Oct 17 2014 hi line

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The HI-LINE Tiger Friday, Oct. 17, 2014 Volume 55 Edition 5 Facing her Future Day of reckoning comes calling for senior hockey player/Page 4 Follow us on Twitter at tigerhiline, Facebook at TigerHilineOnline and on our website at www.hiline.cfschools.org ALAM By Online Editor Zuhayr STORTZ By Staff Writer Sarah Seniors Charolotte Bran- denburg, Agatha Fenech and Tutku (Erik) Tazegu have recent- ly been named National Merit Scholarship Semi-Finalists by scoring extremely high on the PSAT compared to other test takers in the state. Fenech said she preparing for the PSAT was not unlike preparing for other tests. “I prepared for the PSAT last year by working through the test booklet that they pro- vided us, among other stan- dardized test prep booklets,” Fenech said. “The tips in the booklet really help.” Sophomores and juniors took the test earlier this week and will receive feedback and tips for exceeding their cur- rent ability when they take the SAT later on in December. However, only juniors who take the PSAT can be considered as candidates for the National Merit Scholarship. Brandenburg was happy when she heard the news. “I was really excited when I Three earn National Merit Semi-Finalist Honors heard the news,” Brandenburg said, “but not nearly as excited as (counselor Susan) Langan was.” Langan was elated when she heard the news. “I loved finding out who the three semi-finalists from our school were and got excited for the students,” Langan said. “It opens up a whole lot of doors for scholarships and opportuni- ties.” To be selected as final- ists among the 16,000 semi- finalists across the country, the three must fill out an applica- tion about their current aca- demic and extra-curricular ac- tivities, and take the SAT. From that group, finalists are chosen, and scholarships are given out to those who qualify to be fi- nalists. Tazegul said he thinks that the most difficult part has passed. “Qualifying to become a semi-finalist is the hardest part in the process. After you qual- ify as a semi-finalist, you just Tips for Success on Standarized Tests Get used to the format Prepare for the test over a longer period of time Try to answer questions in your head before seeing the answers Don’t worry too much Have faith in what you know Don’t doubt yourself Do practice tests Get enough sleep and do whatever you can to stay relaxed Keep calm during the test —Erik Tazegu National Merit Semi-Finalist —Agatha Fenech National Merit Semi-Finalist —Charlotte Brandenburg National Merit Semi-Finalist With the first quarter end- ing, world language teacher Melissa Breddin is faced with a tough decision. Right in the middle of the school year, she and her family are plan- ning to move to Win- tersville, Ohio, due to her husband receiving a job as pastor in Steubenville. Breddin has been teaching world languages for a total of 22 years, working at Carroll Middle School in Carroll, Iowa, for three years; Indian Hills in West Des Moines, for another three years; and at Cedar Falls High School for 16 years. Throughout her career, she has taught both French and Span- ish, teaching French for 21 years and Spanish for 19 years. She said that what she’s looking forward to the most about moving to Wintersville is being able to be a stay at home mom. “I am excited to volunteer in my girls’ class- rooms and go on their field trips,” she said. It’s currently undetermined exactly when exactly Breddin and her fam- ily are going to move. The earliest she plans to move is around next semester since her hus- band begins his job on Jan. 1 of 2015. How- ever, she can only move around that time if her house her in Iowa is sold early enough since she’s not going to work in Ohio. If not, she’ll move somewhere later next year. When she does make the switch, she said that she’ll miss being in town with her mother along with friends and col- leagues. “I have been blessed to teach some truly amazing students over the years, and I will miss them very much. This is a great town and a fabulous school district. Wintersville has big shoes to fill.” After 16 years at CF, Teacher planning move to Ohio Melissa Breddin World Language Teacher Stepping Up Senior Kelly Olsen stands up for a solo at the orchestra concert on Tuesday, Oct. 14. She is playing a selection by Antonio Vivaldi. Other selections from the orchestra included “Alleluia and Fugue” by Alan Hovhaness and “Mock Morris” by Percy Grainger. In other music department action, the marching band earned a Division I from all judges at the contest in Dubuque on Saturday, Oct. 11. Madison Wright Photo have to fill out a brief applica- tion and write an essay,” Taze- gul said. “Most semi-finalists move on to become finalists.”

description

The Hi-Line is produced weekly by the journalism students at Cedar Falls High School.

