This year, the school added two new team sports: mountain biking and horse riding. These new options are expected to garner significant student interest, with a goal of getting involved in extra activities, not just fulfilling the ACR requirement.

Kevin Versen, Director of Athletics and Physical Education, explained why the new sports were added to the co-curricular list.

“We had two faculty members that like both mountain biking and horse riding, so we thought it was a more creative option for kids to participate in,” Versen said. “We thought the kids would appreciate it.”

English teacher Dr. Alvin Henry is the leading force behind the mountain biking co-curricular. While science teacher Kristen Tregar runs the horse riding co-curricular.

Freshman Jason Holzberg helped get the mountain biking co-curricular started with help from Versen, his parents and the owner of Hastings Velo bike shop.

“In the beginning of the year in 9th grade, I told Mr. Versen about the biking league I am in, and together with the help of my father, mother, and Stan from Hastings Velo bike shop we were able to get a Mountain Bike club started here at Masters,” Holzberg said. “The team is fun. I would recommend others to join it, even if they don’t know how to ride a bike, because we start learning from scratch.”

The horse riding co-curricular works a bit differently from other options the school offers. Students do a monday to friday co-curricular and then come go to the stables on Saturday from 9 a.m.-2 p.m.

Sophomore Alice Zhu rides with the school every weekend whilst also being part of the softball team.

“I joined horse riding because I love horses and I’m really interested in being with such giant and smart animals. I never got a chance to experience this in China, which makes horseback riding even more fascinating to me,” Zhu said. “I would definitely recommend horse riding. Especially for the people that have not tried it before. It’s such wonderful experience to learn to get alone with horses, while you get to forget about your worries and just enjoy the beautiful morning.”

New co-curricular choices will continue to be added throughout the 2014-2015 school year. “When the MAAC is complete, we will be adding swimming and squash to the winter co-curricular choices,” Versen said.

Adding these new activities will give students a wider variety of options to choose from as they strive to still fulfill the physical education requirement.