By Adam Riglian
May 30, 2010
Wareham Courier
There won’t be any postseason in Wareham this spring.
The baseball team’s 1-0 loss to Middleboro confirmed that fact. A postseason berth is the main goal for any high school program, and the most achievable. While a conference title depends on a season’s worth of high-level performances with little margin for error, the qualifying for the sectional tournament requires a team to finish at .500.
Regardless of what they do the rest of the way, the Vikings will finish short of that. But to call the season a failure would be at best an exaggeration and at worst an outright lie.
From the start, the Vikings were hamstrung by lineup inconsistencies, injuries and a case of senioritis. Those woes plagued them throughout the season and there was not much to be done about it.
They had a new coach in David Harrison, one who they were unfamiliar with and one who needed time to get through to his players. It was clear by the end of the season that he had, especially when the Vikings looked like a playoff team in their 5-1 stretch that propelled them into contention.
It’s tough that senior Mike Sullivan couldn’t make it to the tournament in his final season, just as it’s tough that classmate Ryan Vanderstaay had to watch most of the year from the bench with an arm injury and that junior Harry Irving was sidelined midway through the season with a broken foot.
While Sullivan, Vanderstaay and the rest of the seniors have to say goodbye to the program, they are leaving it in able hands. Sophomore Ian Searles has already shown himself to be a more than capable starting pitcher. He certainly has Apponequet’s number, allowing one run to the Lakers over 15 innings this season.
Sophomore Billy Peterson has flashed a strong arm at shortstop and found himself hitting in the three-spot for most of the season. Irving will be back next year, adding power in the cleanup role.
Another sophomore, Tyler Horton, pitched a gem against Old Rochester. When he’s not on the mound, he has played a solid first base in Irving’s absent and has the makings of a good varsity player for the next two seasons.
Sophomore Sean Conway proved to not only be a gamer this season, but showed versatility as well. In the preseason, he was pegged as an outfielder, but ended up taking over and excelling at catcher.
Freshman baseball coach Quirino DoCanto has done a good job with the freshman, already sending Steve Widner up to the varsity level. He didn’t disappoint, hitting a single in his first varsity game on May 21.
A team that started with ten returning senior lettermen and two more senior players, 12 in total, ended up being a development team that did just that. By season’s end, the dedicated seniors were still around, and the young players had progressed enough to give the Vikings a good run.
And that is something that they can all be proud of, tournament or not.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
COLUMN: Numbers Game
By Adam Riglian
April 25, 2010
Wareham Courier
Last week, the town of Mansfield dropped a bomb on its high school students.
No sports, no band, no extracurriculars whatsoever.
Essentially, no fun.
Three days later, after the story was widely circulated in Boston and local media, selectmen moved money from the municipal budget and user fees were enacted, saving the program.
Many saw the maneuver to cut sports as a transparent way for the school committee to get extra funds by preying on the town’s emotional attachment to its sports programs. As Mansfield News Sports Editor Mike Hardman aptly put it, “it’s an old story.”
He’s right of course. It is an old story and it’s a play that most people would be happy to see removed from the political playbook. But let’s consider, for the sake of argument, that Mansfield, or any high school for that matter, eliminated extracurricular activities.
What would the results be?
Silver Lake Athletic Director Bill Johnson brings up a great point – “where would they go at 2 o’clock in the afternoon?”
My answer – I don’t know. Johnson said sports keep about 500 to 600 kids, between his school and opposing schools, on campus each day after classes. That doesn’t include the kids that stay at school for band and other activities. I don’t have any science behind this, but to me, if you have 500 teenagers with nothing to do after 2 p.m., a few are bound to get into trouble. As the MIAA notes on its website, after-school activities are the safest option to keep kids out of trouble.
That isn’t the only fun fact the state sanctioning body has on the merits of sport as an extracurricular. Students’ grade point averages improve during the seasons in which they compete in a sport, student-athletes have higher attendance and graduation rates and, most importantly, they are cheap. As the MIAA points out, on average high school sports only account for 1 to 3 percent of the school budget.
Can you logically cut such a successful program to save 1 percent of your budget?
The numbers speak for themselves. According to data from the MIAA, the graduation rate for student athletes is 99.4 percent. The average GPA is 2.98 for student-athletes, 2.17 for non-athletes, and the average test scores in English and algebra were roughly 10 points higher for student-athletes.
Mansfield, well known as one of the most dominating track powers in the state, draws huge numbers of kids out to run every year. I don’t have any numbers to back this up, but I’m willing to bet most of those kids carry their healthy lifestyle with them when they leave high school. That’s part of what Plymouth South AD Scott Fry meant when he told me that he sees coaches as teachers outside of the classroom.
The only thing I ever took out of biology class was a heavy book and a headache, but there is plenty for students to learn on a football field, a track or on a softball diamond. Fry points to life lessons, leadership skills and team building as key to the athletic programs educational success. The MIAA backs up that assertion, stating that 95 percent of corporate officers said they participated in high school athletics.
In this argument, just like in sports, the numbers speak for themselves.
April 25, 2010
Wareham Courier
Last week, the town of Mansfield dropped a bomb on its high school students.
No sports, no band, no extracurriculars whatsoever.
Essentially, no fun.
Three days later, after the story was widely circulated in Boston and local media, selectmen moved money from the municipal budget and user fees were enacted, saving the program.
Many saw the maneuver to cut sports as a transparent way for the school committee to get extra funds by preying on the town’s emotional attachment to its sports programs. As Mansfield News Sports Editor Mike Hardman aptly put it, “it’s an old story.”
He’s right of course. It is an old story and it’s a play that most people would be happy to see removed from the political playbook. But let’s consider, for the sake of argument, that Mansfield, or any high school for that matter, eliminated extracurricular activities.
What would the results be?
Silver Lake Athletic Director Bill Johnson brings up a great point – “where would they go at 2 o’clock in the afternoon?”
My answer – I don’t know. Johnson said sports keep about 500 to 600 kids, between his school and opposing schools, on campus each day after classes. That doesn’t include the kids that stay at school for band and other activities. I don’t have any science behind this, but to me, if you have 500 teenagers with nothing to do after 2 p.m., a few are bound to get into trouble. As the MIAA notes on its website, after-school activities are the safest option to keep kids out of trouble.
That isn’t the only fun fact the state sanctioning body has on the merits of sport as an extracurricular. Students’ grade point averages improve during the seasons in which they compete in a sport, student-athletes have higher attendance and graduation rates and, most importantly, they are cheap. As the MIAA points out, on average high school sports only account for 1 to 3 percent of the school budget.
Can you logically cut such a successful program to save 1 percent of your budget?
The numbers speak for themselves. According to data from the MIAA, the graduation rate for student athletes is 99.4 percent. The average GPA is 2.98 for student-athletes, 2.17 for non-athletes, and the average test scores in English and algebra were roughly 10 points higher for student-athletes.
Mansfield, well known as one of the most dominating track powers in the state, draws huge numbers of kids out to run every year. I don’t have any numbers to back this up, but I’m willing to bet most of those kids carry their healthy lifestyle with them when they leave high school. That’s part of what Plymouth South AD Scott Fry meant when he told me that he sees coaches as teachers outside of the classroom.
The only thing I ever took out of biology class was a heavy book and a headache, but there is plenty for students to learn on a football field, a track or on a softball diamond. Fry points to life lessons, leadership skills and team building as key to the athletic programs educational success. The MIAA backs up that assertion, stating that 95 percent of corporate officers said they participated in high school athletics.
In this argument, just like in sports, the numbers speak for themselves.
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