A Recap of the Catlin Gabel Fall Sports Season
By Margot Camp ‘23 and George Pritchard ‘23
The Catlin Gabel School (CGS) Eagles hit the court, field, and track this fall to compete in varsity athletics. CGS fielded teams in girls and boys cross country, girls and boys soccer, and girls volleyball. Each team played within the Oregon School Athletics Association (OSAA) 3A classification, meaning they played against schools of similar size. This is how each varsity team performed.
Coming off the best year in school history, with a third-place finish in the 2021 state tournament, the CGS volleyball team returned in 2022 looking to follow up on their historic season. Graduating three players who are currently playing in college— Sophie Scott, Natalie Potter, and Oci White— and losing current senior Tatum Chase to a knee injury before the season, the Eagles came into the season with a roster that included plenty of new faces.
The team was led by four-year varsity player and University of Pennsylvania volleyball commit Elsa McDermott. Alongside McDermott as captain, were seniors Emma Shields and Colette Hyde. CGS also welcomed incoming freshman Hayley Schaaf, a Palma Scholar for volleyball.
The volleyball season got off to a rocky start, with the team dropping their first three games, two of which were to league foes Valley Catholic and Horizon Christian.
Shields shared how these losses impacted the team. “At the beginning of the season, our team sat down and talked about what our goals were. We’d played a few league games already and had lost to both Valley Catholic and Horizon Christian. We decided to make a goal where we would not lose any more league games, we would win the league tournament, and we would go to state.”
The team did indeed rebound, rattling off four straight wins, including a huge home victory over rival Oregon Episcopal (OES) on September 8th.
The rest of the season was up and down, and the team eventually ended with eight wins and 10 losses, finishing fifth out of the seven teams in their league.
Needing to win the league tournament to qualify for the state tournament, the Eagles were matched up with Horizon Christian for a third time that season. After a tough game that lasted three sets, the Eagles’ season came to an end.
Shields reflected back upon the season. “Despite not getting as far as we had hoped, I genuinely think the season was a big success for our team’s relationships, leadership, confidence, and work ethic. The last game especially was pretty hard for the seniors given it ended up being our last high school game and we were playing a pretty important rival. It would have been great to win this game, but we did fight hard and gave it our all.”
“Overall, I’m proud of the season and what we gave to each other. I'm going to miss this team so much, but I’ll never forget the memories I made with everyone and I am excited to see what they do next year,” said Shields.
McDermott and Schaaf earned first-team all-league honors, and Shields was recognized as second-team all-league.
Volleyball team roster. Photo courtesy of OSAA
Photo courtesy of Eva Vu-Stern
Following the graduation of many crucial team members, including Megan Cover— who currently runs in college at Occidental— the CGS cross country team was looking to rebuild its roster.
Captains Eva Vu-Stern and Max Whalen, a junior and sophomore respectively, were two of the most experienced runners on the team.
Vu-Stern anticipated the challenge that comes with a new roster. “Coming into the season, I wasn’t expecting a lot of people on the team since we lost a lot of our senior members from last year. I was happily surprised that we got a lot of new members that were a mix of experienced and new runners. Our team dynamic during practice and meets was supportive and I always looked forward to laughing with the team.”
CGS won the Homecoming meet hosted at CGS in late September, with both the boys and girls teams placing first. Individually, freshman Priya Klein placed second and Vu-Stern placed fourth for the girls. On the boys side, Whalen, senior Ben Rosenfeld, and freshman Ari Waechter placed second, third, and fourth respectively.
The team competed in two other meets during the regular season, the OES XC Invitational on September 13th, and the Flat & Fast Invitational on October 7th.
In the OSAA Special District 1 Championship meet, the boys team placed 6th and the girls team placed 7th, each team just missing out on qualification for the state championship.
“Competition-wise the season went OK, but we had a lot of team injuries and illnesses that prevented us from having a chance to go to the state XC meet,” explained Vu-Stern. “Though the team as a whole wasn’t as competitively strong as we had hoped, by the end of the season almost every runner was able to individually improve, which is really something to be proud of.”
“I hope that next year we will have even more members and an even stronger competitive team, but this year was still very fun and memorable,” Vu-Stern said.
Vu-Stern’s hopes for next year are on their way to becoming true, as this year's squad was full of underclassmen. Those runners gained valuable experience that will be utilized during the 2023 cross country season.
Boys & girls cross country roster. Photo courtesy of Athletic.net
Photo courtesy of Steve Jones
Following a state championship in 2021, the CGS girls varsity soccer team was hoping to earn some more championship hardware this season. After the graduation of just two seniors, the team returned many of its core members from last year, including senior captains Grace Mueller, Aanna Farhang, and Willa Whalen-Stewart.
