Varsity News: Our favorite games, plays, players, venues and more from 2025-26

This story originally appeared in the Globe’s high school sports newsletter, Varsity News. Click here to sign up and get it in your inbox each Wednesday

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Welcome back to Varsity News, a newsletter that, while fretting over the health of Brody Bumila’s elbow, is preparing for a month-long summer slumber.

We’ll continue through next week (July 15) when we bring you our spring All-Scholastic selections, which publish Friday at Globe.com/Schools and in a special print section Sunday. Then we’ll take a month off and resume Aug. 19 to prep you for the first day of fall practices Aug. 24.

In the interim, we’re planning a little makeover. We started this newsletter last fall and after a strong first nine months, we’re ready to re-evaluate. What are you looking for in this space? What do you, as a high school sports fan, envision in your favorite newsletter?

So far we’ve focused on being comprehensive, providing as many Eastern Mass. highlights as we can cram in, but maybe you want deeper dives? More focus? Fewer names and stats and more storytelling? Or maybe you love it just the way it is.

Let me know at [email protected]!

I often think of Varsity News as the visible tip of a giant iceberg. Our hard-working Globe Schools team covers hundreds of games every school year and writes recaps about thousands more. Our beat writers churn out weekly feature notebooks, Top 20 rankings, and Players of the Week. They talk to coaches, players, trainers, parents, athletic directors, and more.

Then I synthesize all that info into one all-encompasing newsletter, touching on the biggest moments of the week. I couldn’t do it without diligent reporters pounding the pavement with shoe-leather reporting.

So this week, I asked our Globe Schools crew to provide their highlights from the 2025-26 school year. Here are their answers, lightly edited for length and clarity:

Henry Dinh-Price: The boys’ basketball Blue Bombardier Classic final between Bishop Feehan and Attleboro. Feehan’s Brody Bumila scored 41 points, including 21 in the third quarter, but Attleboro staged a fourth-quarter comeback, outscoring the Shamrocks 22-10 in the final frame to win, 67-64. Feehan had three chances at a game-tying 3-pointer in the waning seconds, but couldn’t get one to fall.

Kat Cornetta: At the gymnastics state championships, the top five all-arounders were separated by less than a point. It was won by Westborough’s Gauri Sharma with a 37.9, but it was truly one of the best all-around competitions in my 15 years of following Massachusetts high school gymnastics. You had one gymnast — Sarah Aldrich of Masconomet — scoring 9.8-plus on three apparatus, and Sharma scoring 9.7+ on two.

Nate Weitzer: BC High over St. John’s Prep, 10-9, in overtime in the Division 1 boys lacrosse semifinals.

Nate Weitzer: After winning the opening faceoff in overtime and narrowly getting a timeout call with possession, BC High set up a play to get sophomore Nate Rogers free for a shot with a pick by senior Murphy Belvin, and Rogers buried it under the crossbar for the overtime win to beat five-time defending champion St. John’s Prep.

Henry Dinh-Price: Boston International junior Sylberto Brevil scored an overhead kick to open the scoring in the 39th minute of the Division 5 boys’ soccer state final. The Lions won, 2-0, becoming the first City League team to capture a boys’ soccer state championship.

Trevor Hass: Concord-Carlisle senior Sarah Fortier’s winning goal in the Division 1 girls’ lacrosse state final at Babson College. It says a lot about Fortier that she trusted herself and the work she put in to deliver in that moment. If she had lost the ball or missed the shot, and Notre Dame (Hingham) raced the other way and scored, the dream would have been over in an instant. Instead, she has a truly epic story to tell.

AJ Traub: Central Catholic heavyweight wrestler Brian Waller-Reitano, who won an All-State title and reached the New England finals, explained that while everyone else is nervous to make weight, he and the other heavyweights are more relaxed at weigh-ins. “We’re all jolly, happy, fat people,” he said.

Matty Wasserman: Brody Bumila’s 51-point, 22-rebound game in the Division 1 boys’ basketball semifinals. The 6-foot-9-inch center’s physical dominance was on full display in this 89-73 postseason victory. Andover’s double teams and triple teams simply couldn’t slow down Bumila, who posted his career high in points.

Nate Weitzer: Shawsheen senior Quinn Carbone scoring seven goals with two assists to lead the Rams back from a late four-goal deficit at Newburyport in the Division 3 boys’ lacrosse quarterfinals.

AJ Traub: The bleachers were so full at the Division 1 boys’ basketball round of 16 game that Needham backed offits request that fans not sit in the first row. Bumila came to town as leader of the 14th-seeded underdog, but fans of the No. 3 Rockets would probably have filled the seats anyway.

With clutch play after clutch play, the teams went back and forth and ended up in a fourth overtime. It was worth the two hours of standing-room only. I got the feeling before the night was over that the winner of that game would win the championship. There was no buzzer-beater attempt in the last overtime. No winning shot in the final seconds. It was a Bishop Feehan team that grabbed its chance at history, building the lead until there were no comeback moments to be had.

