In some sports, the competition starts far before the whistle blows. Training, equipment, and travel costs can create invisible barriers, preventing many from entering or even considering playing, while the more privileged few move forward. In elitist sports such as Formula 1, fencing, and horseback riding, access, resources, and social connections often determine who is even allowed to compete. In these sports, the opportunity to compete often matters more than the willingness to play.

Especially in fencing, which requires up to twenty thousand dollars a year to compete in, creating unequal opportunity for players unable to finance the expenses of the sport.

“Just the money and the gear, it’s a lot more expensive than you would think. All of these clubs also require a lot of money,” said Ethan Hu ’27.

Not everyone who can play these sports will participate, which narrows the pool of athletes for these sports even more. On the other hand, other sports like soccer, cross country or track, and volleyball have low barriers of entry, allowing the amount of people who play the sport to be so much higher. Thus, sports such as running find their way into the lives of many people, including PHS students.

“[Almost] everyone can do running as a sport. All you need is some trainers, some proper running clothes, and then you can run,” said cross country runner Isaac Son ’27. 

While sports like running can open the door to nearly anyone with determination, many other sports remain guarded by price tags that only a few can afford. Access to the proper facilities, private coaching, and travel for competitions often determines who is able to join in and participate and who can only watch from the sidelines. This divide can become the most visible in sports that have traditionally been associated with privilege, such as golf and horseback riding. For example, a standard membership at Bella Vista Country Club in Marlboro, New Jersey is $1,300, with an additional $5,000 annual golf fee and $500 monthly fee. 

“[For golf], you have to pay to get into clubs and you need to pay to get into tournaments. It’s pretty expensive, [and] I don’t know anyone who is not wealthy who plays,” said Ronan Madan ’29. “It’s just the way it is.”

Just like in other sports, when athletes don’t have as much financial support, their choices are limited and they are often not able to make the decision they believe would be best for them. When athletes do not own their equipment, potentially due to not being able to, they are put at a disadvantage. For example, in equestrian riding, riders can either own a horse or lease a horse. Owning a horse is significantly more expensive due to maintenance costs like the vet, food, and board. However, it allows for a deeper connection between the rider and animal, leading to greater effectiveness in training, a privilege not available to those who can’t afford to own.

“If you own a horse, you can make your own decisions about your skill level and performance in competitions,” said Andrea McBride ’29. “But if you lease your horse, you don’t have the privilege to make those serious decisions about your sport.”

While the process of learning and starting to play many sports only involves getting a coach and somewhere to practice, some sports, such as F1, golf, and horseback riding, have a high barrier to entry that only money can overcome. Though elitist sports may dazzle fans with precision and discipline, they also expose how deeply inequality runs through the world of athletics. When participation depends on money more than merit, many athletes are left in the dust before they even get a chance to take a step forward.

The reality of elitist sports

Seeing the ball fly through the air, Naomi Lygas ’26 runs up to the ball set to her, plants her feet, and jumps up to spike it. Whipping her arm forward, she hits the ball between the opposing player’s arms, watching as it flies through the air and bounces off the ground with a loud thump.

In fifth grade, Lygas was given the opportunity to play either field hockey, softball, or volleyball. She tried volleyball out first and fell in love with it. Role models like American beach volleyball player Taylor Crabb and her mom encouraged her to keep developing her skillset in the sport. 

“My mom is one of my biggest role models. Whether it's in sports or not, I feel like her work ethic translates really well over to sports. So I like to try to replicate that,” said Lygas.

For Lygas, volleyball is a year-round commitment. Not only is she a member of the PHS girls volleyball team, but she also plays for the beach volleyball club Stars and Stripes. 

Lygas’ dedication to the sport has earned her and her team numerous awards: last year, Lygas played a crucial role in the PHS team’s run to win the NJSIAA Group 3 Championship, recording 60 kills in the tournament alone from her position as outside hitter. Additionally, Lygas also won the 2024–25 Gatorade New Jersey Volleyball Player of the Year title. 

