Thursday’s dozen takeaways from the high school tournament and Meet of Champions
The girls’ lacrosse semifinals are set.
On Thursday, Chelmsford and Concord-Carlisle advanced in Division 1, Walpole moved on in D2, Wayland stayed alive in D3, and Ipswich, Nipmuc, and Sandwich all punched their semifinal tickets in D4. Find all the matchups here.
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The baseball and softball quarterfinals are solidified, and same with boys’ lacrosse, which even saw its first semifinalist locked in when Marshfield defeated Reading, 11-9, in the Division 2 quarterfinals.
Find all of Thursday’s playoff scores and recaps on our daily scoreboard. Looking for a certain game? Try our sport-specific scoreboards: Baseball | Softball | Boys’ lacrosse | Girls’ lacrosse | Boys’ volleyball | Boys’ tennis | Girls’ tennis
Peruse all of Thursday’s highlights, including the first day of the Meet of Champions, which saw a Catholic Memorial junior break the state triple jump record:
- Three records fall, including the state triple-jump mark, during first day of Meet of Champions
- A four-run sixth, stellar pitching powers BC High baseball past Braintree, into Division 1 quarterfinal
- Thursday’s softball roundup: In a special season, Shrewsbury secures spot in Division 1 quarterfinals
- Thursday’s baseball roundup: Rocky Vankoski helps Catholic Memorial conquer St. John’s Prep in 2nd round
- Thursday’s volleyball/tennis roundup: With a pause and purpose, Latin Academy boys’ volleyball tops O’Bryant
- Thursday’s girls’ lacrosse roundup: Defending champions Concord-Carlisle and Walpole cruise into semis
- Thursday’s boys’ lacrosse roundup: Everyone eats in Marshfield’s offens
1. Milestones
▪ Longmeadow senior setter Nhan Vuong set the state’s boys’ volleyball assist record when he finished with 3,024 following a season-ending 3-0 Division 2 quarterfinal loss to Wayland. He had already become the first male player in state history to record 3,000 assists on Tuesday.
▪ Medfield boys’ lacrosse coach John Isaf recorded his 250th career win with a 14-5 triumph over Foxborough in the second round of the Division 3 tournament. Isaf has won four state championships, most recently in 2024.
▪ Weston senior Alex Palmer won 18 faceoffs, among them the 600th of his career, during a 16-4 Division 3 boys’ lacrosse second-round victory against Oakmont.
▪ Abington junior Gunner Hanna and senior Matt Grafton both recorded hat tricks, each surpassing 100 career goals in the process, during a 14-4 Division 4 quarterfinal win over Lynnfield.
▪ Winthrop senior Seth Sacco topped 100 goals on the season with a five-goal, four-assist performance in a 17-4 Division 4 second-round victory over East Bridgewater.
▪ Milton senior Victoria Fish homered in a 3-2 Division 2 second-round softball loss to Wakefield, and with that blast she reached 100 career hits.
▪ Norton senior Liana Danubio notched her 700th career strikeout during Wednesday’s 14-1 Division 3 second-round softball win over North Reading, during which she fanned 11.
2. The upsets
Softball offered the most surprise results, with three major upsets across Divisions 3-4.
In D3, NO. 6 Foxborough was sent home, 16-0, by No. 11 Greater New Bedford, which reached the championship game last year as a 10 seed. The Bears got two homers from Brielle Douglas, who finished with a whopping eight RBIs, and Akiira-Ley Vazquez was equally dominant, homering while also spinning a two-hit shutout.
In D4, No. 5 Oxford and No. 6 Millbury both were bounced. Millbury lost, 3-2, to No. 11 East Bridgewater on Miley DelCarmen’s RBI single in the sixth inning, and Oxford was undone, 8-2, by No. 12 Seekonk, which got 10 strikeouts from Anya Fagundes and a homer from Shelby Quinn.
Once again, the South Coast Conference is proving its depth and dominance, as GNB and Seekonk join Dighton-Rehoboth, Somerset Berkley, Apponequet, Joseph Case, and West Bridgewater as squads still standing out of the 10-team league. GNB and Case face off Friday in the D3 quarterfinals, while Seekonk and West Bridgewater face off Saturday in D4.
In D3 girls’ tennis, No. 6 Swampscott continued its undefeated season, improving to 21-0 with a 4-1 win over No. 3 Lynnfield. In D4, No. 5 Bromfield slipped past No. 4 Amesbury, 3-2, and in D2 boys’ tennis No. 5 Marblehead clipped No. 4 Walpole, 3-2.