That contest on Webster Street showed not just that Bumila is amazing at his second sport – he finished with 49 points and 22 rebounds – but just how much he has in the tank as a competitor, and how much he wanted to do it for his teammates too.

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Matty Wasserman: I made my first trip to the MSTCA Twilight Invitational at Falmouth’s Cape Cod Fairgrounds in October, and it lived up to the hype as Massachusetts’ most unique cross-country meet. The nighttime atmosphere provides a boost of electricity that the runners feed off, and the decorative lights lining the trail and a lively crowd make for a special experience.

Nate Weitzer: First time on campus for me at Tabor Academy, which has a beautiful field and campus set by Sippican Harbor. There was a giant seabird nesting in the light fixture above the lacrosse field.

AJ Traub: The first All-State wrestling tournament at the MassMutual Center in Springfield may have created conflicts for some, but the venue was worth the trek. The hockey arena made for plenty of available seating, enough mats to keep competitions moving, and a layer of separation between the competitors and the crowd. After 2025’s overcrowded field house at Methuen, the venue change was welcome.

Henry Dinh-Price: Attleboro’s gym is fantastic. I was a huge fan. They executed that project flawlessly.

AJ Traub: Middleborough’s John Keeley, a 215-pounder and prom king, was regularly seen in incredible outfits like the Dunkin’ onesie from the famous Super Bowl ad. He expressed to his coach that he wanted to set a state record — for losses. To do so, he’d have to be good enough for varsity, but not good enough to win. He failed by getting too good his senior year. He and Matt Patterson (who finished second in wins in state history) brought a lot of character to the Sachems.

Trevor Hass: Medfield’s Tess Baacke. She is simply the definition of a winner. She hustles like crazy, sets her teammates up for success, doesn’t care how many points she scores, and plays the game for the right reasons. Baacke is humble, well-spoken, fiercely competitive, kind, gritty, approachable, and genuine. She pieced together a spectacular high school career with her late mother, Tara, in mind. Bowdoin is getting a phenomenal player and an even better person.

Kat Cornetta: Lexie Masters of Bedford, third in the state gymnastics all-around with a 37.775, is just as good of a softball player as a gymnast. It is quite rare for a gymnast at her skill level to be able to balance that with a completely unrelated sport. She never got enough credit for that balancing act (pun intended.)

Matty Wasserman: Malden’s Khadijah Diagne is on pace to be the state’s premier girls’ sprinter. This spring, she was a triple winner in the 100 meters (12.19 seconds), 200 (24.59), and 400 (56.04) at the Division 2 championships and finished second in the 200 and 400 at the Meet of Champions.

Nate Weitzer: St. Sebastian’s eighth-grade lefty attack Stewart Curry, who produced 49 points (39 goals, 10 assists) in his debut varsity season.

Henry Dinh-Price: The excitement after Milton girls’ lacrosse won its first playoff game in 18 years is something I’ll always remember. The thrill from the players and coaches was evident, and the Milton community showed up in droves to support them.

Nate Weitzer: Acton-Boxborough trainer Peter Cacciola shook hands with 400-win Lincoln-Sudbury coach Brian Vona prior to a D1 semifinals matchup. An award-winning trainer, Cacciola retired after the game following 40 years with A-B and Chelmsford. Vona is rumored to be hanging up his whistle this offseason.

The final two Gatorade Athlete of the Year honors for the 2025-26 school year were unveiled last week, with Cohasset junior Nicholas Askjaer and Westford seniorAbby Hennessy taking home track and field honors.

Askjaer, a 6-foot-1-inch junior, won a New Balance nationals outdoor title in the shot put with a throw of 64 feet, 1 inch, and placed fifth in the nation in the discus. He won state titles in both events and was New England champion in the shot put.

Hennessy claimed her third Gatorade honor, to go with 2025 track and 2025 cross-country awards. The Washington-bound senior won the Division 2 two-mile and the Meet of Champions mile before finishing second at nationals in the mile.

It is the same elbow that kept him off the mound as a junior, when he had internal brace surgery

Last week we published the best high school sports photos of 2025-26, as captured by our student photojournalists across the state. If you haven’t yet, I can’t recommend strongly enough taking a few minutes to peruse these emotional, poignant, and often moving images.

Here are the best photos from the Globe’s 2025-26 high school sports photojournalism program

Trivia: How many Massachusetts baseball players have been drafted in the first round out of high school and reached the majors? Email [email protected] with the answer and we’ll shout out those who get it right in next week’s edition.

Last week we asked which schools tied for the most MIAA state championships during the 2025-26 school year? A: Walpole and Weston with four each. Weston won D2 girls’ swimming, D3 boys’ tennis, D4 girls’ indoor track, and D5 boys’ outdoor track. Walpole won D1 field hockey, D2 girls’ lacrosse, D3 boys’ outdoor track, and girls’ golf

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