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Santiago Mares

Attempting a three-pointer in the Downey High School gym on Feb. 7, Leila Garcia, 11, shares how the energy from the fans pushes her to play her best. “It’s a lot of positive energy,” Garcia said. “The chants that the fans do bring up the hype in our games.”

With Downey High’s winter season coming to an end, girls basketball, soccer, and wrestling all make it to California Interscholastic Federation-Southern Section (CIF-SS).

Girls varsity soccer started off the CIF winter wins with their game on Feb. 6 against West Ranch High at their away game with a score of 2-1. Soon after that, the girls soccer team defeated Bishop Montgomery and Notre Dame, making it to the semi-finals.

Captain Kimberly Ferrufino, 11, states her joy in how far they have made it into the CIF rounds this year.

“We knew what we were capable of playing against high level teams; we never got too confident in the beginning of our season but we knew our drive would get us as far as we let it,” Ferrufino stated. “This was a big possibility at the beginning of the year with this team.”

The semi-final round for girls soccer took place on Feb. 16 against Flintridge Sacred Heart. Downey girls soccer lost with the score of 0-1, causing them to leave the CIF rounds.

Following in their footsteps, boys soccer advanced into the second round of CIF, winning their playoff game against San Juan Capistrano High with the score of 2-1.

Bryan Tercero, 12, talks about his teams early leave in the CIF rounds this year.

“During the season we all had an optimistic viewpoint on what the end of our CIF season would look like,” Tercero stated. “I think the end isn’t what any of my teammates or me expected.”

The Downey boys varsity lost in their second round of CIF against Mission Viejo with the score of 1-5.

Although girls varsity basketball lost in their first round of CIF against Ventura High, score being 37-42, they still worked hard throughout the game and year, Their season record being 22-6, not including CIF.

Ilani Avila, 11, talks about the team’s accomplishments and biggest moments in this year’s season.

“We did really good; we beat Lynwood for the first time since my freshman year. Last year, we lost twice to them and this year we beat them once, lost to them once so we did really good that game,” Avila stated. “League was a really big accomplishment for us, because since we beat them we got like number one seed in CIF, so overall this season we did really really good.”

Last year, the girls varsity wrestling team took three girls to Masters and now this year they will be taking nine girls. Wrestlers Marilou Garcia, 12, Arianna Rodriguez, 12, Destiny Belonio, 11, Katherine Cuellar, 11, Gisselle Guerra, 9, Stephanie Carrillo, 11, Dana Saldana, 12, Stephanie Chavez, 9, and Vanessa Carrillo, 11, all placed top eight at the home CIF tournament on Feb. 9.

Captain of two years, Garcia, states her thoughts on what happened differently this year that helped the team improve, and taking more girls to Masters this year.

“The determination the girls had in wanting to move on, also fighting yourself with mental games and the emotions of wanting to give up,” Garcia stated. “Last year was last year, this year was different we built a strong team from the bottom to top we wanted this more than ever we did do it also with Rios not giving up on us telling us to believe in ourselves.”

The two-day Masters tournament for girls wrestling took place on Feb. 15-16 at Eleanor Roosevelt High. Wrestlers Garcia, Cuellar, Saldana and Carrillo all made it to second day of Masters but did not make it passed to state.

With winter sports coming to an end, spring sports get ready to start their season. Track and field having their first meet on Feb. 16, starting earlier than baseball, lacrosse, boys golf, softball, swimming, boys tennis and boys volleyball.