Trust is both an emotional and logical bond. Trust is the string that ties everyone together, and if there is a lack of trust within a team, there cannot be success. Trust is a crucial aspect of any team sport and, without it, success is unattainable.  Throughout sports, trust is needed everywhere, but sometimes trusting teammates can be hard. High school sports are successful because of the bonds that the team can form during the school day, but when players go to different schools, that can be hard. When on a team with all responsible trustworthy people, this task is easy.

“Trusting someone is relying on and believing in them to be doing exactly what they need to be doing to help us win,” senior Brianna Vettese said. “Without trust, there wouldn’t be a team.”

Being a two season sport, cheerleaders spend a lot of time together. During this time, the members of the team laugh and bond, all while practicing and perfecting their routines that will hopefully bring them success during the competition season. Everyone has a chance to get to know every other individual on the team, which brings them all closer and can create more trust.

“Throughout the course of the season, we have all spent so much time together that it has almost forced us to become closer,” four year varsity cheerleader and senior Aubrey Kay said.

In such a sport as cheerleading there are many different moving parts, and every member is crucial to the team’s success. If a team does not have faith in one another to accomplish their specific task, then the routine will not run smoothly.

“Everyone has different levels of trust,” freshman Riley Conway said. “You should try your hardest to trust your teammates because it will help with teamwork.”

As an incoming freshman, Conway, along with all of the other incoming freshmen and newfound team members, did not have as tight of a bond as the rest of the returning team coming into the season. Even though they may not have had the same relationships with all of the others, they all knew that to be a successful team they would need to work to form those bonds.

“We all have a different bond that helps us trust each other,” Conway said. “We all have different bonds because of the different ways that people on our team interact.”

If the relationships that have now been formed within the team had not been formed, then they would face many struggles. Flyers would not trust their bases, and other people may over think and worry that someone else may not be doing their job, hindering their ability to do their own.

Luckily for the cheer team, just in time for competitions, they all have become a family and believe that no matter what everyone will be striving for greatness. They trust their teammates to not only focus on the good of themselves, but also on the good of their team.

Like in cheer, volleyball players need to have faith in their teammates and trust them to be in the right places at the right time. With only six people on the floor, there are a lot of uncovered spots on the volleyball court. Teams need to communicate and know not only where the ball is going, but also where everyone else on the floor is going as well. Players need to feel secure in knowing that there will always be a person in position to keep the ball in play.

“Communication is a huge aspect to the game because it creates a positive atmosphere where everyone is cheering,” Vettese said. “It allows for balls to never hit the floor and for the hitters and setters to have a better connection.”

Players in different positions need to be able to know their teammates good enough to know where exactly to put the ball for the next person to make the best play off of it.

Unlike cheer, the volleyball team does not have two seasons to gain a strong connection with their fellow teammates. Before their first game together, a 2-1 victory over the Johnsburg Skyhawks, the girls only had a week of team practice to get to know one another and gain full trust in one another.

“If we would have grown a little closer at the beginning of the season, I feel like it would have been easier to start off with more wins, rather than slowly gaining each other’s trust throughout the season,” junior Grace Weber said.

Even though the team may not have been as close as they could have been at the beginning of the season, the girls had managed to make an appearance in the state tournament sectionals game. Trust was a very important part of making it that far during the season; lacking trust would have made it hard to become such a successful team.

“[Without trust] we definitely would not be as good as we were this season,” Weber said. “We definitely would have lost at least half of our games this season if we did not all trust each other.”

Despite the fact that a lacrosse team consists of players from rivaling schools, the District 117 lacrosse team does not see each other as rivals; they see each other as a team. They know that they need to put aside the inter-school rivalry so that they can achieve their mutual goals.

“There really isn’t any lack of trust amongst each other,” senior captain Gino Riforgiato said. “Although the schools may be rivals, we all look past that when we step on the field. We are all teammates and we all have each others backs.”

Even though they are from different schools, the players do in fact trust one another. Players need to be able to trust their teammates to catch every pass thrown at them, and only take the best possible shots on goal.

“You have to trust your teammates to do what they do best, and not try to do anything special,” junior Lakes attacker Nate Langille said. “It all comes with experience and learning how to improve when you make a mistake.”

Flyers must have trust in their bases to keep them stable in the air and to catch them on the way down. The lacrosse team took on this challenge and made a very successful team out of it with players coming from both Antioch Community High School and Lakes Community High School.  The varsity volleyball team, a majority of which are upperclassmen, have had time throughout the years to get to know each other and have trust within one another.