Going up against tough Patriot League competition, the Silver Lake High boys’ basketball team continues playing competitive basketball.

At the start of the week, the Lakers were 4-8 after dropping both of their bouts last week. Even so, they continued playing tough and still have the opportunity to end the season on a strong note down the stretch against some solid competition.

The Lakers have shined on offense throughout the season. Specifically, Tyler Duggan and sophomore Nolan Hughes have been leaders in the team’s scoring effort. Only a sophomore, Hughes is only cracking into his potential now and there is plenty of reason for the Lakers to be optimistic about his rise for the team. After all, he stands tall at 6-foot-4, so that size is a major asset for the team, especially in the paint. 

There is definitely reason to believe the Lakers should play well down the stretch. They have been competitive in just about every game they have played in this season and if a couple of bounces went a couple different ways, they would be sitting at 7-5. This is because they had a tight 2-point loss to Scituate on January 23, lost to Duxbury 50-45 on January 19 and dropped a 55-50 bout to Sandwich on December 27.

Those are certainly teams the Lakers would have a great chance to beat if they have a rematch. In fact, they have a rematch on the road against Duxbury on February 15, so that one is bound to be a nail-biter.

Against Scituate last week, Hughes had three shot blocks while Matthew Bettle had one more. Tyler Duggan, Josh Gilbert and Danny Duggan all showed off their touch from outside range, sinking at least one 3-point shot each.

The Lakers next game is this Friday, Feb. 2 on the road against the Quincy Presidents  at 6:30 p.m.

The Silver Lake High girls’ basketball team is not only in the hunt for a playoff spot, but they could end up being one of the higher seeds in their respective bracket if they keep excelling like they have this season.

To start the week, the Lakers had a robust 8-3 record as one of the top teams on the South Shore. Offensively, they have continued to play well, regularly scoring more than 50 points per contest.

A major reason for that is they are an experienced team. Last season, they only had four players who had played varsity basketball prior to the season. This gave many players on the team extensive varsity experience–and they capitalized on the situation.

Now, the Lakers have six seniors listed on their roster: Alex Bachelder, Annabelle Boudreau, Sydney Kehoe, Emily Hapgood, Allie Crawford and Alyssa Nelson.

Crawford has been strong on both sides of the ball for the Lakers thus far and offensively, Kehoe, Nelson, Boudreau and sophomore Holly Reeder-Morning are a few of the many players who have shown prowess for the Lakers so far this season.

The Lakers have also played tough defense this season.

An example of this would be their 43-34 win over the Duxbury Dragons on Friday, Jan. 19.

So far, the Lakers have been just about as good at home (4-1) as they have been on the road (4-2). They have also done a nice job handling their tough Patriot League schedule (5-3 in league play) which features the likes of Duxbury, Whitman-Hanson, Quincy and Hingham, among others.

Some early momentum may be a part of the season why the Lakers have enjoyed this early success. Three of their first four games were non-league matchups and they won all of those three games.

The Lakers next game is this Friday, Jan. 26, at 6:30 p.m. when they will face the Whitman-Hanson Panthers on the road.

For most of the game, the Silver Lake high boys’ hockey team hung right in there.

Ultimately, however, their opponent surged late in the game and the Lakers (3-4-1) fell to the Whitman-Hanson Panthers (5-3-1) by a 3-1 score at Hobomock Ice Arena on Wednesday, January 10.

The Panthers had an early edge in the first period, spending most of their time on offense. They outshot the Lakers 6-4 in that span but were unable to score a goal as Alden Maguire played well in net. Defenseman Nick Iarossi had a great shot block with five seconds left in the period, preventing what could have been a goal.

In the second period, the Lakers would come out strong offensively. Defenseman Gregory Wolff netted the first goal of the game to put the Lakers up 1-0 less than two minutes into the period. He found the top right shelf and took his shot from around the blue line. Defenseman Liam Kelleher had the assist on the goal.

The Panthers were able to get some offensive momentum going as the game wore on. They tied the game up at one apiece with 6:17 left in the second period with a hard slapshot from inside the left faceoff circle. In the third period, they were able to put the game away.

The Lakers got outshot 10-3 in the third period and the Panthers took advantage of that. They scored goals with 5:49 remaining and 3:33 remaining to put the game away.

In the final couple minutes of the game, the Lakers were down a man because of penalties, so they faced long odds of making a comeback.

David Marani, Alexander Heffernan and Bobby Guilford comprised the Lakers first line of forwards in the game; John Evans and Nicholas Iarossi were their first defensive pairing.

The Lakers next game is this Saturday, Jan. 20 at Hobomock Ice Arena against Hanover (3:10 p.m. start time).

