As the temperatures rise, and the sun begins to peek through the clouds, it is a reminder that spring is near.
While the spring season rolls in, all teams old and new will prepare to begin for the 2024 sports season. This past year DePaul College Prep has been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to participate in many clubs, including the Power Lifting Team.
Alex Nadolna, Head of Strength and Conditioning Training and coach of the new DePaul Prep Powerlifting team who joined the Depaul College Prep community this past school year, is looking forward to training with the students who have expressed interest in this brand new team.
“For our first time it’s been really good, there’s been a lot of interest,” Nadolna said.
As the Power Lifting Team continues to grow there is a tremendous amount of support and encouragement from the DePaul Prep community.
“Everyone has been supportive so far with getting the team started,” Nadolna said.
A variety of students from all grade levels and experiences all show tremendous interest in the sport and participating in something new at DePaul Prep.
The Powerlifting team plans to compete in the Illinois High School Powerlifting Association which is team based powerlifting. Just like DePaul College Prep’s powerlifting team, the IHSA PL is still getting started and there aren’t any divisions created yet.
The way the Power lifting competitions work is different from most sports. Every team gets placed in a regional, DePaul Prep still is waiting to hear back which regional they place in. Each participant competes individually in their weight class and where they place individually gets points for the team.
As the Power lifting team is still growing, there are various goals and expectations that are put into place for future seasons. This season the goal was simply to create a team and to get things started. In the future, the team plans to get more students involved to get a team to be eligible to compete.
“With years to come we start to look at success, hopefully competing for state championship, having individuals compete for state championship, and state records and things like that,” Nadolna mentions.
Nadolna also adds, “I want people to get a chance to see that power lifting may sound intense to some people, perhaps even scary to some people, it’s really not, it’s a very welcoming sport.”
The tremendous growth in sports these past few years at DePaul College Prep really shows impact on the new sports and the new clubs that will form that will also someday see the same growth and commitment put into place for their teams.
