Brookline Varsity Basketball

As expected, this past winter the boys varsity basketball team proved to be solid and cohesive, pulling together another successful season.

Boys varsity basketball coach Luke Day said he is extremely proud of everything about the program right now.

“I have an immense amount of pride in the team and in the program,” Day said. “Brookline is a place where basketball matters, so I feel every day how special it is to coach here and the responsibility of carrying on what people who have come before me have established.”

Yet again this year, the team captured an enormous number of fans. From beating Newton North twice out of three meetings to playing at the Boston Garden to ultimately meeting their fate at Mansfield in a tough road playoff game, the team had a strong season, making the postseason for the second straight year.

“We’ll look and play very differently next year,” Day said. “We won’t be as big or as athletic as we’ve been the last two seasons, but we have a lot of kids who can really play and I think it would be a mistake for teams to overlook us.”

Girls Varsity Volleyball

Once the school year commenced last September, students were able to whip out their school spirit, so long concealed, and reclaim that Brookline superfan persona that they missed so much over the summer by following the girls varsity volleyball team deep into the playoffs.

Reflecting on the season, girls varsity volleyball coach Shayna Orent said she really enjoyed seeing how the team grew over the season.

“It’s really awesome watching high school players get competitive and prove they’re athletes” Orent said.

The girls volleyball team proved to be an almost unstoppable unit over the regular season, losing only one game and climbing into the top five in the state rankings at points in the season.

“The biggest obstacle high school players face is controlling their mental game,” Orent said. If they can get past their nerves and self-doubt and just be competitive and put it all out there, you know they’ll go far.”

Boys Varsity Swimming and Diving

The boys varsity swimming and diving team had an amazing season this past winter. They broke records and competed at the highest level in Massachusetts.

“Part of the reason for our success this year was that we worked harder,” Junior Kia Shabazi said. “My freshman year we had about 70 kids on the team and only two coaches, so it was much easier for us to slack, but each year the team has gotten smaller and the coaches have been stricter with us.”

He said that measures taken to improve the team as a whole proved to be successful. According to Shabazi, the team was condensed to 36 athletes and three coaches.

“Another reason for our success was team chemistry,” Shabazi said. “We all got along really well and we all had a good time hanging out with one another. We never really got into fights or anything like that.”

Winning the Bay State Conference meet this year was the result of this smaller, closer team.

“We went undefeated and won the Bay State Conference meet. It was the first time we won it since I’ve been on the team, so it was pretty cool,” Shabazi said. “The best moments of the season were probably all the moments we weren’t actually swimming, like the locker room after practice or the bus rides back from swim meets, which are always pretty funny. Throwing the coaches in the pool with clothes on after we won Bay States was also a good moment.”

Boys Varsity Soccer

Kicking their way into the playoffs once again, the boys varsity soccer team once more proved to be a cornerstone of BHS sports.

“This year we had a pretty good season,” senior and co-captain Alejandro Brown said. “Our season ended with a loss to Somerville in the second round of the playoffs. Somerville ended up losing in the state finals.”

According to Brown, although the team only made it as far as the second round of the playoffs, the loss in the second round was offset by two wins against Newton North in the regular season.

“It always sucks losing, but I had a great season and beating North twice is all I need to be satisfied,” Brown said.

Along with the dedication and hard work of the teammates, Brown commends the coaches’ amazing work with the team, and attributes the team’s successful season to them.

“The success we had was all due to coach Jeff Katz, coach Jeremy Ward and coach Chad Pelton,” Brown said. “Coach Katz’s style of coaching is the perfect balance between a strict coach and a good friend.”

Boys Varsity Cross Country

This year, boys cross country proved its worth again after an extremely strong season.

“We only lost one meet in our league,” senior Alex Peebles-Capin said. “We were relatively satisfied with the end result. We ended up about where we expected to.”

According to Peebles-Capin, the team has been in the same position in previous years and expects that they will fare well in the upcoming seasons as well.

“Next year should be solid; a lot of our best runners are underclassmen,” Peebles-Capin said. “We are losing a lot of top runners from the team, but none of those seniors were superstars, just high level contributors. The transition should be okay.”

According to Peebles-Capin, the cross country program is one of the better programs at the school. It is made up of people dedicated to running and coaches who strive for the best for their team.

“Our successes came from a good program, good coaching by Coach Glennon, and experience,” Peebles-Capin said.

Steven Bushey can be contacted at [email protected].