A new building brings new opportunities – and new issues. With shared fields and a high school gym not yet finished, TMS and THS are stuck sharing athletic space, causing a variety of issues.

With no current access to the high school gym, indoor fall sports have to plan a schedule that doesn’t affect middle school students, leaving high school students with a later practice schedule. 

A problem with this is balancing multiple responsibilities. “As high schoolers, we have harder classes and we need more time to study,” said Jasmile Ruiz, an athlete on the THS Volleyball team. Students are concerned with how they’ll be able to plan around the new differences in practice schedules regarding their work. As high school students take on harder classes with each passing year, studying becomes a necessity, yet time becomes limited with late practices.

Luckily, Coach Nina Ferrante says they can use the time between the end of school and the start of practice to stay in the cafe for a study hall, “We wait until 4:30 to practice, so athletes either need to stay after school and use the time as a study hall, or they can leave the campus.” 

However, with the practice time pushed back, Ruiz states that “It affects my practices because I go home later, and I don’t have time to do anything.” This leaves even less time for student athletes to do things outside of practice, such as chores, jobs, and other tasks. The issue of not having a gym also affects freshman volleyball players. With the change in where the home games are held, timing no longer allows for freshman volleyball players to have as many games as they would under normal circumstances. 

Coach Nina Ferrante elaborates, “We just have no home freshman games this year because we’re not able to get into the intermediate school until 3:30,” showing that this issue affects high school athletes of all grades.

While the high school seems to have hiccups in adjusting to the change in schedule, the middle school seems optimistic in sharing spaces. “I think it’s a really good thing for the Torrington School District, [creating] the Raider family,” said coach of the Middle School Girl’s Soccer Team, Coach Angelo Calabrese.

While coaches and athletes are adjusting to this new schedule, we can see that while not everything is ideal just yet, our coaches and players are trying their best to navigate through this new school year.