“Gatorade Player of the Year was something I had been working towards for a while, and to actually see the results of my hard work was super amazing,” said Lygas.

Despite spending much of her time on volleyball, Lygas is still able to find a balance between her academics and athletics.

“[It’s] hard, especially when traveling for tournaments, but I always try to get my work done,” said Lygas. 
“It comes down to having some late nights doing work, or early mornings waking up to do it, but I get it done as much as possible, because I value school as much as sports.”

The constant pressure to become a better player takes its toll even on the best of players, something that Lygas also struggled with at one point in her volleyball journey.

“I was at this level where I didn't feel like I was getting better. And one of my biggest things is that I want to get better, and always see myself having that constant improvement,” said Lygas. “So it was kind of hard to just tell myself that even one percent every day is still an improvement, [but] once I put that mindset in my head, I haven't felt that way since.”

Lygas’ passion for the sport and her hard work have made her a leader on the team, immediately catching the attention of PHS girls volleyball Head Coach Patricia Manhart.

“She is such a hard-working, driven athlete. You don't get as good as Naomi is without putting the work in. So knowing how dedicated she is, those are all things that make her the outstanding athlete that she is, that she's just always training, always pushing herself to get better,” said Manhart. “And I think that really also then motivates her teammates too, to make sure that we are strong all around because it is a team sport.”

Lygas’ well-rounded skillset and abilities have also stood out to her teammates, making her a respected and well-valued member of the team.  

“Passing is one of the largest skills in volleyball,” said Kaelin Bobetich ’26. “She's probably our strongest passer at the moment ... and that's just one of the most important parts about a game, because if you're an outside hitter, you have to be able to pass really well and hit really well, and she's put in that position because she can do those things really well.”

This year will be Lygas’ seventh year playing volleyball and fifth playing beach volleyball. Through her many years on the team, she has grown both mentally and in her game to be more versatile and adaptable. After being recruited at the end of her sophomore year, she plans to continue playing beach volleyball at Tulane University.

“Adaptability is huge, especially in beach volleyball, which is what I am going to play in college. Whether it's the wind, the sun, or if the other team is serving to you every single time, you have to learn to adapt,” said Lygas. 

After becoming the captain of the team this year, Lygas hopes to continue acting as the role model for her teammates that she had when she was a freshman.

“Coming in as a freshman, I was a little scared,” said Lygas. “Some of the senior captains that year were some of my biggest role models in high school. And now the leadership role is definitely more prevalent as that's what I'm labeled as, but I always try to be a good leader by leading by example.”


Naomi Lygas '26: volleyball

Bouncing the ball against the court, Shaan Zaveri ’25 adjusts his feet as he prepares to serve. Taking a deep breath, he hits a fast flat serve out wide with his racket and rushes to the net as the opponent returns the ball. Angling his racket face, Zaveri hits a volley winner between the opposing players.

Zaveri was introduced to tennis when he was in fifth grade, inspired by his sister. Growing up, Zaveri also played table tennis and soccer, which caused him to take many breaks from tennis. He eventually decided to focus on tennis, choosing to do so because of how much he enjoyed watching his favorite players, especially his role model Novak Djokovic.

“One of my role models is Novak Djokovic. He's a pretty famous tennis player, and I like how he's calm in tense moments,” said Zaveri. “I really like his mental toughness, and that's something I put towards my game whenever I'm down a set, or I'm down a couple games, so I'm not [scared] to make a comeback or hit a shot.”

Mental toughness is especially important in tennis, since while playing, players only have themselves or a partner. Zaveri tries to exemplify this ideal, especially in a tough match.

“I'm a risk taker ... I never back down from the big moments ... and I'm never giving up on a point. Even if the ball looks like it’s going out, I'm still hustling towards the ball,” said Zaveri.

Being strong mentally and emotionally has also helped Zaveri win important matches. One such example was the 2025 Colonial Valley Conference tournament first doubles final, where he and his doubles partner Tacto Yamada ’27 were able to beat the same doubles team they had lost to previously, winning first place. 

“Winning the Mercer County tournament individually with my partner Tacto this year [was a highlight of my season], because the last two years we've been [losing] and [getting] third place,” said Zaveri.

