No, not the NBC special on the Vineyard high school football team that will air nationally twice next month, though the Island football community got a kick out of NBC camera crews trailing every facet of practice, the locker room, then filming a solid 35-20 win over bulky Hull High School last Friday.
“Preseason’s over. The league starts on Friday,” said junior inside linebacker Cody Brewer while organizing his derby fishing gear on Saturday morning after the game.
Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School is exploring whether an opportunity exists to move its sports program, including football, to the Atlantic Coast League following the resignation of North Quincy, Quincy and Whitman-Hanson high schools from the league next fall.
Michael Joyce, athletic director at the Island high school, said this week that letters have been sent to principals and athletic directors of Atlantic Coast League schools inquiring about the fit for Vineyard sports in the league.
The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School football team is having a good week.
In addition to rolling over Littleton/Broomfield at home on Friday by a final of 29-14 to remain undefeated on the season, a news crew from NBC Sports is traveling with the team this week and taping a segment that will be aired later this year during a halftime segment of the network’s NFL Sunday Night Football program.
Daylight is on the wane, temperatures are dipping and beaches are emptying, but on the high school athletic fields the fall sports season is just starting to heat up.
As one Vineyard sports fan put it this week, “The leaves are turning, the busy season is over, and there is high school football on Saturday and the Patriots on Sunday . . . not to mention the Red Sox are going to the playoffs . . . it’s the most magical time of the year.”
After years of going without a conference affiliation, all but a handful of the athletic teams of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High school finally found a home this week when the Eastern Athletic Conference voted unanimously to accept the Vineyard into its ranks.
The principals and athletic directors of the Eastern Athletic Conference voted without dissent on Wednesday to accept the Vineyard as the newest member of the four-school athletic conference. The vote took place at the conference’s regular meeting held at Somerset High School.
It was a triumphant return to form for the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School football team in 2008.
After a run of successful but ultimately frustrating seasons, the Island team dominated its Mayflower League Large opponents and went undefeated in the conference, earning a berth in the Division 3A Eastern Massachusetts playoffs for the first time in five years.
Just as high school athletics season kicks off comes the potentially good news that the Eastern Athletic Conference — a sports league made up of predominantly parochial schools from the south shore — has invited the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School to join its ranks.
Several Vineyard sports teams have been without a conference since the principals of the South Coast Conference unexpectedly voted in December of 2006 not to allow the regional high school to remain in the league.
The Vineyard football team may be on the field for two and a half hours of game time tomorrow, but it takes days, weeks and a year of effort by another team to get them there. The Martha’s Vineyard Touchdown Club, a nonprofit organization, works to get those players onto the field for each of the 10 or more games they play each season. At least 100 students benefit directly from the club, including 72 football players and 28 cheerleaders.
The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School football team got off to a solid start of the season Friday with a convincing, no-nonsense 14-0 win over familiar rival Old Rochester on a rainy night in Mattapoisett.
The Vineyarders ran the option play to perfection all night, and senior Mike McCarthy scored both touchdowns on short runs in the first half to put the game away. A steady rain fell throughout the game making for soggy field conditions, but the Vineyarders’ defense was still able to clamp down and shut down the Bulldogs’ attack.
It is a chilly November evening; the sun has just dipped below the horizon and Mike McCarthy, quarterback for the Vineyarders football team, stands in back of the high school answering a reporter’s questions about this weekend’s Island Cup game.
Nearby a group of cheerleaders is spray-painting signs and posters with words of encouragement for the team. Some of the signs will be used to decorate the bedrooms of the starters and seniors on the football team; others may be brought over to Nantucket this weekend to cheer on the Vineyarders during the game.
