It’s the day they anticipate all week. It’s the day that makes the rough, sweaty practices, staying up doing Trigonometry at midnight and endless fatigue, feel worthwhile. It’s what they will not let go of without a fight. It’s game day.

When game day arrives for the student athletes at EHS, they use several tactics to keep their mind focused and prepare themselves for their sporting event, mentally and physically.

“To warm up physically, we run two warm up laps and then do some stretching as a team,” junior  Cross Country runner Zach Gabel said.

The volleyball team does this similarly. “When we get to a game, the first thing we do is put our things down and then get on the court and stretch together as a team,” sophomore Allison Blume said.

Once the team has done their warm ups to prepare their bodies physically, it is a popular trend for the coach to step in and give a pep talk for the mental aspect of preparing for the event.

“Our coach will have us gather around and he will speak about what are goals are for the meet and that we just have to run our hardest,” Gabel said. “As a runner, there is this thing prepare yourself where you envision yourself running and the pep talks really give me the motivation to get out there.”

“[JV Coach] Coach Shale has us huddle in together and she talks about the things we need to improve on and that we need to talk on the court,” Blume said.

Straying away from the trend is the EHS Ice Hockey team. “We don’t say much to each other when we are getting ready for a game,” senior Cale Lauchner said. “We get ready in the locker room and listen to music but not much talking goes on until the coach comes in to talk to us.”

“[Varsity Coach] Coach Walker will talk to us about our expectations for the night and it really gets our fuel started to the play the game,” Lauchner said. “Then the team will huddle up and we go out there pumped up and ready to play.”