In D3 girls’ lacrosse, No. 5 Wayland outlasted No. 4 Newburyport in three overtimes, and in D5 baseball, No. 9 Hopedale got the best of No. 8 Cambridge, 10-3.
3. Best finishes
▪ St. John’s (Shrewsbury) nearly put the game away with 20 seconds left in overtime, but a big save from Winchester’s John Reuland forced overtime, where Gianni DePrimeo buried his fourth goal of the game to send seventh-seeded Winchester into the Division 1 boys’ lacrosse quarterfinals with a 15-14 win over the 10th-seeded Pioneers.
▪ It took three overtime periods and nearly three hours and to decide a winner between No. 5 Wayland and No. 4 Newburyport in their Division 2 girls’ lacrosse quarterfinal showdown. In the end, freshman Ailie Newton set up classmate Brynn Andrus for the winning goal, sending the Warriors into the semifinals, 10-9.
4. Going, going, gone
Dennis-Yarmouth junior John Richard and GNB’s Douglas, a junior, put on powerful displays Thursday. Richard ripped two-run homer and a grand slam to finish with six RBIs in a 16-9 Division 4 second-round win over Blue Hills, and Douglas crushed a solo shot and a three-run blast, finishing with eight RBIs to beat Foxborough.
Greater New Bedford also got a solo dinger from Vazquez, and the rest of the day’s round-trippers came from: Catholic Memorial’s Rocky Vankoski, Pope Francis’s Jake Reyngold, Seekonk’s Quinn, Clinton’s Brian Sylvester, Milton’s Fish, Taunton’s Grace Oliveira, and Braintree’s Gabby Bennet.
5. Eight stars
Ace Daigneault and Seth Sacco, Winthrop — Daigneault, a junior, produced 9 points with six goals and three assists, and Sacco, a senior equaled his point output with five goals and four assists in a 17-4 Division 4 second-round boys’ lacrosse win over East Bridgewater.
Miley Delcarmen, East Bridgewater — The sophomore, who started the season as the Vikings’ No. 3 starter, allowed just one earned run while dealing six punchouts in a 3-2 Division 4 softball second-round win over Millbury. The daughter of former Red Sox World Series champion Manny Delcarmen, she also singled and doubled, driving in two runs.
Brielle Douglas and Akiira-ley Vazquez, Greater New Bedford — They’ve already made a couple of appearances in this edition of Takeaways, proof of their impressive showings. Douglas, a junior, drove in eight runs with two homers, and Vazquez homered, driving in two runs, while twirling a two-hit shutout with six strikeouts.
John Richard, Dennis-Yarmouth — His heroics have been covered before, but we couldn’t leave him out here after the junior produced six RBIs thanks to a two-run homer in the fourth and a grand slam in the sixth to send Blue Hills home, 16-9, in the second round of the Division 4 baseball bracket.
Kayla Shaw, Wakefield — The junior righthander opened the game with seven straight strikeouts, finishing with 13 to defeat Milton, 3-2, in Division 2 second-round softball action.
Tatum Swanson, Somerset Berkley — The senior dominated in both phases, firing a four-hit shutout with eight strikeouts and delivering three RBIs in a 10-0 Division 2 second-round win against North Attleborough.
6. Coaching carousel
Hopkinton has promoted Jessie Karner to head girls’ volleyball coach after three years as an assistant. Karner, a 2008 alum, also coaches JV wrestling and is an assistant softball coach. During the day she is a directed study teacher at the high school. The Hillers are coming off a 12-9 season that ended in the first round of the Division 1 tournament.
7. Commitment central
▪ Jaren Megan, a Fairhaven graduate who spent the past two seasons at Northern Essex Community College, has committed to play Division 1 baseball at Stonehill. Megan slashed .380/.487/.620 with 43 steals, 52 runs, and 36 RBIs in 38 games last season for NECC.
▪ On Wednesday, Norton celebrated its seniors going on to compete in sports in college: Nick Toole (soccer, Penn), TJ Lach (soccer, St. Anselm), Kacie Alaimo (lacrosse, Curry), Andrew Strojny (football, New Haven), Ella Steele (lacrosse, Wheaton), Cam Keaney (football, UMass Dartmouth), Alex George (volleyball, Elms), Kyle Shine (lacrosse, New England), Quinn Murphy (football, Mass. Maritime), and Cole Mirka (football, UMass Dartmouth).
▪ Salem did the same Wednesday, honoring its college-bound athletes: AJ Alessi (lacrosse, Wentworth), Shea Christel (baseball, Wentworth), Elvis Espinal (football, Curry), Oscar Fernandez (football, Husson), Nathaniel Lane (basketball, Salem State), and Elizabeth Reid (soccer, Elms).
