As spring rolls around, officially starting on March 20th, so does a new season of Broad Run sports. While tryouts might’ve already happened, you can still join some sports! But are they worth the time, energy, and dedication required? Broad Run has a wide variety of spring sports, each with a unique community, and each working hard to build better athletes and better students. As a whole, they make up an important part of the high school experience.
Spring sports are great, as they give you “an opportunity to exercise when the weather is warming up,” and are more enjoyable than winter sports for that reason, according to Autumn Hild. But what are the best spring sports?
Sports include tennis, baseball, softball, lacrosse, track and field, soccer, and rowing. When asked which sport seems to be the most popular at Broad Run, two (unbiased) students of Broad Run answered with spring track as the school favourite.
Track and field is a sport that encompasses many different opportunities for students to compete against students from other schools, including competitive events that test your aerobic capacity, anaerobic speed capacity, strength, and power. Training involves a specific ratio of cardio training, repeat speed workouts and strength development, depending on which event you plan to race or compete in. It is a sport where the sole goal is to change yourself physically into what is fast and strong enough to win, so it is a pretty painful, but also rewarding, sport. If you haven’t tried it before, I recommend you give it a try!
Similar to track and field is crew (rowing). Crew is a co-ed sport that requires coordination and trust in your teammates to be successful. Success requires almost perfect synchronization with your teammates. But like track and field, the goal of crew put very simply is to change your body composition in such a way that lets it output the highest amount of watts over time. This means developing muscle mass, strength, and power endurance, and is a very rewarding sport health-wise if you train properly.
Baseball and softball are two very similar sports, the difference being that baseball is predominantly a boy’s sport, whereas softball is predominantly a girl’s sport. Both are based on the same concept, which is to throw a ball towards the hitter, who must hit the ball away from the outfielders on the other team. The slower the outfielders get the ball, the more points the hitters can get. This is a classic concept that is very fun to watch, and the different outfield positions each have a slightly different skill set. Pitching is one of the most important roles, as a good pitcher can make the difference between a very strong and a not so great defense. Baseball is and has historically been one of the most popular American sports, nicknamed “America’s pastime.” But it can be your pastime too if you join!
Next up for our spring sports is Tennis. Tennis is surprising to those who haven’t played it before, in that it requires more cardio than you’d think it does. Running back and forth across the court gets pretty tiring, and before you know it, you’ll be breathing pretty hard. All this running is done while predicting where your opponent is going to hit the ball. Broad Run has a pretty strong tennis team, relatively speaking, with the girls team recognized as a state powerhouse, winning state championships back to back in 2024 and 2025.
Lastly, we have lacrosse. Lacrosse is a very popular sport here at Broad Run, and we have a competitive team for boys and girls. In the 2023-2024 season, the boys team’s recorded win/loss record was 12-3. Lacrosse is a team sport where each player holds a stick that has a pouch in the top, which is used to catch and throw the lacrosse ball.
Most (definitely not all) students who join lacrosse in high school have no previous experience, so this levels the playing field.
Overall, joining a spring sport can be one of the most valuable experiences you can have in high school. You create actual memorable experiences with your peers, you’ll get into better shape, and you might even make a few life changing relationships and connections through the sport.
