Successful fall seasons result in numerous playoff bids
The girls varsity soccer team is one of many teams at the high school that was able to qualify for the postseason. For soccer, teams must have at least a 500 record in order to qualify. The girls varsity soccer team won two of their playoff games, making it further than any other Brookline high school girls varsity soccer team ever has.
February 4, 2017
Preparation is key for any major competition. However, this is especially true for playoffs. This fall, girls and boys varsity soccer, boys and girls varsity cross country, girls varsity swim and dive, and girls varsity volleyball all made it to the postseason.
The girls varsity cross country team ended their season at the divisional meet where they placed in 8th. April Bagnani, a senior, was the only member of the team who qualified for states. She placed 28th overall in the meet. The team does many things to prepare for important races. According to Bagnani, it takes weeks to prepare for the two most important meets of the season.
“We have to plan way ahead. There’s not a huge strategy to it, you just have to feel good for the race. A couple days before we’ll visualize the race, sometimes we go to the course,” Bagnani said. “We’ll walk the course or jog the course so that we know what it looks like.”
The boys varsity soccer team lost their first playoff game 2-1 against Lincoln-Sudbury after going into both overtime and penalty kicks. Senior Zach Knopf thinks that they had some trouble scoring this season and wishes that a few things had been different.
“[We should’ve been] more aggressive, more hungry to score and just wanted to win every single game,” Knopf said. “Not just going into [a game] to get out of it.”
The girls varsity swim and dive team placed third overall at sectionals, with multiple individual students winning their separate races. The team has a system for training called tapering. It ensures that the athletes are prepared without overworking them. The team moved onto the states meet where they placed 6th overall. Courtney Carroll, a senior on the team, who just broke the meet record for the 400 freestyle relay with teammates Sasha Bourdine, Yasmeen Moukadesh and Valentina Rojas-Posada, as well as the 200 freestyle relay with Sara Song, Bourdine and Moukadesh, cites staying focused as an important part of getting ready for a meet.
“[I made sure] I was staying focused throughout everything and making sure that the girls were focused,” Carroll said. “That was my main concern and right now we’re looking really good.”
