Ski Week: a relaxing, well-deserved break for students and staff. But many athletes are still hard at work even while school is not in session. Some athletes may spend six days a week at practice, or have practices and games over a break.

SCHS’s baseball team does both. Senior Sean Rescate has played for the baseball team all four years he has attended SCHS and is familiar with practicing on both Saturday and over February Break. Rescate said he recognizes the benefits of consistent practice, even over the break.

“It gets us engaged in the game, and it doesn’t let us get rusty. It just keeps us polished,” Rescate said.

Just because practices and games are being held, however, does not mean all athletes show up. Freshman Jaxton Chao said that the JV baseball team felt the repercussions of missing players when they took the field with only nine players during a game scheduled over February Break. The other five players on the team were, according to Chao, on vacation. The JV team lost 12-0 to Capuchino High.

For some athletes, missing practices results in consequences. For the varsity baseball team, missing a practice could mean not starting in the next game. Rescate believes it to be a reasonable repercussion for not showing up.

Alternatively, there are no direct consequences for missing a track and field practice over break. Rather, sophomore cross-country and track and field runner Morgan Deboe believes the reverberations of a missed practice are felt more on the physical side.

“They say that you can lose your fitness in two weeks, so after one week, you’re already down fitness,” Deboe said. “So, I think especially for runners, it’s important to maintain going to practice and doing the same workouts.”

Many teams, including baseball and winter guard, regularly have practices, games or competitions on the weekends. According to sophomore Natalie Smith, winter guard practices from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays.

“Saturday practices are beneficial because, despite how much of a time commitment they are, there is a lot of time to do things that we will not have time to do during a school week,” Smith said. “Since it is on the weekends, we get to sleep in a little bit more, so we’re usually a bit more energized.”

Breaks from school are popular times to schedule family vacations, group hangouts and all manner of activities. When sports practices, games and meets are scheduled on days when school is off, however, they can impede on plans. Smith emphasized the importance of attending winter guard practices in favor of other activities.

“You can’t really miss a practice because you could miss learning something new. Winter guard is not just like a regular athletic sport where you have to just practice to keep improving,” Smith said. “You learn new choreography and cleaning, and it’s really detrimental to miss it.”

Junior Marisol Luciano, another member of winter guard, said that she is happy to postpone traveling and activities in favor of attending winter guard practice.

“If I know for sure there is something coming up, I’ll say I can’t go out of town, I can’t work, because it (winter guard practice) is really special,” Luciano said. “ I’m always there.”