Transcript of Oct 17 2014 hi line

Page 1: Oct 17 2014 hi line

The

HI-LINETiger

Friday, Oct. 17, 2014 Volume 55 Edition 5

Facing her FutureDay of reckoning comes calling for senior hockey player/Page 4

Follow us on Twitter at tigerhiline,Facebook at TigerHilineOnline and on our websiteat www.hiline.cfschools.org

ALAM By Online Editor Zuhayr

STORTZBy Staff Writer Sarah

Seniors Charolotte Bran-denburg, Agatha Fenech and Tutku (Erik) Tazegu have recent-ly been named National Merit Scholarship Semi-Finalists by scoring extremely high on the PSAT compared to other test takers in the state.

Fenech said she preparing for the PSAT was not unlike preparing for other tests.

“I prepared for the PSAT last year by working through the test booklet that they pro-vided us, among other stan-dardized test prep booklets,” Fenech said. “The tips in the booklet really help.”

Sophomores and juniors took the test earlier this week and will receive feedback and tips for exceeding their cur-rent ability when they take the SAT later on in December. However, only juniors who take the PSAT can be considered as candidates for the National Merit Scholarship.

Brandenburg was happy when she heard the news.

“I was really excited when I

Three earn National Merit Semi-Finalist Honorsheard the news,” Brandenburg said, “but not nearly as excited as (counselor Susan) Langan was.”

Langan was elated when she heard the news. “I loved finding out who the three semi-finalists from our school were and got excited for the students,” Langan said. “It opens up a whole lot of doors for scholarships and opportuni-ties.”

To be selected as final-ists among the 16,000 semi-finalists across the country, the three must fill out an applica-tion about their current aca-demic and extra-curricular ac-tivities, and take the SAT. From that group, finalists are chosen, and scholarships are given out to those who qualify to be fi-nalists.

Tazegul said he thinks that the most difficult part has passed.

“Qualifying to become a semi-finalist is the hardest part in the process. After you qual-ify as a semi-finalist, you just

Tips for Success on Standarized Tests

Get used to the format

Prepare for the test over a longer period of time

Try to answer questions in your head before seeing the answers

Don’t worry too much

Have faith in what you know

Don’t doubt yourself

Do practice tests

Get enough sleep and do whatever you can to stay relaxed

Keep calm during the test

—Erik TazeguNational Merit Semi-Finalist

—Agatha FenechNational Merit Semi-Finalist

—Charlotte BrandenburgNational Merit Semi-Finalist

With the first quarter end-ing, world language teacher Melissa Breddin is faced with a tough decision. Right in the middle of the school year, she and her family are plan-ning to move to Win-tersville, Ohio, due to her husband receiving a job as pastor in Steubenville.

Breddin has been teaching world languages for a total of 22 years, working at Carroll Middle School in Carroll, Iowa, for three years; Indian Hills in West Des Moines, for another three years; and at Cedar Falls High School for 16 years. Throughout her career, she has taught both French and Span-ish, teaching French for 21 years and Spanish for 19 years.

She said that what she’s looking forward to the most about moving to Wintersville is being able to be a stay at home mom. “I am excited to volunteer in my girls’ class-

rooms and go on their field trips,” she said.

It’s currently undetermined exactly when exactly Breddin and her fam-ily are going to move. The earliest she plans to move is around next semester since her hus-band begins his job on Jan. 1 of 2015. How-ever, she can only move around that time if her house her in Iowa is sold

early enough since she’s not going to work in Ohio. If not, she’ll move somewhere later next year.

When she does make the switch, she said that she’ll miss being in town with her mother along with friends and col-leagues. “I have been blessed to teach some truly amazing students over the years, and I will miss them very much. This is a great town and a fabulous school district. Wintersville has big shoes to fill.”

After 16 years at CF,Teacher planning move to Ohio

Melissa BreddinWorld Language

Teacher

Stepping UpSenior Kelly Olsen stands up for a solo at the orchestra concert on Tuesday, Oct. 14. She is playing a selection by Antonio Vivaldi. Other selections from the orchestra included “Alleluia and Fugue” by Alan Hovhaness and “Mock Morris” by Percy Grainger. In other music department action, the marching band earned a Division I from all judges at the contest in Dubuque on Saturday, Oct. 11.