Since she was a star athlete in New England, it makes sense that Halifax native Chelsea Shaughnessy would be working in sports now that her playing days are over.

This is the case with Shaughnessy, a Halifax native who graduated from Silver Lake in 2008. This past fall, she wrapped up her third season as the women’s soccer coach at Mitchell College, a Division 3 program in New London, CT. 

The Mitchell College Mariners went 2-10-1 this past fall in what was more of a rebuilding season. The team only had three seniors on its roster, an indication that they are working their way back up. After all, Shaughnessy has already enjoyed some success in her tenure coaching the team.

In her first season as the Mariners head coach, Shaughnessy helped the team to a New England Collegiate Conference Championship appearance. A season later, her Mariners also made an appearance in the conference tournament.

After graduating college in 2012 with a degree in sports management, Shaughnessy gained coaching experience as an assistant at Johnson and Wales University for three seasons.

During her own athletics career, Shaughnessy was a standout. Not only did she excel as a multi-sport athlete at Silver Lake, playing soccer, basketball and softball, but she also achieved that ultra-rare feat at the next level during her tenure at Nichols College. The big difference in college, however, is that she picked up lacrosse as her spring sport.

During her Lakers career, Shaughnessy was recognized as an All-Scholastic athlete by the Brockton Enterprise and was named a Patriot League All-Star in multiple sports. In college, she was a three-time all-conference player in soccer. In lacrosse, she scored 55 goals in three seasons and in basketball she Nichols’ single-season record for steals (115) during the 2011-2012 season.

Since she was a standout athlete on multiple playing surfaces during her playing career, it should come as no surprise that she also serves as an assistant coach for Mitchell College’s women’s lacrosse team. Plus, she also coached basketball and lacrosse during her tenure at JWU. That said, Shaughnessy has used her success as an athlete to help others to also be the best player they are capable of being.

Two words that come to mind when describing the Silver Lake/Pembroke High gymnastics co-op are young and talented.

The co-op is coming off a 6-2 season in which they captured a Patriot League title and despite that success, the team also had plenty of talent coming back and more incoming talent, adding to what was already a successful program.

On Tuesday, Dec. 19, the co-op was not even at full strength but showed what it is capable of achieving. They competed in a quad meet against Whitman-Hanson, Marshfield and Hingham at the Massachusetts Gymnastics center in Pembroke. Scoring 123.3, the co-op finished second among the four teams and finished the day at 2-1 despite not fielding their entire lineup.

“I think we did really well overall for our second meet,” Silver Lake/Pembroke head coach Cristy Schimmel said. “It was much-improved from our first meet even though we had a few girls out.”

The co-op’s top performances came in the vault and floor exercises. Tori Newton (8.8 vault), Calliste Brookshire (8.6 vault), Ciara Dalrymple (8.1 vault), Sara d’Entremont (8.0 floor) and Maize Condon (8.1 floor) were among the team’s top performers.

One of the team’s top athletes, junior Morgan Hackett, was out with a thumb injury while one of the team’s talented underclassmen, Katie Kemp, got off to a late start to the season, so she was not eligible to compete just yet.

Another major asset the team has this season is a great deal of depth.

“We have some level eights, nines and tens which is great, Schimmel said. “A lot of them practice year-round here in Pembroke too which helps a lot.”

The co-op’s next meet is next Friday, Jan. 5, against Cohasset at the Mass Gymnastics C.

The Silver Lake High boys’ basketball team played a highly competitive bout against one of the top teams on the South Shore, but the first few minutes of the contest made all of the difference.

The Lakers fell to Whitman-Hanson on the road last Friday night, 70-58, after falling behind by double digits in the first five minutes of the game.

In the first quarter, the Lakers fell behind as the Panthers were sharp from field goal range. The Panthers scored 14 of the game’s first 15 points. The Lakers only score in that span was a free throw from junior Josh Gilbert. After that, however, the Lakers offense woke up and was highly competitive for the rest of the first half. Still, at the end of it, they trailed 39-22.

The Lakers got off to a strong start in the second half. Tyler Duggan sank a 3-pointer and Cam Danahy turned on a pair of free throws, putting the Lakers on a 5-0 run. After that, both sides were even in the third quarter, so the Lakers trailed 57-42 at the end of it.

Whitman-Hanson hit the first point of the fourth quarter and because they led by 17 with about seven and a half minutes left in the game, the Lakers did not have time to make a comeback.

Duggan scored a team-high 14 points for the Lakers while Josh Harvey finished second with ten points.

The Lakers showed that depth is one of their assets this season with nine different players scoring points in the contest.

