If you can think of an extracurricular activity or club that’s been offered to the students at Sedona Red Rock High School since the beginning of the 2017-18 school year, there’s a decent chance that senior Lesly Suarez has been a part of it.
Suarez is presently the spirit and pride coordinator in the student council as well as the vice president of the Interact club. In the past, she’s been involved in key club, the art club, the photo club, the yearbook club as a photographer and was the vice president of the Gay/Straight Alliance during her sophomore year. She’s additionally involved in the school’s orchestra, playing the violin for four years.
Athletically, Suarez was a two-sport athlete during her first three years of high school. She added a third sport to her plate in her senior year. To the outsider, it might seem as though Suarez stretches herself thin, making herself overworked. Suarez would agree with that assertion but also feels that it’s a good thing.
“I love being busy — I like being overworked,” she said. “Not many people are like that. But high school is only for a short amount of time and you never know what could happen afterward. I’m the type of person who has a lot on her plate but somehow I manage to add more.”
Suarez is presently getting ready for her fourth season of playing basketball for the Scorpions. She’ll be joining a varsity team that’s experienced but also young. Four of five starters return from last year’s team — but none of those players are seniors.
She plays primarily as a forward but acknowledges that her role on the team can change depending on the situation.
“I play wherever coach [Kirk] Westervelt wants me to play — it kind of varies on the situation,” Suarez said. “Lately I’ve been playing more as a guard. I’m really just hoping to add more of a role model type of figure considering that I am a senior. Coach put that on me, to add energy to the team.”
An activity that Suarez took up as a senior was swimming. At the beginning of the year, she said that one of the reasons she swam was to help get herself into better shape for basketball season.
During the season, coach Dan Morse described Suarez as “the team’s top cheerleader.” She also swam on the 200-yard freestyle and medley relay teams and also in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events individually.
“I think it went really well,” Suarez said. “I’d been wanting to swim since I was a sophomore. Overall I was really happy with the season.”
When high school is over, Suarez hopes to attend Northern Arizona University and eventually become an athletic trainer.
That’s an interest that was sparked in her junior season when she took a sports medicine class with Andrea Bagnall.
“It was really just being in Ms. B’s class and hearing different things that she’s experienced in her life that led to her career,” Suarez said of her interest in sports medicine. “She’s had a really exciting life. So that was kind of my inspiration to want to become an athletic trainer.”
But in between the end of basketball season and her graduation, there is one more sport for Suarez to play — softball. Suarez has played softball for the Scorpions in each of her previous three years in high school, playing mostly catcher and in centerfield.
One thing that Suarez has not done in any of her first three seasons is give herself an easy trip around the bases. She hopes that changes before the end of the season.
“I want to hit a home run at least once,” she said. “There were many times when I was close. I want to hit it over the fence once.”
In a sense, Suarez has tried to “hit all the bases” in all aspects of her life.
“I’m really a person who likes to be out there. I describe myself as a social butterfly,” Suarez said. “I like making friends and getting out there. I like to describe myself as the life of the party. Even though not many people would describe me as that, I would describe myself as that.”