Madison Wright Photo

have to fill out a brief applica-tion and write an essay,” Taze-

gul said. “Most semi-finalists move on to become finalists.”

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Friday, Oct. 17, 2014 HI-LINETiger

The

OPINION2Our View

Food drive more than trivial

The Tiger Hi-Line is a weekly publication of the journalism classes at Cedar Falls High School, 1015 Division Street, Cedar Falls, Iowa 50613. Our website is www.hiline.cfschools.org. The Hi-Line is distributed to CFHS students on Fridays to read during their fifth period classes.

Columns and letters do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hi-Line staff or Cedar Falls Schools. The Hi-Line editorial is present-ed weekly in the editorial labeled Our View, and it is the view of the majority of the editors listed below. Reader opinions on any topic are welcome and should be sent to The Tiger Hi-Line staff or delivered to room 208. All letters must be signed. Letters must be submitted by 3 p.m. on Monday for publication in the following Friday edition. Letters may not exceed 300 words and may be edited to meet space limita-tions. Writers should include their contact information for verification.

Editor-in-Chief: Austin AndersonOnline Editor: Zuhayr AlamLead Opinion Writer: Kaleb BengstonStaff Writers: Annebeth Ahrenholz, Kaela Avila, Dino Odobasic, Skylar Starbeck and Sarah Stortz

Contact Us

AVILA By Staff Writer Kaela

On Thursday, Oct. 23, Cedar Falls High School will be holding a Trivia Competition at 7:30 p.m., right after Parent-Teacher Conferences. The dead-line for a team to register is Monday, October 20 at 3 p.m. Each fifth hour class can have up to three teams with four to seven par-ticipants. The entry fee for each team includes three cans of food per member for the school’s food drive.

The prize for the win-ning teams includes receiv-ing all of the cans collected at the entry. The 1st place team will receive 70 percent of the cans, 2nd place will receive 20 per-cent and 3rd place will receive 10 percent. All of the cans re-warded will contribute to the total cans of the 5th hour classes.

There are several reasons why you, as a student, should highly consider participating in this.

First of all, it’s an academic competition. Taking part in this can be a great opportunity for you and your friends to test your knowledge and skills in certain subjects. It’s a fun way for you and your classmates to have a friendly competition with each other to see who comes out on top. You’ll also might learn some new things that you never knew before.

The second reason is that it’s a chance for your class to help get ahead in the competition. The prizes won at the event can easily help your class take the lead and have a higher chance in winning, which can result in winning a prize of a pizza party for your class.

However, the third and most important to take part is that we’ll be able to have more food to donate. For many us, we all have the privilege to attend a well financed school that serves us both breakfast and lunch every day, along with a warm home and a family that serves us meals. However, the same thing definitely can’t be said for everyone else. In Iowa alone, about 389,730 citizens struggle with hunger, which equates to about 1 in 8 Iowans in hunger. This number doesn’t even come close to the 49 million citizens all over the United States who don’t have enough food.

As both a student body and part of a nation, we should all take responsibility to come together and help those that are less fortunate than us. Some of these individuals who are facing hunger happen to be some of our own classmates and their families. To have a strong community, everyone should be able to have equal rights and equal access to necessities, especially food.

The link to the sign-up form for the trivia contest is posted on the announcements on the school website for any one in-terested. This is one test all of us should aim to ace.

Procrastination is a word which seems to be in almost every student’s quality bank at one point or another. Teachers nag us about it at every assign-ment, but it can’t be helped that we teenagers would rather watch Netflix or scroll through Instagram than work on a 12-page essay on the history of the napkin. While procrastina-tion is not bad with the occa-sional couple of worksheets, long term projects and study-ing for tests will result in the need for more than one cup of coffee. Below are some tips that may help lessen pro-crastion, but are not sure fire ways to completely getting rid of the habit.

Tip one is easy; write the of-ficial due date a day earlier. By doing that, rushing through all the work the night before that day will guarantee completion and may give you more time to edit out last minute mis-takes. It will let you have some

Procrastination PointersFollow these five tips to arrive at deadline

relief, and in return, will give you more time to not have to be bothered with other home-work.

