Innovative training methods emerge, every year after Binationals teams re-evaluate their groundwork to see what they could improve to become stronger and have more opportunities for Copa.

Girls soccer and girls basketball teams are working hard after Binationals to enhance their abilities to be prepared for the next tournament, Copa that would be held here at school the first week of April. Coaches take experience and channel it into new methods of training for upcoming tournaments; others try to give as much chances to their players as possible. Teams are not only practicing four (4) days a week from 3:30pm to 5pm, but they are also working on their weaknesses to become more efficient.

“We had very good results but could have gotten a better one. The girls felt pressured in decisive moments of the game and let anxiety overcome them. We need to work on that,” said girls basketball coach David Lopez. Differing from the other team girls soccer coach Hernan Arango said, “my goal if for the greatest number of girls to play as many matches as possible.”

This year for Copa, Arango had a different approach on what he was going to do. His changes weren’t based in any results, but for Copa he decided to create two different teams dividing them into experience players and less experienced players. By doing so he is giving more openings for the girls to play.

“Normally in Copa Columbus I put together two teams because I have enough players to do it and the idea of the cup is that people from our school are the ones who play the most,” said Arango.

As opposed to what Arango is doing, Lopez hopes to correct and make his team stronger for Copa by focusing on the aspects like: school values, stress, physical work and confidence he  saw his team was lacking in Binationals.

“For Copa my goal for the team is mainly to work with things that we missed such as: anxiety and stress, so I plan to work on that by practicing under time limits, psychological training and especially work with the tactical part,” said Lopez.

Every coach tries to work on things that they omitted before and they hoped that if they work on them they could have better outcomes in the future.

“I hope that working in what we were missing in Binationals so that we can become capable of doing the things we lacked and be able to win,” said Lopez.