Fall sports may have just begun, but the winter sports are wasting no time and have already begun training for their upcoming season. Boys’ basketball, girls’ basketball, and wrestling have had their meetings and started conditioning.

The boys’ basketball head coach Junior Cueva had a tough year last season. The team was 1-9 in league and 5-20 overall.

“We underachieved for the standards of how we should have played,” Cueva said. “We were in a lot of close games, but for some reason we couldn’t find a reason to win.”

Cueva’s team last year had some talented individuals, but the team could just not put it together.

Cueva wants to put the bad season behind him and the team so they can improve.

To start prepping his team, Cueva started preparing in March to keep the ball moving, but for now the boys are just in the weight room building  muscles and not touching basketballs.

Tracy also did summer leagues to keep the boys playing basketball. Cueva also will texted his players during the summer to prep and start conditioning for the season.

He will have tryouts for this season because he wants his team to have double the wins from last year in league and wants to be in the playoffs for this upcoming season.

“I want to work with individuals to get them better,” Cueva said, “but as we get them settled we want to get a good system to work with and just win.”

Although the coach is ready for this upcoming season so is his senior Devin Foster.

Foster has been playing for basketball for 12 years and enjoys playing the game. This will be his fourth season playing at Tracy High and is ready for one last season.

“I play for a travel team called the Nor Cal Outlaws,” Foster said. “I’ve played for a lot of teams.”

Foster plans to go to the gym and work out as much as possible as well as training at the school with his teammates.

For this season, Foster wants to improve on dunking the ball. He can do it, but hopes to be more consistent.

Foster wants to go college and play basketball. He would like to attend Arizona State University.

“I inspire the team by just cheering them up and having a good time,” Foster said.

Foster believes that they will be a better team than they were last year. The girls’ basketball team is also ready for this upcoming season.

Last year the girls’ basketball team made it to the playoffs for the first time in three years, but lost in the first round. Derek Solano is ecstatic for this upcoming season. Their record last year they were 13-14 overall and in league they were 7-3.

Solano will have tryouts and pick people who are skilled. He wants the 12 best girls on the team.

Solano will have speed, height, and he even has a transfer coming to play. The quickness will be an advantage to get open faster.

“Last year we had a good defense. We wouldn’t score as much, but our defense was solid,” Solano said. “It would be nice to score a little bit more this season.”

Solano had summer practice and summer league play to prepare for this upcoming season.

Senior Kimberly Paschal is ready and prepping for this upcoming season. Paschal has been playing her whole life and really enjoys playing the game. She will be one of the captains this year and is excited that she will lead the basketball team.

“Last year was a really good year for me, I got to learn more about team effort because we had a really good team,” Paschal said. “I also got to learn about how Solano works, so I got a better feel of the court.”

Paschal has been working during the summer. She played during the summer league with Solano and also helped out with the basketball camp. She took a break for a little while but now is ready to get in shape and start to work.

“I would really like to work on my jumping,” Paschal said. “I would also like to work on my defense and get better at it, but especially work on my jumping and free throws.”

 This year Paschal wants to work on running plays more, and succeeding in running the plays. She wants to improve that.

Paschal believes that conditioning is important because in basketball you need to have endurance, so starting to get conditioned and working with a basketball can get help gain confidence on the court.

Wrestling is also prepping for this upcoming season under interim coach Jonathan Blackwell.

“Varsity should have finished higher last year, but we lost really important dual matches,” Blackwell said. “We also had unexpected injuries at inopportune times, but some wrestlers achieved really great success.”

Last year the wrestling team came in third in wrestling meets and also in the league tournaments. Their toughest competition was Lodi. The wrestling team ended up having three finalists in league.

Blackwell believes that anyone doing wrestling should work out and condition on their own. Wrestling conditioning will start in November, but some players’ condition all year-round and some are even on the USA wrestling team.

“Our goals as a team are to win the league dual meet and win the league tournament,” Blackwell said. “We would also like to see players go to state and maintain grades can get a scholarship.”

Blackwell wants this year to focus on fundamentals. He also wants the wrestlers to watch videos and learn.

Blackwell has asked a few players to start training. He wants his players to have discipline and to train really hard and to get all the techniques down.

One player who has been working real hard for this upcoming wrestling season is senior James Faile. Faile has been wrestling for four years.

Last year, Faile had a chance to go to state, but injured his shoulder and was disappointed. Faile’s goals are to make state and qualify for the tournament.

“I’ve been working out more and trying to build strength,” Faile said. “The weight class I’m in, you has to be stronger and faster, which I like.”

Faile wants to improve on facing someone that’s more experience to improve because last year he mainly helped the freshman get better, but it didn’t improve is game. Faile also wants on his foot work and to continue on getting stronger.

Over summer, Faile he worked out and his coaches texted him to do off season work for wrestling, but because Faile football, that also helped him get in shape.

Gallery • 10 Photos

All 68 girls waiting to start their conditioning for their upcoming season.