tennis coach Donny Nush.

Nush had been the coach of both the boys and girls tennis programs since 2013.Despite no longer being the head coach, Nush will continue to be involved and attend some of the practices.

Senior Courtney Carpenter, believes that even with the new coach, the team will be able to attain the same success, if not more than they did last year.

“I’m excited to be working with coach Duncan,” Carpenter said. “It’s sad to see coach Nush leave because he’s been coaching me for a long time, but I’m excited to see what she can bring to the table.”

Despite the turnover in coaches, Carpenter feels that the experience that the girls team has will allow them to be successful.

“I think we will be able to maintain the same success as last year.” Carpenter said, “We have a really good skill level and girls who have been playing for a long time.”

Though there will be some minor changes, captain Kenzie Duncan believes that with the new coach, the practices and the games will stay the same and the team will stay as energetic as they always have been.

“Everything now is a little more organized,” Kenzie said. “Donny [Nush] was a little more lenient with plans, but it’s definitely the same vibe among the team. The team stays very competitive and we’re all positive out there.”

Coach Duncan feels excited for this new opportunity and believes that the team will be successful this season based off of what she’s seen. The team is off a 2-0 league start with wins over Del Campo and Cosumnes Oaks.

CHEER

This season, Gabriella Vega will take over for Bri Eigenman as head coach of the Roseville High School cheer team. This will be Vega’s fourth year coaching high school cheer, and her seventh year overall, with the other three years spent coaching competitive cheer programs.

Despite this being Vega’s first year as the Roseville coach, she knows the team well, as she was a member of the Universal Cheerleaders Association that used to host summer camps attended by

Roseville. At the camps, Vega noticed the team’s athleticism and is eager to see it first hand.

“I look forward to the sense of athleticism that this team aims to bring to the name of Roseville Cheer this season,” Vega said. “They work extra hard to not only do something that requires an immense amount of athletic ability and focus but also do it with a smile.”

Vega is also interested to see how the team will attempt to gain respect as an official sport now that cheer is recognized as one in California.

“In the beginning of the season I had asked what the team’s biggest goals were for the year and almost unanimously got the reply for respect as an official sport.” Vega said. “These girls want their school to have as much pride and respect for them as they do for all the other athlete teams.”

CROSS COUNTRY

Roseville High School alumnus Nicholas Navasero has taken over as the head coach of the cross country team. Though Navasero had worked as an assistant coach for the cross country team at RHS in 2012, this is his first year being a head coach.

Navasero has an appreciation for the deep history and culture he once felt while attending RHS.

“I love the culture, history, and spirit of the school. And cross country is very near and dear to my heart,” Navasero said.

During his years at RHS, Navasero enjoyed the competitive environment that his coach developed and hopes to create a similar environment.

“I ran cross country my junior and senior year at RHS and the team I was on was very close. And the environment was both fun and competitive,” Navasero said. “I want to replicate this type of environment for my own team.”

Sophomore runner Trenton Artica enjoys Navasero coaching because of his past experience with cross country.

“I like him a lot. He has a lot of experience because he use to run at RHS back in the day when he used to go here,” Artica said. “He’s very well informed of how to improve our times and what our bodies are capable of doing.”

Artica says that Navasero brings experience and ways to improve running times.

“He makes us do different workouts and intervals,” Artica said. “Like something we didn’t do last year is we did stadium runs to help improve going up hills and to work out our calves.”
Artica also believes that while the team is still gaining experience, the relative youth will help them going forward later this year and into next.