Well, it's Monday, and you know what that means. It's time for the Sports Buzz, the fastest three minutes in Brookline sports coming your way right now:
We start with indoor track, where Brookline High was indeed on the fast track to two victories against Framingham in a pair of makeup meets, with th boys and girls winning, 67-27 and 64-31, respectively.
The big winner of the day was sophomore Katie Hitchcock-Smith,who won three events, taking the 55 dash, the hurdles, and the long jump. Other individual winners for the Warrior girls included Leah Gellineau, in the mile, Molly MacVeagh, in the 600 meter, Emma Stillman, in the 300, Sara Sebahar, in the high jump, and Sarah Jabour, in the shot put.
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For the boys, Romey Sklar (mile), Will Jackson (600), Tharindu Weersinghe (two mile), Jaquelle Jones (shot put), and Teddy Cullinane (long jump) all posted victories.
The boys closed the dual meet season with a 3-2 record, while the girls went 2-3. Both teams will compete in the Bay State Conference Championship meet Wednesday at the Reggie Lewis Center.
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To the Evelyn Kirrane pool we go for the boys swimming and diving Bay State Conference Championships, where host Brookline was led by five gold medal efforts, and took second place as a team. Senior Tim Gladyshev, who tied as the meet's leading scorer, won two individual golds, in the 200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke, and was also a part of two winning relay teams. Junior Zach Albert, who finished third overall in the scoring, won the 100 butterfly and was part of the winning 200 freestyle relay.
All of the relay winners included Kyle Swardstrom, Gladyshev, Cody Tipton, and Thompson Zhang in the 200 medley rela, and Seb Vasquez, Zhang, Gladyshev, and Albert in the 200 freestyle relay.
Top three performances were also turned in by Albert, who finished second in the 200 free; Swardstrom, who tied for second in the 100 backstroke; and Vasquez, Ben Pollack, Tipton and Albert, who took second place in the 400 free relay.
The Warriors totaled 308 points, second only to Needham's 338.5.
Okay, how 'bout some hoops? The Brookline boys basketball team defeated Natick, 58-51, improving to 6-7 overall and 6-5 in the Bay State Conference.
The win was huge considering the Warriors had dropped six of their last seven games, including a loss to Dedham last week.
In that game, playing without starting guard E.J. Rogers and center JonahMorgenstern-Gaines, who were out due to illness, was enough of a predicament for Brookline, but their absences were made worse by some mistakes the Warriors would soon like to forget.
The short-handed Warriors committed 20 turnovers in a 59-47 home loss, as the Marauders were able to take advantage of their size down low, while using a halfcourt flex offense to distribute the ball evenly.
“Dedham executed its game plan and we had a lot of bad turnovers,” Brookline head coach Mark Fiedor said. “But obviously not having Jonah and E.J. hurt on two levels because we were lacking size without Jonah, and E.J. is such a spark defensively.”
Brookline weathered the storm early by keeping it tied at 15 through one quarter, but Dedham’s crisp entry passes to their big men were too much for Brookline in the second quarter. Vincent Iarrobino scored eight of his 21 points to help give Dedham a 37-29 lead at half time.
“Vincent played terrific tonight,” Dedham head coach Ed Hickey said. “We were trying to give him high-percentage looks down low early.”
The second half for the Warriors can be summed up by missed opportunities, whether it was through throwing the ball away or not pulling down rebounds. The Warriors started using a trap defense mid-way through the third quarter and pulled to within 41-38 on Shiraz Mumtaz’s put back to end the quarter.
Dedham wouldn’t allow Brookline to get any closer in the fourth, however, as Brookline got into the penalty early. Marauder captain Cam Clifford (14 points) hit a three-pointer at the top of the key to cap an 11-2 Dedham run that gave the Marauders a 52-40 lead and put the game out of reach for the Warriors.
“Cam has done a great job of coming back from a summer knee injury and is our leader,” Hickey said. “He creates so much for the other kids.”
One of the only bright spots for the Warriors was Stephen O’Neal, who had 20 points and six steals.
“Stephen did a great job of us keeping us in the game early with his offense,” Fiedor said.
Brookline has now lost six of seven games and Sunday’s noon game at Natick becomes an important matchup for the Warriors.
And, congratulations to the Brookline girls basketball team, which qualified for the state tournament for the second straight year. The Warriors rallied from a huge deficit to defeat Natick, 58-53, improving to 10-5 overall and 8-4 in the Bay State Conference.
Pat Ouellette and Brookline athletics contributed to this report.