With the loss, the Lakers fell to 0-2 on the season. Their next game is Wednesday, Dec. 27 against the Sandwich Blue Knights at home (7 p.m. start time). It will be the Lakers first non-Patriot League game of the season since Sandwich competes in the Atlantic Coast League.

What the Silver Lake High football team has been able to achieve over these past few seasons is certainly impressive.

This past season helped the Lakers stay on the right track as they made only their fourth playoff appearance since 1980. The part about that which stands out most, however, is that they have made it to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons now.

Plus, they won a playoff game in each of those seasons and most teams across the state cannot say the same.

The Lakers finished the year at 6-5 despite not getting the result they wanted on Thanksgiving, falling to Pembroke.

The Lakers had a strong senior class this year which will be hard to replace. They will lose both their offensive and defensive MVPs to graduation, running back Phil Lashley and middle linebacker Matt Powell. Each of them were Patriot League All-Stars twice.

On top of this, their offensive line is going to look a lot different. In addition to Powell, Gavin Hamilton, Frank Perfetuo, Reed Grenon and Nate Thacker were all seniors this year, so there will be much turnover there.

Under center, the Lakers will have their third quarterback in three years next year. This was Tanner Boyd’s first and final season under center.

The Lakers had three quarterbacks listed on their roster this year with the other two being Jake Waters, a junior, and Jesse Miller, a sophomore. Waters proved himself as a valuable asset defensively this year, recording multiple interceptions while Miller competed for the starting job with Boyd during the preseason, so the Lakers have at least two options there.

Regardless of who is under center for the Lakers, they will have Diamani Williams and Bobby Ohlson back to throw to, the team’s wide receivers from this past season.

Defensively, the team will also be without four-year letterman Liam Kelleher, who recorded over 50 tackles this past season.

The Lakers have about nine months off before their preseason starts next August.

One Halifax native has taken a leadership position in college athletics to go along with her spot on the Mass Maritime Buccaneers softball team.

Mass Maritime Academy junior Emily Goodwin, a Halifax native and class of 2015 Silver Lake Regional High School grad, was named to the NCAA Division III National Student-Athlete Advisory Committee as the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference’s representative, earlier this month.

The announcement was made by MASCAC (Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference) Commissioner Angela Baumann.
Goodwin’s three-year term with the position started as soon as she was appointed to it. She will be among a group of student-athletes throughout the region on a committee discussing the issues impacting college athletics and how the student-athlete experience can be improved..

This position is a major accomplishment for Goodwin not only because she was selected of all the athletes at Mass Maritime, but because she is just the second athlete from the school in the last eight years to be appointed to this post.

Over the past two seasons, Goodwin has been a valuable piece of Mass Maritime’s lineup. In 49 games, she has hit .274, knocked in 24 runs and a owned a .745 OPS in that span.

This past season, she made 21 starts at first base for her team and the Buccaneers had their best finish in the past decade at 7-17. Playing first base required some versatility on Goodwin’s part since it was not her natural position. Her freshman year, she played shortstop at school.

The Buccaneers softball season starts back up on March 15, 2018 with a road doubleheader against the Wentworth Institute of Technology (3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. start times), weather permitting because college softball and baseball games in March are often postponed if there is still snow on the ground or if it is raining.

The Silver Lake Youth Football Midgets ended their season last week with the best outcome imaginable.

The Silver Lake Warriors had an excellent game against the Rockland Bulldogs in the Division 3 Old Colony Youth Football League Super Bowl, winning it by a score of 20-14. Not only did the Warriors win the Super Bowl, but they handed Rockland their first loss of the season in an all-around team effort.

The game was quite physical from the start. Rockland used this to their favor early on as they were able to take a 6-0 lead in the ballgame. Silver Lake was able to respond with two touchdowns of their own, however, to take a 12-6 lead. They held this lead for a bit, but the Bulldogs responded with a touchdown and a 2-point conversion to take a 14-12 lead.

In the third quarter, the Warriors, still trailing, found themselves on fourth down in Bulldogs territory. They gave the ball to running back Austin Smith, and he brought in the go-ahead touchdown from 35 yards out. A successful conversion gave the Warriors a 20-14 lead.

Silver Lake had a strong drive in the fourth quarter that could have put the game away, but they were stopped on fourth down with a few minutes remaining. This gave Rockland a chance to make a comeback. However, Rockland was unable to do so because their completed pass on the final play of the game just was not long enough. With the play clock at zero, the Warriors were officially champions after this.

The Warriors championship team was coached by Brian Kennedy. He was also joined by many assistant coaches including: Ed Carroll, Steve Peterson, Ed Scigliano, Doug Gilmore, Eric Johnson and Josh Straughn.

The win is certainly a positive sign for the future of Silver Lake High football since players from this team will be contributing there in just a few years.