It was a busy first week of winter sports as all six teams saw action this week against a variety of opponents. The swim team headed off to Nantucket to compete with four other teams to open their season on Saturday. The inaugural winter track team traveled to Wheaton College to compete but had no times to place due to West Bridgewater cancelling. The girls’ hockey team opened up their season at home on Saturday against Brookline, while the boys’ team played two games on Friday and Saturday in the Barnstable Ice Breaker with Sandwich and Dennis-Yarmouth. Girls’ basketball opened their season with home games on Friday, Saturday and Tuesday against Sandwich, Abington and Dennis-Yarmouth, while the boys faced off against Dennis-Yarmouth Tuesday in South Yarmouth.

The swim team made a strong showing in their invitational meet which saw four other teams competing. The Vineyarders were a bit shorthanded as only 12 of 19 swimmers made the trip over to Nantucket to compete. The lack of numbers showed as the Vineyard placed last out among the five teams. “I thought it was a great meet, we put up a valiant effort, it’s just really hard to win when teams are so much bigger than us,” said team captain Galya Walt. Despite a lackluster team performance, many individual performances shined through. Patrick Best won the 50-metre freestyle with a time of 25 seconds flat while Lia Potter came in fourth for the 100-metre freestyle with a time of 1:01.

The winter track team travelled to Wheaton College for their inaugural meet that involved six other teams. The team was originally supposed to compete in a dual meet against West Bridgewater, but due to a tragedy the school cancelled all sporting events for the week. That didn’t stop the Vineyard from competing and setting school records in the process. “Because it’s our first meet ever in the sport, everyone who came in first for our team now has a school record under their belt,” said Coach Joel Graves. Olivia Smith qualified for states in the hurdles and also won the long jump while Nate D’Angelo won the two-mile. “It feels pretty good to be a part of history, however brief it may be,” said Nate. Times for each event can be found on Athletic.net.

The boys’ and girls’ hockey teams opened up their seasons with stunning play both home and away. At home on Saturday the girls took a 3-2 victory over Brookline in stride as Kiara Vought scored one goal and Aubrey Ashmun scored two. Ashmun and Olivia Ogden also had assists. “They stole the momentum away from us in the second period but I loved to see that we were able to regain our composure and push through and get the win,” said head coach John Fiorito.

The boys’ team traveled to Barnstable to participate in the annual ice breaker, which proved to be a partially successful endeavor to start the season. They lost their first game on Friday against Sandwich but were able to regain composure and beat Dennis-Yarmouth on Saturday. In the Sandwich game the Vineyard out shot the opposing team 38-10 but was still unable to come away with the victory, losing 3-2. “We controlled the entire game, we just didn’t capitalize on opportunities in front of the net,” said Andrew Wiley, who sat out both games due to a pre-existing concussion. Triston Araujo and Emerson Mahoney scored the Vineyard’s only goals of the game. The Dennis-Yarmouth game was a completely different story as the Vineyard pulled away with a 5-2 victory over the Dolphins. Triston Araujo and Emerson Mahoney each had two goals apiece, while captain Austin Morley also contributed with a goal. “That’s a game that we should have won and did win,” the coach said.

Boys’ and girls’ basketball opened with a bang as the girls defeated Sandwich and Dennis-Yarmouth, but lost to Abington, and the boys defeated Dennis-Yarmouth 61-24. Erin Hill and Molly Debettencourt had strong showings in both weekend games; Erin scored 23 points against Sandwich and 12 against Abington. Molly scored nine points in both games. In the D-Y game Erin scored 20 and Molly had 15. “In our first two games we had a lot of turnovers but against D-Y we really saw improvement I think,” said Hill.

The boys had an impressive 57-48 victory over Dennis-Yarmouth. Tim Roberts had 20 points while Alex GordonBeck and Cole Houston each contributed eight. “We were able to control rebounds, which was a major factor in our victory,” said captain Tim Roberts. “It was very physical and a great note to start the season on.”

That’s it for this week. Check in for more updates next week on the winter sports scene.