The second one isn’t that bad either; estimate how long it would take to finish the as-signment and add an hour or two. Doing that would help for estimating how much time should be set aside to finish the homework. Knowing how long it would take to finish it will ensure when it would be best to start on the almost due project.

The third tip depends on the type of person; either take away all distractions during rush work or blast music and the TV to high volume. To work at the last minute takes moti-vation, so a quiet atmosphere may work for some or an entire rock album would work best for another.

It may seem needy, but ask-ing a person who is working on the same assignment for

help is a fourth point. Doing an assignment which is difficult and confusing will take awhile to complete, so why not ask for some last minute? Finish-ing will be quicker if someone who’s done it can help.

The last tip that might be helpful is to not sleep at all (which is not really a surprise). If a project is due the next day and only a small percent-age of it is completed, then don’t waste those few hours of sleep to, well, sleep. The consequences may be brutal in the afternoon, but it might be worth it if a grade is on the line. Sleep belongs to those who’ve prepared, so procrastinators should concede to going with-out.

Stopping procrastination is sometimes futile, so it is best to at the least lessen the burden in one way or another.

Oct. 17 6-8 p.m. Leadership students collect-ing at football gameOct. 22 Pay to wear jeans — staffOct. 27 Leadership students collecting at Hy-Vee and FarewayOct. 28 Powder Puff Volleyball — 10th boys, 11th boys, 12th boys, all staff — All welcome to watch.Oct. 30 5:30-7 p.m. Trunk or Treat with con-cession (chili, hotdogs, hot chocolate)Oct. 31 Pay to wear a Halloween costume at schoolOct. 31 Leadership students will go trick-or-treating for cansNov. 3 Dinner at Pizza Ranch

Food Drive Calendar

The Internet is a deep and scary place, and even when you think you’ve reached the absolute bottom or the deep-est crevice you, yet again, find yourself even deeper. Through all of the Interweb’s crazy and sometimes lunatic content, you can always rely on a few sites to sort the crazy and keep you informed with what is going on in this world.

That’s why I’m going to break down the five best web-sites to find news and possibly have a little fun.

The website coming in at number five is CNN. It comes with one of the best user inter-faces I’ve seen, as well as very good prioritizing of news. The headlines are catchy and don’t turn the reader away. The only downfalls of that website is the ads can slow down response time of your computer and dis-tract you from what you came there for. Though you can’t re-ally blame CNN for that; it’s the ad company using click-bait to get you to view their website or product.

Number four of this count-down is BBC. BBC has a very good user interface, confusing at times, but overall nice. It leads your eye to the big story immediately and is generally focused on world news. My

only grievance is hand-in-hand with a pro; it only focuses on world news. Hardly do you get anything exclusive to America. But it is also a British website, so it’s understandable.

Coming in at number three is Reuters. Reuters is one of the best. They have hardly any po-litical bias; they give the story as it is, how it is. As with all these websites, they have to be given credit for their user interface. Simple layout with stock information on the very top. They also give options to switch between different coun-tries’ headlines. A very reliable website and one of the most unbiased news sources around.

Leading up at number two is my personal favorite. Red-dit. Reddit has been crowned “the front page of the Inter-net,” and it hosts everything you could ever want. Got an interest or hobby? It’s on Red-dit. Want to share writing and get critiques? It’s on Reddit.

Whatever you want, it’s there, and there are subreddits that have the leading headlines or the most popular stories linked out by fellow Redditors. It’s a forum based site, where in the comment section you can joke around, argue, debate or circlejerk a topic until its dead. Reddit has an “upvote” system where you can filter the bad from the popular and get oth-er’s opinions on a subject. The only downfall is people tend to be confused with the layout of the site, but most Redditors say that once they figured it out, it was simple.

And finally number one is Yahoo News. Not only is it the most visited site to get general news, it is superbly laid out. The user interface is so simple you’d have to be blind not to know how to navigate. It links to some of the best articles on the subject and even writes some of its own. You can navi-gate and narrow searches as you wish, use the search bar to find key words and can find stocks and their growth there. The only issue found is the amount of ads, and click-bait is a little overdone. But websites do have to make money, and ads are how you do it.