In addition to his skills and mental strategy during matches, Zaveri has also learned to be a leader on the team, understanding the importance of balancing being competitive with having fun on the court, which stood out to PHS boys tennis Head Coach Sarah Hibbert.

“He enjoys the lighter side of things as well. He enjoys having fun on court, and I think that it's important to be able to lighten up the intensity sometimes because it can be an intense sport,” said Hibbert. “There can be a lot of pressure. So being able to find moments of comedy is important.”

In tennis, players also need to be able to grow and adapt their game to play well against stronger opponents. Last year, in the doubles tournament, Zaveri and Yamada nearly beat the number two seeded pair in a close match.

“They really rose to the level [that was needed] and played a great match. [Zaveri]’s improved over the years and I think overall he has really stepped into the role as first doubles this year, and it's been a pleasure watching him grow as a player and as a person,” said Hibbert.

Even with the amount of time and effort Zaveri puts into tennis, he has been able to find a balance between his academic and athletic lives.

“I used to schedule my tennis [according] to my school schedule, I would play right after school, and then I'd go home, and I would rest, like a nap or a snack, and then I'd do my homework, and then it's just a cycle,” said Zaveri.

This season has been his second with Yamada as his partner. After working out the imperfections in their partnership, their chemistry has grown to be stronger, built on their trust and communication.

“Last year I was paired up with Shaan as well, and we were still figuring out what we should do as doubles [partners] but this year, we were able to figure out how to play doubles and talk to each other and stuff like that,” said Yamada.

Zaveri’s tennis journey has also been about personal growth as it is about getting better as a player and being a part of the team, learning lessons along the way that go beyond the court.

“I've made a lot of good buddies that I wouldn't think that I would make just regularly interacting with the high school and the community,” said Zaveri. “[I’ve learned to] never give up and just try to have fun.”


photo: Jasur Agzamov

Zaveri finishes his high school tennis career with many accomplishments, including winning first place at the Mercer County tournament in doubles. 

Shaan Zaveri '25: tennis

With the baseball nestled in his glove, James Schiavone ’25 adjusts his stance on the
pitcher’s mound for the final time, grounding his feet. Taking a steady breath, he pitches
a fastball, watching as it cuts through the air, slipping past the batter, and landing in the
catcher’s mitt with a solid thump. Strikeout.

Schiavone began his baseball journey at age four, when he played his first tee ball game.
Growing up, Schiavone played both baseball and basketball, but ended up choosing to
focus on baseball. His brother Kenneth Schiavone ’22, a former baseball player, was one
of his biggest inspirations growing up.

“My older brother, Kenny, who played for the high school team for four years, taught me
when I was younger how to play,” said Schiavone. “Even now, whenever he comes home
from college, he comes to my [games] and gives me different tips.”

For Schiavone, baseball is a year-round dedication. Not only does he serve as one of the
co–captains of the PHS baseball team, but he is also one of the pitchers for Princeton’s Post
218 American Legion team over the summer. The American Legion is a broad organization
overseeing multiple baseball teams in all fifty states. Many players participate in the American
Legion to improve their skills and as a stepping stone between high school and colllege.

“We play about 25 games in two and a half months, and then I go straight into Legion,
which is another 20 games in 30 days,” said Schiavone.

However, even with the large amount of time and energy that baseball demands, Schiavone
is able to find a balance between his athletics and his life as a student.

“I enjoy every minute of baseball, so I
don’t see it as an obligation anymore, so
that once I’m done with baseball, I still
have a lot [of] energy,” said Schiavone.
“I’m still ready to go, still [doing] all my
school work, just got to find the balance.”

That mindset proved especially
important to Schiavone after he suffered
an elbow injury in sophomore year.

“We get in a thing called a slump.
You’re not even supposed to say the word
[it’s]—bad luck— but when you’re not
hitting well, it’s really hard to break out
of it, because it starts getting mental,”
said Schiavone. “You start thinking
about if you’re good enough. Then you
need toughness, and just got to keep
practicing [and] keep working.”

