Change is a constant in high school athletics, as players graduate at the end of each year and are replaced the next by a new crop of underclassmen. But as the fall sports season begins this week at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, there is so much change you might need a guide to sort it all out.
The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School boys’ hockey team fought to the bitter end against the Nauset Warriors in Orleans on Wednesday but gave up a goal in the final minutes to lose 2-1, in a battle of two teams battling for position in the division 2 south sectionals.
The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School student newspaper The High School View took top honors with a first place award in the All-New England category in Division II from the New England Scholastic Press Association (NESPA). The award was announced May 1 by Helen F. Smith, NESPA executive director, during the organization’s annual conference at Boston University.
While the school’s student newspaper shared top honors in 2007, this year the students were the sole winner of the award.
Sports of every kind were front and center across the Vineyard this week — from bars and living rooms where people watched the New England Patriots win the season opener and the Boston Red Sox inch closer to a postseason berth, to the high school athletic fields where several teams started their seasons with big wins.
The Vineyard boys’ high school hockey team will advance to the next round in the state tournament following a solid 5-1 win Monday night against Whitman-Hanson at the Gallo Ice Arena in Bourne.
The seventh-seeded Vineyarders scored two goals in the first period against the tenth-seeded Panthers and never looked back. The Vineyarders first got on the board seven minutes into the game when Nick Billingham redirected a rebound from Darren Gazaille and fired the puck past Panthers’ goalie Brandon Lynch.
How to be more environmentally responsible: we all approach it on many different levels. But every little bit helps. This year especially is important to take the threat to our environment seriously. You read about “going green” everywhere. But what does that really mean? Whether you recycle regularly and have a compost bin in your backyard or are just beginning to switch your lightbulbs over to the new more efficient bulbs, each of us can strive to make less of an impact on our already overburdened resources.
It seems appropriate, somehow, that the first reward Bethany Pennington received upon hearing that she was the valedictorian of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School class of 2009 was extra homework.
“The principal called me into his office and said, ‘You’re the valedictorian. You have to make a speech at graduation and it’s due in three weeks,’” she said, laughing, in an interview at her father’s office yesterday.
The juggernaut Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School boys’ hockey team easily defeated two powerful opponents this week to advance to the quarterfinals of the division 2 south state tournament, setting up an epic showdown tonight against old rival Coyle-Cassidy, the team that has knocked the Vineyarders out of the playoffs for two out of the last three years.
Tonight’s game against Coyle-Cassidy faces-off at 5:15 p.m. at the Gallo Arena in Bourne.
There aren’t many opportunities in life to achieve the elusive standard of perfection. And some people spend their whole lives trying. But as a wise man once said, “When you aim for perfection, you discover it’s a moving target.”
The weekend before Thanksgiving will be noticeably less festive on the Vineyard this year as school officials this week confirmed that the storied Island Cup football game with inter-Island rival Nantucket has been cancelled for the first time in almost 50 years.
Sandy Mincone, the new athletic director for the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, told the Gazette this week that Nantucket pulled out of the long-standing tradition due to financial reasons.
