Sports travel for an Island school takes what is already a complicated endeavor — ensuring that hundreds of student athletes and their coaches get from Point A to Point B and back safely — and throws in a seven-mile wide obstacle in the form of the Vineyard Sound.
With a week left in regular season play, records are falling, players are earning statewide recognition and one team is already making its mark in the state tournament.
Bats are cracking, sails are full of wind and tennis racquets and lacrosse sticks are in evidence as the spring sports season gets under way at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School.
Girls’ tennis opens Tuesday at 3 p.m. when the team takes on Barnstable. Also on Tuesday at 3 p.m., boys’ lacrosse hosts Bishop Stang.
The march to the postseason continued this week with split results; the boys’ basketball team secured an easy victory on Tuesday while the girls took a hard-fought loss. Both basketball squads need just one more win to clinch a spot in the postseason tournament. Meanwhile, the fledgling swim team, hampered by illness and injury, hosted Sacred Heart in a close meet on Monday, but ultimately came up short.
League play begins this week for three teams, with boys’ basketball and boys’ hockey facing two of their toughest opponents of the season in home matchups. Basketball takes on Eastern Athletic Conference rival Bishop Feehan on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m., while hockey plays Coyle and Cassidy Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.
Like teams staking out turf on the ballfield, nearly 30 students, coaches, parents and school administrators this week debated the merits and weaknesses of a proposed zero-tolerance policy for high school athletes caught using drugs, alcohol or tobacco.
When taken out of context, listening to Gustavo Simoes talk about
football can be quite confusing.
"I played football all the time as a kid in Brazil," the
high school senior and Vineyarders center said after practice Monday.
"And I had seen football on TV, too, but I never played it until I
came here."
Put in context, the confusion is easily sorted out.
Unlike the world of professional sports, the concept of a dynasty is not often associated with high school athletics. Because students filter through the system every four years, the success of any high school team changes from year to year as players graduate and underclassmen move up take their place.