Through patience and hard work, he
returned strong as a junior, earning a spot on the varsity team. That season, Schiavone
helped the team defeat Hopewell Valley for the first time in over ten years, ending the
game with a 2.33 earned run average, which prevented the opposing team from gaining
runs and kept Princeton in the lead.

Like any sport, mastering baseball requires a diverse range of skill sets. Schiavone is
always looking for ways to refine his game.

“Baseball is a game of failure. You can always improve,” said PHS boys baseball Head
Coach Dominic Capuano. “We’ve worked on his hitting and how to stay more balanced
pitching-wise. He [has] worked really hard to stay healthy the last two years and throw more
strikes and be commanding. And the mental side of the game, we’re always working on.”

Schiavone’s drive for constant improvement and dedication has made him an effective
leader on the team according to many of his teammates and coaches.

“He’s always been a hard worker. He’s always been someone who’s had success on the
mound and at the plate, and he’s always shown leadership qualities, which have really been
accentuated this year,” said Capuano. “He leads by example, he does all the right things. He
really truly cares about the success of everybody around him in the program.”

Not only is he devoted captain according to his coaches, Schiavone’s positive attitude and
encouraging words during games have also made a lasting impression on his teammates.

“My first year, when I was a freshman, [I was] really scared and I didn’t really know
anybody, and James made me feel
super welcome to the team,” said
Matthew Akey ’26. “He’s always
been the positive guy … and he’ll
definitely push you to be better.”

After becoming a co–captain of
the team this year, Schiavone hopes
to continue acting as a role model
for his team members.

“I just want to do everything I
can to help the team and continue
being the leader,” said Schiavone.
“I hope that I can be a reason we
are doing well.”

This year marks Schiavone’s
fourteenth year playing baseball
and his final year on the team.
Reflecting on his high school career,
Schiavone has not only grown as an
athlete but also in mindset, and he plans to continue that passion in college.

“I want to, if the opportunity comes to me, play baseball in college,” said Schiavone. “If
not, I would just like to play club baseball.

Photo: Jasur Agzamov
Schiavone, who has been playing baseball for 14 years, looks forward to his final season as one of the team’s pitchers, spending it alongside his friends and coaches.

James Schiavone ’25: baseball 

On January 8, 2025, Benjamin Gitai ’25, Amy Lin ’25, and Yurai Morales ’25 were named Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholars, each winning $2,000, with an additional $2,000 going to PHS. Morales was further selected as a top 40 finalist, entitling her to an award of at least $10,000. The Regeneron Science Talent Search, one of the largest research programs for high school students, selects 300 scholars annually among 2,500 applicants, with the center of the application being a 20-page research paper.

### Benjamin Gitai


Benjamin Gitai’s  ’25 research focuses on improving the success rate of ankle replacement surgeries. 


“We can [build] a model to essentially ... try to predict if [failure] will occur and then be able to help stop that from happening,” said Gitai.


Gitai was inspired to begin the project after attending Princeton University’s Laboratory Summer Learning Program, a free program for high school research students. At Princeton, Gitai was part of a group that focused on ankle imaging led by professors Dmitri Kosenkov and Olga Troyanskaya. He saw that the orthopedics, doctors dealing with deformities of bones and muscles, measured the ankle by hand.


“[An] orthopedic surgeon [was] telling us about how they take all these measurements, and it just struck me that with all this technology that they still have to [measure by using] these little points [on] this X-ray machine. I thought I could solve that issue and help them with that. From there, I was able to expand that [idea] into the prediction algorithm,” said Gitai. 


Because the idea of using AI to measure ankles is relatively unexplored, Gitai started off his project by studying on websites like Stack Overflow, a question-and-answer site for programmers, and Github, a platform for storing code.


“I did lots of research into what [code] libraries and various tools I should be using. I’ve [had] a lot of experience coding, but I didn’t have experience using any of this computer vision material. I had to learn and teach myself all of that from scratch,” said Gitai.  