Check out these five sites for news

AVILA By Lead OpinionWriter Kaela

Five Essential News Sites

5.4.3.

2.1.

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Friday, Oct. 17, 2014HI-LINETiger

The

FEATURES3

• Don’tanswersecurityquestionswitheasyanswers

• Don’tclickonrandomads• Don’tdownloadIllegal

documents• Getsecurityforyour

computer

• Uselongerandunguessablewordswithamixofnum-bers,symbolsandupper/lowercaselettersforyourpassword.

• Usedifferentpasswordsfordifferentplatforms

• Nevershareyourpasswordwithanyone

• Changeyourpasswordsoverperiodsoftime

• Makeyouraccountprivate• Don’tacceptfriendrequests

frompeopleyoudon’tknow

Ten years ago, those who had something to say about someone were likely to speak face to face with the subjects of their troubles or at least to share with other accomplises in gossip. But that was before so-cial media, before Twitter.

Twitter has invented a differ-ent and easier way of “indirect-ly” gossiping. Indirect tweeting or “subtweeting” has become a normal and casual way for many teens to express how they feel for everyone to see.

Of the 120 CFHS students recently surveyed, 55 percent said that subtweeting was an issue in our high school, and 45 percent said it was not, though comments on these findings varied widely. Some teens would say it is extremely of-fensive and causes a lot of hard feelings towards one another. “Subtweeting is a problem be-cause it further advances the amount of beef between two

Majority in Hi-Line poll find problems with subtweeting

people,” junior Jacob Hovanec said.

Others said that subtweet-ing isn’t an issue because it is completely pointless and it isn’t worth causing problems over. “All subtweeting does is make

the problem worse. When peo-ple see that they have been indirectly tweeted at, it just makes them upset. It doesn’t fix anything. It’s not a big problem, but it’s pointless and can make people upset,” sophomore

Madison Schulte said.Reasons for people to sub-

tweet can differ. Many times when someone indirect tweets at someone or about someone, they only do it so that that per-son will see that they are upset.

They just want a way to express their emotions or they are try-ing to prove a point. The only problem, of course, is more than just that one person sees it — all of their followers get to see it too. “A lot of times peo-ple subtweet about others to prove a point, but most of the time it is unnecessary or goes too far and feelings can quickly get hurt,” sophomore Madison Schulte said.

CFHS staff have a different view on subtweeting than most students. They probably see more of an issue with it because tweeting can be seen as harass-ment. “I definitely think it’s an issue. I think it’s an easy way to harass one another without talking about the issue face to face,” counselor Erin Gardiner said.

The Hi-Line poll represents 10 percent of students. Survey represents gender and classes proportionally.

HI-LINETigerThe

PollIssubtweetingaproblematCF?

55%say“Yes”

AHRENHOLZ By Staff Writer Annebeth

Staying in touch with old friends, communicating with people halfway around the world, completely stalk-ing someone’s life online without them knowing: it was all made possible when Facebook was first launched in February of 2004. Its use quickly grew to billions of people all around the world, but in recent years, Face-book has lost ground to Twit-ter and other new social me-dia outlets.

Twitter came out in March of 2006 but took a couple years to take off. Once it did, it became a huge hit with millions of users tweeting every single day. Another popular social media, Insta-gram, also contributed to the decrease in use of Facebook. Instagram is a social media somewhat like Twitter but users post pictures instead of tweets. It released to the public in October 2010 and rose in popularity in 2012.

“Facebook has turned into a bunch of ads, and it is so much easier to send a tweet or instagram a picture than post Facebook status,” junior Sean Fernholz said.

Part of Facebook’s fall is also due to its loss of being a teen hangout. “A lot of par-ents started using Facebook,

and that’s when Instagram and Twitter became so pop-ular for teenagers. The new social mediums were better and newer versions of Face-book, and that’s when they both skyrocketed,” junior Kate Moody said.

But it’s not totally over for Facebook. This year it is slowly starting to regain it’s popularity again, especially for seniors who have been posting their senior pictures.

“I haven’t used Facebook very much in the past, but I have started using it more and more to post my senior pictures. It’s a good way to share them with everyone,” senior Lauren Hudson said.

