By. Savannah Geeslin
High School has many different sports that you can compete in like football, track, swim, baseball, and of course OHSET. Everyone knows about the Sam Barlow football team but not a lot of people including teachers at Barlow know about what OHSET is and what it is we do. Me and all the girls on my team are very passionate about what we do because we also compete in barrel races outside of the season, and even during the season for that matter.
OHSET, for those of you that don’t know, is a mixture of a bunch of equestrian sports. We have our timed events like barrel racing, pole bending, figure 8, keyhole, birangle, individual flags, and Canadian flags. Most girls on my team, including myself, do all these timed events, but we also have lots of other options that other girls on my team, and other teams do like performance events. For example we have reining, western equitation, dressage, showmanship, working rancher ect. We also have cow events like breakaway roping, team penning, and daubing. Each athlete is allowed to compete in 5 individual events and as many team events as they would like. At our district meets we compete with other schools in our district like Sandy, Corbett, Estacada, Clackamas, Centennial, and Lincoln. We have 3 district meets in a season and if you are top 3 in any of your events for each meet, then you will qualify for state, and if you are top 5 at state then you will qualify for regionals.
Even when our time in OHSET is done we are still going to be competing. Unlike the Barlow football team, our passion started when we were young and will continue on past high school for the rest of our lives because it's what we love to do. In my personal experience I have talked to a lot of teachers at Barlow and not a lot of them even know that OHSET is a thing! But when you bring up the football team they obviously know exactly what you are talking about, and it's sad really. Shouldn’t the teachers be more informed and excited about the sports that are offered at the school that they have been working at for 10 or more years?
I talked to my teammate Hayley Chilton for her opinion on why she thinks that the football team is more popular and she said, “Because it's easy, the games are at the high school, and easy access to the public. If it's not a home game you can easily find another field. People talk about it so much because it's a well known sport and people want to see it. But with OHSET they don’t know what to look for, how to support or where to go.”
We talked about how we can get the word out more, and she said, “I think with better information, and having the district meets have more activities or ways for them to support would be helpful.”
Me and my team are going to make more of an effort to get the word out about OHSET, and hopefully gain more attention and support. So next time you see a poster hanging up in the halls about our equestrian team, find the nearest OHSET athlete and ask how you can come out and support us during our district meets! We would love the help and support, and bring some friends too!