Nov. 6, 2012 11 Sports

First-place Freshman

After just about two months of high school, fresh-man Jacqueline Juana Escalera, better known as JJ, is already gaining a reputation as one of the best runners in school.

From the age of 9, Escalera has been an avid soccer player and runner. She started running because of her father. “I started playing soccer and my dad wanted me to get in shape,” she said. Since then, she’s developed a love for distance.

She now runs for the varsity cross country team at school and is no stranger to being a winner. A majority of her competitors are typically upperclassmen, but she doesn’t let it faze her. Escalera has beaten an all-time school record in just her first season and won several awards throughout her career. She has four trophies and five medals to her name, crediting her first place in her middle school league finals as her biggest. She can clear one mile in just over five minutes and five kilometers, which is approximately three miles, in a little over 19 minutes.

Even though she’s done it so many times, there’s still a rush to be earned from winning.

“It’s really hard to describe because everyone’s congratulating me and it’s really overwhelming,” Escalera said. “It just feels amazing because everyone’s there for me and it’s really good to make my family proud. I like making other people proud.”

On top of cross-country, Escalera plays soccer with an out-of-school league in the same season, often attend-ing practices for both sports in the same day. She plans to play soccer for Fremont in the winter season.

When spring rolls around, she’ll be ready for track and field.

Not only is Escalera an athlete, she is a member of the Where is the Love club, devoted to diminishing ste-reotypes, and the Bouldering Club. She somehow man-ages to find time for homework and studying to maintain a 3.8 GPA.

Running acts as a natural stress reliever for her and helps her to overcome the pressure that come with grades, extra-curriculars and just being a teenager. “It takes my mind off of things, just focusing on running and breathing,” she said. “It’s really relaxing, even when [I’m running in] races.”

In just the beginning of her high school career, she’s got some major goals set. She hopes to attend Stanford University on an athletic scholarship and run in the Olympics someday. Only time will tell if this first-place freshman can catch up to her dreams, but she’s on the right track.

Courtesy of Malia RamosJJ Escalera catches up to an opponent during a cross-country meet.

Strong, fast and com-petitive. How else could fel-low coaches and teammates describe one of Fremont’s most valuable football play-ers?

Joe De Los Santos,is a senior at Fremont High School. He plays wide receiver, strong safety and running back.

De Los Santos started playing football at the age of seven.

“It was all me, no one influenced me,” De Los Santos said.

De los Santos’ favorite coach, coach Shannon, had the biggest impact on him as both a player and a grow-ing boy.

“He was like a father figure,” De Los Santos said.

Football motivated him to go to school and do his best. He invested eight hours a day to education and after school and week-ends to football.

Like any other preteen male football player with all eyes on him, he began to get feisty with other players. De Los Santos got into two field fights, but luckily managed to mature to be the bigger person and calm himself be-fore the fights escalated into an uncontrollable mess.

As a freshman in high school, De Los Santos had even some of the varsity boys looking up to him. He worked his way up to the top and had many students and staff excitedly talk about his skill and kind heart.

By Tatiana Castillo

He’s not your average Joe

“He is a stud with a big heart,” coach Bob Arm-strong said. “I really admire his drive to keep going.”

De Los Santos contrib-utes to the team by helping those who need it and does not belittle players with less skill.

“He comes to practice every day ready to kick butt on the field,” Coach Bob said.

Although he sometimes

feels in competition with his teammates, De Los Santos does not let that bring him down. Even though De Los Santos has been playing since age 7, he often gets nervous before games. To ease his nerves, his mother goes to every game cheering for her son.

As his most loyal sup-porter, she motivates him to achieve his goals of at least two to three touchdowns

and as many tackles as pos-sible per game.

Even though his teammates rate him “off the charts,” De Los Santos only rates himself a seven out of 10.

“There’s always some-thing that can be improved,” De Los Santos said. “I want to play for the NFL, and that’s like every player’s dream, but I’m really going to make it.”

A few goals of De Los Santos are to continue play-ing after high school and make it onto a college team. He also shares his skills with his younger brother, teach-ing him the ways. He sets his own standards high and puts every ounce of abil-ity he has into games and practices.

“The best quality a football player can have is perseverance, along with respect for his coaches and teammates,” De Los Santos said. “You have to show respect to everybody.”

Respect is a key trait to have, but anyone can get frustrated.

“I can be bipolar some-times,” De Los Santos said. “Certain stuff frustrates me, but other then that I’m pretty laid-back about stuff.”

His proudest moment on the field was when Fremont beat Homestead and brought the bell back. “That was defi-nitely the best feeling,” De Los Santos said.

At the Homecoming game, De Los Santos’ final touchdown broke the CCS record of most points scored in a single game.

Firebirds light up the scoreboard

Justin Hawthorne| The PhoenixJOE De los Santos leaps in the air to make the catch against Harker

Fremont High School’s homecoming football game on Oct. 26 was an absolute demolishing of The Harker School football team.

The previous record of most points in a high school football game in the central coast confer-ence was 82 points that was set in 2005 by Evergreen Valley and matched in 2008 by Leland High School. Fremont crushed this record with a 90-56 win.

Early on, the game had signs of being a high-scoring affair, when on Fremont’s first play from scrimmage, Keenan Smith,

junior, running back and safety, scored on a 48-yard rushing touchdown.

Harker responded to Fremont’s offense with senior quarterback Spenser Quash who scored eight touchdowns in the first

half—three rush-ing and five in the air.

“We came out flat on defense and it showed in the half time score,” Chris-tian Vasquez, senior, offensive lineman and de-fensive lineman, said.

Fremont’s defense let up 50 points in the first half. At halftime the score was 50-49.

“Halftime was a wake up call and we came out ready to not allow any more points in the second half,”

Vasquez said. Sione Kanongata, se-

nior offensive lineman and defensive lineman, led the way on defense for Fremont with four tackles – two of those tackles being sacks.

Fremont only allowed six points in the second half. However, their offense did not slow down at all. The team continued to pile on the points even with their growing lead.

“I’d never heard any-thing about a record,” Ron Demonner, Fremont coach, said. “But when we were get-ting close, somebody said we could get it. We were not interested in that. But then we scored again.”

Fremont just kept scor-

ing, which led to a career day for Smith with 348 yards rushing and over 400 yards of total offense along with seven total touchdowns.

Joe De Los Santos, senior wide receiver and strong safety, also contrib-uted with four touchdowns of his own. One of his touchdowns was an 83-yard kick return.

Fremont High School’s offensive display will go down in high school sports history as the most points scored by one team in a single game.

“It was never about breaking the record, it was the fact that we were able to come together and do the unthinkable,” Smith said.

Justin Hawthorne| The Phoenix

By Alex Bernauer

KEENAN Smith runs over Harker defender to make a touchdown.

When somebody said we could get it. We were not interested in that. But then we scored again.

Coach Ron Demonner

The Phoenix congratu-lates Michelle Doelling for receiving the SCVAL EL Camino Division 2012 sportsmanship award. This award reflects her leadership, her abilities, passion for the game, and of course her sportsman-ship. Please congratulate her for this wonderful accomplishment.

Alex Bernauer | The Phoenix

Athlete Accolade

By Kayla Layaoen