“I think that Facebook is slowly becoming popu-lar again because people are starting to reconnect with family members and put more pictures up, such as senior pictures or just ones they have been taking throughout the year,” junior Sara Ashar said.

Although Facebook may have lost it’s popularity, it is slowly starting to reclaim its utility for many teens as they get older and can use it for important things.

With massive security breaches at major banks, retailers and online sites, consumers may need to brush up on protecting their identities. Here is a list to start the path to security.

Falling Facebook

AHRENHOLZ By Staff Writer Annebeth

Twittertakingoveramongteens

Online pirates roiling waters for those seeking safe surfing

Graphic by Dino Odobasic

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Friday, Oct. 17, 2014 HI-LINETiger

The

Sports4

ANDERSON By Editor -in-Chief Austin

Senior Holly Schmitz is lead-ing the women’s cross country team back to the state meet that eluded them last season.

How did you get into run-ning?

I actually don’t know. I don’t know what got me to go out for seventh grade cross coun-try, but I did, and I have been running ever since.

What are your expecta-tions for the team?

Right now it’s going to be really close, but we have a great group of girls, and we have been working really hard, so I think we can make it to State.

How did you take a lead-ership role for this team so you can make sure you get back to State?

We had a good group of freshmen coming in, so I knew if I get them motivated and kept them working hard we could do it together.

Why do you love running?Just the accomplishment

you get when you set a new PR or a really hard workout that you finish and you feel really proud of yourself.

Holly Schmitz Cross Country

TigersActionin

Football (5-2)Lost to Linn-Mar

Next up: CR KennedyOct. 17 at 7:45 p.m.

Volleyball (22-10)Beat Linn-Mar

Next up: MVC Super Meet Oct. 18 at Linn-Mar at 9 a.m.

Women’s CCNext up: Districts

Oct. 23 TBA

Men’s CCNext up: Districts

Oct. 23 TBA

Women’s Swimming MVC Super Meet at Dubuque

Hempstead at 12 p.m.

The clock slowly ticks down on the Under 16 national semifinal game

in Frisco, Texas. After scoring the go ahead goal, the San Jose Jr. Sharks were on the defense of the consistent and furiosus attack from the Potsdam Ice Storm, a team that had already beaten the Jr. Sharks in the tournament.

With the score 4-3 and the Jr. Sharks one minute and 30 seconds away from the immor-tality that comes with being able to compete for the chance to be called the best U16 team in the country, a Potsdam forward broke through for a one-on-one break-away with 14-year-old goaltender Skylar Starbeck.

A score would send the game into a toss up in overtime, but a save would send the Sharks to the national championship game. Starbeck’s eyes were entrenched on the puck, as goalies are trained to do. The forward faked left, came back across the ice to the right, and with every eye in the Dr. Pepper arena, home of the Dallas Stars, glued to the ice, he shot the puck. Starbeck, crouched in stance, dived across the crease, making a split save that sent the Jr. Sharks to the USA Hockey Na-tional Championship game.

Starbeck was vital to the semi-final win just like she, yes she, is vital to the increased exposure for women’s hockey. The number of girls playing hockey has seen a nearly 1,000 percent increase in participation in the United States over the last 25 years. But still, only 20 percent of high school hockey players are women. When that number is compared to the 45 percent of high school basket-ball players who are female and the 48 percent of soccer players, it still pales in comparison.

But Starbeck isn’t concerned about all of the statistics and mi-nority lists she is added to. Hock-ey has been all she has known since she was a seven year old growing up in San Jose, Calif., and continues to this day in her second year of living in Iowa. She doesn’t look at herself as a female hockey player; she’s just a hockey player.

The familiar voice of Fox broadcaster Joe Buck carries from the living

room TV throughout the house, not once but twice. First he speaks to Starbeck’s father, who

is sprawled out on the couch, as well as Starbeck’s grandmother, great aunt and younger brother, who are all in their own seat as they cheer for their hometown San Francisco Giants in their NLCS matchup against the St. Louis Cardinals. Next, about three seconds later, the delayed kitchen TV receives Buck’s call again, this time to Starbeck as she watches at the dining room table while sitting in a chair tilted onto it’s back two legs and leaning against the wall.

