Written By: Ally Taynton, Staff Writer
INCLUSIVE: Some of the sports at Poly allow special needs athletes to participate in their sport.
Poly holds a wide variety of sports, and some of the sports with individual events allow special needs students to participate. Sports like swimming, track, and wrestling, allow special needs students to play with the team. Marc Taynton, Citlally Rosas, and Chase Faulker all do a sport at Poly. These students have the opportunity to go to CIF Unified and varsity letter in their sport because they are able to actively participate with the team.
Citlally Rosas is a senior who does track and field at Poly. Citally says that her favorite part of track is doing wickets and seeing her friends. The track coaches welcome Citlally onto the track and cheer her on as she is doing the workouts. Last year, she moved on to CIF Unified for the Southern Section. At the meet, Citllaly ran the 400, one lap, and won second place! Citlally also did shotput and partnered up with track athlete, Hailie Escano. With her, they were able to throw long distances. At the track banquet Citlally lettered in track from her participation in the Unified CIF meet. Can’t wait to see all that she will accomplish this year!
Chase Faulkner is a senior who swims at Poly. He has been swimming since freshman year and is swimming his last season this year. Chase is such a fun friend to watch and cheer on at swim meets. Chase was part of a Unified relay team with Marc Taynton, Rafa Martinez and Zach McDonald. Together they swam a 4 by 25 meter relay at CIF Unified meet. Then Marc and Chase qualified for the paralympic 50 and 100 at State for the Southern Section. He will be swimming the 50 and the 100 freestyle as well as the 4 by 50 relay this season.
Marc Taynton is a multi-sport athlete at Poly. Marc did Wrestling in the Winter and is currently swimming for his second season. Marc is such a big cheerleader on the swim deck and leads the cheer to hype everyone up before the swim meets. This year was his first year doing wrestling and he absolutely loved it. Marc got to wrestle other students from other teams at meets and show everyone his strength and determination. He was able to wrestle at the matches against the other schools just like everyone else. Most of the time the other athletes let him win, and didn’t expect much competition for him. Regardless, most of them left the floor shocked at his strength. One of his competitors did beat him, but it was good for him to know that he needs to keep on learning and growing in the sport. Marc highly enjoyed his wrestling season and can’t wait for next year!