8. College corner
▪ Dartmouth College seniors Madeline Koelbel, a Duxbury graduate, and Sudi Zhao, a Lexington grad, were both named Intercollegiate Sailing Association All-American honorable mentions after helping the Big Green to a fourth-place finish at the Open team Race National Championship and a second-place finish in the A Division of the Open Fleet Race Championship.
9. Lacrosse honors
The Mass. Lacrosse Coaches Association handed out its awards and Lincoln-Sudbury’s Brian Vona was named USA Lacrosse Coach of the Year after leading the Warriors to a 13-3 regular-season record and the No. 1 seed in Division 1.
Hopkinton’s Chase O’Donnell received the Bob Scott award, and the following players were named All-American: Acton-Boxborough’s Ethan Fennel, Andover’s Dan Guinee, BC High’s TJ Emsing and Jackson Ketchen, Dracut’s Owen French, Falmouth’s Travis Smith, Hingham’s Cam McKenna, Mansfield’s Cole Hogencamp and Nico Smith, Marshfield’s Sam O’Brien, Medfield’s Edward Breslin and Braeden Sutton, Milton’s Ben Midura, North Andover’s Tommy Farrell, Norwell’s Jake McGuirk, Reading’s Nick Casarano, and Winchester’s Andrew Mango and Cooper Spence, as well as Billerica’s Jackson Gearin, Kam Tremblay, and Braden Martin; Lincoln-Sudbury’s Kevin Abair, Rex Friedholm, and Brady Malo; and St. John’s Prep’s Will Crawford, Ryan Doherty, and Ryan McCarthy.
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10. Diamond leaderboard
Strikeouts
Kayla Shaw, Wakefield, 13
Anya Fagundes, Seekonk, 10
Jacoby Hogencamp, Catholic Memorial, 9
Tatum Swanson, Somerset Berkley, 8
Reese Taylor, Apponequet, 8
Cam Hohmann, Norwell, 7
Shane Harrington, Walpole, 6
RBIs
Brielle Douglas, Greater New Bedford, 8
John Richard, Dennis-Yarmouth, 6
Ella Maynard, Bridgewater-Raynham, 4
Cole Pileski, Walpole, 4
Jack Coen, Xaverian, 3
Erin Gunn, Somerset Berkley, 3
Mike O’Keefe, Xaverian, 3
Tatum Swanson, Somerset Berkley, 3
Runs
Gavin Henegan, Xaverian, 4
Julia Costa, Somerset Berkley, 3
Nathan Montville, Hopedale, 3
11. Lacrosse leaderboard
Goals
Mac Cole, Pentucket, 6
Ace Daigneault, Winthrop, 6
Elisabeth Stutzman, Sandwich, 6
Tate Eriksen, Abington, 5
Abi Reisig, Sandwich, 5
Seth Sacco, Winthrop, 5
Nate Whitworth, Weston, 5
Luke Betty, Weston, 4
Gianni DePrimeo, Winchester, 4
Natalie Elder, Ipswich, 4
Lydia Katezenback, Sandwich, 4
Dylan Martello, Reading, 4
Scarlett Mirak, Concord-Carlisle, 4
Allie Wile, Ipswich, 4
Assists
Locke Simunovic, Weston, 6
Matt Grafton, Abington, 4
Seth Sacco, Winthrop, 4
Ace Daigneault, Winthrop, 3
Braeden Sutton, Medfield, 3
Saves
Will Henry, Medfield, 11
John Reuland, St. John’s (Shrewsbury), 10
Frankie Zilembo, Wayland, 10
12. Volleyball leaderboard
Kills
Bilal Douai, Latin Academy, 23
OT Perks, O’Bryant, 21
Andrew Yerak, Westfield, 16
Finn Bell, Wayland, 15
Giovanni Gonzalez, Westfield, 13
Mike Costa, Natick, 10
Henry Engelman, Natick, 10
Dylan Engelhardt, Wayland, 9
Assists
Max Yurtuc, Westfield, 40
Luke Dratch, Natick, 38
Zach O’Donnell, Wayland, 26
Digs
Arlen Messier, Westfield, 18
Giovanni Gonzalez, Westfield, 16
Andrew Yerak, Westfield, 10
Aces
Finn Bell, Wayland, 3
Zach O’Donnell, Wayland, 2
Blocks
Finn Bell, Wayland, 4
David Kefalas, Latin Academy, 3
Zach O’Donnell, Wayland, 2



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