#1StudentNWI: Sports Spectacular at Merrillville High School

#1StudentNWI: Sports Spectacular at Merrillville High School

Seniors are starting and ending their senior events
The seniors currently have about four more months left until they end their high school career. There are many events happily ending for the seniors and some events that are just now starting.

Writing their final term paper is like completing high school for the seniors. When that is over, they feel a big weight off their shoulders.

“I was stressing over the term paper but didn’t realize how close it actually was to the due date until like the week before,” Senior Rebecca Knight said. “Then I really kicked it into gear.”

The stressful things are eventually coming to an end and the fun senior events are starting to rally up.

The Annual Senior/Faculty Dodgeball Tournament started last Friday, February 5 during the last period of the day. The teacher team took a victory over most of the senior teams except for “The Dough Boys.”

“The Dough Boys” and the teacher team will be competing for the championship title at half time of the Senior/Faculty Basketball game.

Student of the month: Ashley Ojo
Senior Ashley Ojo is involved in many activities at Merrillville High School including Varsity Volleyball, Pirate Council, French Club, Student Government and Freshman Mentor while balancing school work.

“The hardest part would be time management because you’re going from school from work to practice,” Ojo said. “And I still have to go home at the end of the day and maintain my grades.”

Ojo is also involved in the Pirate News Network at the high school which airs every morning, Monday-Friday.

“I enjoy PNN because it gives me a chance to explore the different career paths that are available in the real world,” Ojo said.

Although she is involved in many activities she said that volleyball and freshman mentoring are her favorite things to do.

“I like Freshman Mentor because you’re really impacting someone’s life,” Ojo said. “And I like volleyball because it taught me a lot about myself and it taught me how to be responsible.”

Ojo said that balancing school and her activities are something she enjoys.

“I think if I didn’t participate in these activities, I wouldn’t be the same person as I am today.”

She attributes her good grades to everything she participates in.

“I feel like people who have good grades only focus on grades,” Ojo said. “But I have a lot of things like school, work, and sports, and I still have good grades.”

Teacher of the Month: Mrs. Deloain
Mrs. Dana Deloain is a health teacher and an athletic trainer at Merrillville High School. This year is only her second year as a teacher and fourth year as an athletic trainer.

She was previously an athletic trainer at Olivet Nazarene University, the university she graduated from, for two years and then transferred to Merrillville High School.

Mrs. Deloain is at the high school usually from around 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. just as a student- athlete would be.

“The hardest part would be the long hours between teaching and training,” Mrs. Deloain said.

She said she has always liked being around athletes and all the different sports.

“In high school when I got hurt, I really liked my athletic trainers and decided I wanted to do that,” Mrs. Deloian said.

The hardest part about training at the high school level and the collegiate level is having to work with the parents while the student is still in high school.

“With high school students you have to work really well with their parents,” Mrs. Deloian said. “In college they are an adult and you’re around them more.”

Mrs. Deloian’s behavior and grades as a kid lead her to become the person she is today.

“I always got good grades and in college got good grades,” Mrs. Deloian said. “It was cool because I got to be at the sporting events because that’s what I was majoring in.”

She attributes her success to her good behavior and beliefs.

“My advice is to surround yourself with people who will encourage you to be a better person and try to do the right thing even if it is hard,” Mrs. Deloian said.

Girls’ Basketball Sectionals
The Girls’ Basketball team won their fourth sectional title in a row on Saturday, February 6. They beat Kankakee Valley Wednesday, Portage Friday, and Crown Point Saturday in the championship round with a score of 53-45.

The girls were challenged on Wednesday because in the last seconds of the game, Senior Forward, Erika McClinton went down with a knee injury. The girls said that this pushed them to work even harder.

They were able to pull through a victory for the last 50 seconds of Kankakee Valley but they were mainly focused on beating Portage and Crown Point.

“I knew we had to work a lot harder since we were down one player,” Junior Kiarra Thompson said. “So we just worked as a team and listened to the coaches.

The seniors of the team are the first seniors in history to win four straight sectional titles.

“We’ve been working so hard especially this year because we knew we had some big shoes to fill,” Senior Kristin McGee said. “Even on bad practice days, we eventually picked ourselves back up.”

The girls play this Saturday in the Regional Tournament at La Porte High School against La Porte.