Based on the talent CGS possessed on their roster, the team had lofty expectations, as CGS was picked to finish first in the OSAA preseason coaches poll.
“Obviously, I think I went into the season wanting to win it all but knew that the team would have to take it game by game,” Mueller says, expressing the pressure she felt as a returning captain.
The Eagles lived up to their preseason first-place ranking. The team steamrolled most of its competition, with their only loss being a 2-1 defeat by St. Mary’s Academy, a 6A school that competes in a league with the biggest schools in Oregon.
CGS's only close games in their own league came against Valley Catholic, where the Eagles earned 5-2 and 2-1 victories. Every other regular season win came by five or more goals, with the majority being 8-0 mercy rule victories.
The Eagles entered the state playoffs as the number one overall seed. They advanced through the first three rounds without trouble, setting up a third match against Valley Catholic in the state final.
In said final, the Eagles jumped out to an early lead, with a goal in the first minute from junior Pia Patrikson. Valley Catholic responded with a goal in the second half, and regulation time ended in a draw. During extra time, the Valiants scored three goals to win the state championship, as CGS took home the second-place trophy.
Following the loss, Mueller stated “I'm definitely disappointed that the final game did not go in our favor. It's really hard to beat a challenging team three times in a season and things just did not go our way.”
Although Mueller was unhappy with the team’s loss, she still felt proud of her final high school soccer season. “In general, I am really proud of our performance this year. Regardless of the end result, I think that was the most talented class I've played with and it was fun to play with such a good group of players.”
Mueller was named league Player of the Year and earned first-team all-league honors. Alongside her on the first team were junior Campbell Swaim and freshman Addi Dauler. Patrikson was named second-team all-league. Whalen-Stewart, senior Charlotte Long and sophomore Elise Kim were honorbale mentions.
Girls soccer team roster. Photo courtesy of OSAA
Photo courtesy of Jack Beckerman ‘23
Like the girls soccer team, the CGS boys varsity soccer team came off of a 2021 season for the ages, in which the team finished with 17 wins, zero losses, and a state championship. However, much of that success was due to the seniors that year, such as state player of the year Felipe Rueda-Duran, and after graduating seven of the eleven starters from last year's team, the Eagles needed to fill the gaps on the team.
More gaps appeared before the season, as senior Maxim Kim and junior Owen Jones, two starters from last year’s team, suffered season-ending injuries before the first match.
That left just junior Raul Rendon-Benitez and senior George Pritchard, the two captains of the team, as returning starters from last year’s squad.
Rendon-Benitez shared insight into his expectations at the start of the year. “Coming into this season, I knew the team wasn’t going to be as strong as last year because of the players we lost. I knew winning the state championship wouldn’t be easy but we were very capable of getting it done if we did things right.”
Despite the new roster, Rendon-Benitez was rightly confident. The Eagles won their first nine matches against some of the top teams in the state. One of these victories came at Homecoming, a 3-0 win over the Aardvarks of OES.
But the team hit a rough patch, losing three of their next four games. The losses came to league rivals OES and Riverdale, and a shocking upset loss to De La Salle North Catholic.
The Eagles rebounded, winning their final two regular-season games to earn the number two overall seed in the state playoffs. After winning their first playoff game, they faced McLoughlin in the second round.
The game ended 1-1 after 100 minutes, meaning it went to penalty kicks, where McLoughlin won 4-2. That ended CGS’s season and the high school careers of its 11 seniors.
Rendon-Benitez gave his perspective on how the season went. “We lost in the second round of the playoffs, which is not how I imagined the season going. Yes, it was heartbreaking, but I am very proud of the way the team handled themselves in that game and the season in general. Even when we lost important players like Maxim and Owen at the beginning of the season and even Ben later in the season, I thought the team responded well by working hard to keep succeeding without these important pieces of the team.”
“We did some great things this season, some not so great as well, but I am happy with what we did this season and can’t wait for next year,” said Rendon-Benitez.
Pritchard, Rendon-Benitez, and senior Ansel Wallace were awarded first-team all-league honors for CGS. Senior Che Sufuentes and senior Cole Grant earned second-team all-league, and sophomore Leon Liu was an honorable mention.
Boys soccer team roster. Photo courtesy of OSAA
Conclusion
Each CGS varsity sports team succeeded both on and off of the playing surface this fall. Additionally, junior varsity teams in soccer and volleyball had strong campaigns as well. The attention of Eagle athletes and fans now turn their attention to winter sports, where CGS will compete in boys and girls basketball, boys and girls swimming, and skiing.