However, despite his success at Regeneron, Gitai still considers himself at the beginning of a longer journey. Gitai is planning on attending Princeton University next year, and hopes to further his research by using the university’s resources.  


“I think that’s one thing that makes this project a little bit special is the fact that it has so much room to grow. We’ve created the bone detection model, and right now, we’re waiting on getting data to be able to further expand the failure prediction. But the truth is that the pipeline that I created applies for literally any bone in any kind of bone deformation. Potentially, this [project] could be expanded indefinitely,” said Gitai.



### Amy Lin


Amy Lin ’25  didn’t expect to be named a Regeneron scholar. 


“It was a very pleasant surprise because I went in there thinking, ‘oh there are some pretty cool projects that they always select, year after year.”


But in early January, Lin was notified that her project, titled “Predicting Compound Melting Temperatures From Computationally Derived Properties Using Machine Learning,” had been selected. Her research focused on using AI to predict the melting temperatures of different materials by analyzing their material properties.


“The problem I was trying to tackle was that, right now, there are a lot of methods [for] experimentally measuring melting temperature [of] different chemical compounds. And those [methods] are pretty dangerous and pretty costly. And existing simulations for computing melting [points] are also pretty time-consuming and computationally expensive,” said Lin. 


Inspiration for this project came from The Coding School’s data science summer research program. 


“I learned about this topic, which is predicting melting temperatures. I wanted to actually continue this project because I fell in love with machine learning and data science. I wanted to make some contributions to the area and perhaps develop a toolkit to predict melting temperatures and other such material properties,” said Lin. 


After a bit of trial and error, Lin settled on the Random Forest Regression prediction model, which predicts melting points by anaylizing  other properties with the high correlation to melting point. 


Throughout the process, Lin relied on PHS research teacher Mark Eastburn and science supervisor Jacqueline Katz.


“They really created a great environment for [me] to explore [my] project. They offered a lot of guidance in terms of what [are] good research practices? Or, how do you annotate and read papers properly? Or, how [can we] write our own reports? So that was really helpful,” said Lin.
Lin emphasized that the Regeneron competition was an honor that has helped develop her appreciation for AI and computer science.


“I think the project definitely bolstered  my interest in these areas [computer science], because it showed me the power of what machine learning and AI can do to help us learn about the world around us. It’s really an amazing tool,” said Lin.


### Yurai Morales

Yurai Morales ’25 has had an unconventional journey to the highest level of high school research. Morales was born in the United States, then moved to Guatemala at age seven, then to Mexico at age 14, and finally back to the United States at 17, when she enrolled at PHS.
At PHS, research teacher Mark Eastburn encouraged Morales to develop the work she began in Mexico into a research article.


Her final project, titled “How the Lion Becomes a Lamb: Transfer of Bacterial Symbionts From Ant Larvae to Vegetarian Spiders Through Selective Predation​​​​​​,” was announced as one of the  top 40 finalists on January 23th, the highest award a PHS student has received in the competition. As a finalist, Morales will be going to Washington, D.C. on March 11 to showcase her research to the United States’ leading scientists for the chance to win a top 10 prize.


In her research, Morales discovered that the species Bagheera kiplingi, which is the only spider known to be a herbivore, is able to maintain its plant-based diet because it eats the larvae of ants. Morales also investigated the bacteria that allows the spiders to extract nutrients from the larvae.


“I was wondering why these curious spiders could be vegetarian when their bodies were designed to be carnivores. I was doing this research to understand how their body works and how they can eat plants without having a carnivorous life,” said Morales.


One of the biggest challenges for Morales throughout the project was not just the research component , but learning English.


“English is not my first language. Some of the articles I read [are] in Spanish, but I have to translate [into] English, so it’s very hard for me. I’m still learning,” said Morales.


Morales hopes to continue her project at The College of New Jersey, where she is enfrolled for this fall. But for now, Morales is proud of the work she has already accomplished.

 
“I’m feeling very excited. It was very surprising for me; It’s such an amazing opportunity for me because I’m learning new skills and doing research. English is my second language, but I’m still here, and I’m very proud,” said Morales.

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