Her right wrist has a multi-colored bracelet made of yarn, but the other arm is held up by a black sling, wrapped around her elbow and forearm and sup-ported by a white strap that goes around the right side of her neck. She isn’t quite sure how bad she is hurt, but she yelps in pain, then laughs it off as she foolishly tries to demonstrate how a puck found a padless part of her shoulder and introduced her to the sling she will be wearing for the next few days.

Even after she sustained the injury playing for the Waterloo Warriors, she stayed on to fin-ish the last seven minutes of the period she was assigned to play. After all, she is a hockey player. “I’m not gonna get off the ice. I’m used to getting hit with pucks. I was like ‘Oh, it stings. It’ll bruise and get numb for a bit,’ end of the story, I’m fine,” Starbeck said nonchalantly.

After getting hit, she went to her own private locker room in Young Arena, which she gets be-cause she is the only girl on the Warriors and one of four girls in the entire Midwest High School Hockey League.

Some people may worry about how a girl would fit in on a team full of guys, who are big-ger, faster and stronger. Others

wonder if girls should even be al-lowed to play with boys. The criti-cism doesn’t affect Starbeck. She just lets the others do the worry-ing and wondering. “[The boys] have been super accepting of me,” Starbeck said. “They’re like my brothers.”

Hockey is like a rela-tionship. You need love, money and

commitment. The more you put into it, the more you will get out. Starbeck has taken this to the ex-treme. The last 10 years of her life have revolved around the sport that she loves. Her family used to take trips to Mexico every year before the free time turned into hockey tournaments, and the vacation money turned into gas, hotels and equipment. Starbeck said dedication to the sport is es-sential for success. “It’s like a full time commitment; it’s like a job.”

From 6 a.m. practices to traveling three hours a week to Wisconsin to play for her second team, the Madison Capitals, on top of the Waterloo Warriors last year, it’s Starbeck’s top priority. She’s missed school dances, in-cluding homecoming last year, football games and free time to hang out with friends, but she be-lieves it’s worth it. “I’ve met nearly all of my friends playing hockey. It’s all I’ve ever known,” she said after admitting she’s running on five hours of sleep.

The hard work, dedication and decision she made to get serious about hockey at age 14 are starting to pay off. She got her first scholarship offer to play college hockey from Lindenwood University, a private Division II school located in St. Charles, Mo.

The only catch is that she didn’t get offered to play ice hockey. She got offered to play field hockey, a sport she has only

one year of experience play-ing and hasn’t played since her sophomore year. Her friends convinced her to go out for field hockey, and she picked it up right away. Starting varsity as a sopho-more, she led her team to the California equivalent of the state tournament. After talking to her former coaches, watching film and having a former teammate play at Lindenwood, they offered Starbeck a scholarship. She has less than two weeks to accept the Lindenwood offer or to pursue an immediate future somewhere else.

“I’m fortunate to have two sports to choose from. I have the option to play two sports that I love. It’s going to be hard to de-cide,” Starbeck said. “I’m just in a stuck situation. I never thought I’d have the chance to play field hockey in college. I only played one year, so I thought it was just going to be a side sport. I didn’t actually think I’d be offered.”

She said she is split right down the middle, but with an of-fer literally on her kitchen table, Lindenwood will be hard to turn down compared to a path of the unknown.

“Yes,” she responds without even the slightest of hesitation when asked if the future scares her. “I have no idea what I want to do, where I want to go. And the matter of time I have is so short that I have to make up my mind on what I want to do with the next years of my life.”

Her whole life will be impact-ed by the decision she makes sometime this month.

After tying up the score in the top of the ninth, Cardinal rookie

Kolten Wong stepped up to the plate in the biggest moment of his life. On the living room TV that Starbeck and her family were watching, Wong had the oppor-tunity to change his life forever with one swing of the bat. With the pitch out of the right hand of Sergio Romo, Wong faced all the pressure and won the game with a shot over the right field wall. Then three seconds later, he did it again on the TV in the kitchen.

Now with all the pressure on Starbeck, it’s her turn to step up the plate and knock one out of the park.

As clock ticks away,Hockey player stands behind years of dedication to face her future

Senior Skylar Starbeck faces tough decision on her hockey future.