Norton Girls' Varisty Soccer Recap

       The Norton High School girls’ Varsity soccer team came walking into something totally different and unexpected this past fall season. In this past 2013 soccer season, the girls had no idea what to expect considering they had a new coach, whom most had known nothing about.  Everyone seemed excited, but at the same time nervous because they wanted to beat their record last year of not even making it into the tournament. As very excited as they were to make it to tournament this past season, they were devastated when they didn't go as far as they hoped.

       Most people would say that the seniors definitely had the worst luck when it came to coaches. Mostly every single one of them had a new coach each year they played. Most of the girls started out on junior varsity and made it onto varsity as sophomores, juniors, and seniors. This meant that they had one coach on their JV team and as they worked their way up, every coach had left them. That can be very difficult to cope with because not every coach teaches or thinks the same way, so you may never really know what to expect. This did not seem to stop them in 2011, though. Moving on from that, they had hoped to make it to tournament in 2012, but they sadly ended up with a very unpleasing coach. Starting off the 2013 season seemed to be very difficult for most of the girls trying to get to know the new coach and understand his way of coaching. But, the two new captain’s senior Kaitlin Murrin and junior Kassidy Campbell kept them all together.

       Surprisingly, the team didn't start off as bad as they thought they would. They had tied their first game against their biggest rival, Medfield, 1-1. This already gave them one point towards the tournament, which requires 18 points. As they approached the halfway point, they were switching off with wins and losses and their record was 4-3-2. This meant that they only needed 8 more points to make it to tournament; they were already more than half way there. By the second half of the season, they started off with three wins against Bellingham, Medway and Medfield. Medway and Medfield are Norton's biggest rivals, so those were both huge accomplishments for them. They had not beaten these two teams for a couple of years and this got them on a winning streak. As Norton approached their away game against Millis, they were hoping to win or at least even tie to get the one more point that they needed. Unfortunately they lost, but they still had four more games to get one more point so that left them with a little bit of hope. As their next game against Holliston comes around, it ends up being the happiest moment for them yet this season. They had beaten them 2-1, with goals from Ashley Cibotti and Kaleigh Schleicher. This game by itself qualified the Norton girls’ varsity team for tournament, holding 19 points. The team could not have been any happier with themselves.

       After the team had already made it to tournament, they still tried to work their hardest to get more points so they could maybe have a home game in the tournament. Sadly, they did not win anymore, they tied two and lost one. This didn't seem all that bad because they still got two more points. This ended the team with a total of 21 points and a record of 4-2-3 for the second half of the season and 8-5-5 all together. They were very happy with themselves because they still got 3 more points than they needed and that was huge for them considering they couldn't even get 18 the season prior. As November 2nd, 2013, comes around, one of their most important days this year, the team was excited but had never been so nervous. This was the day of their first tournament game against Dover-Sherborn, another team in their league who they had already lost once and tied once to earlier in the season. As the team meets at Norton High School, gets on the bus, and rides 44 minutes to Dover-Sherborn, their hearts are beating out of their chests. As the game approaches it is a pretty even match tied at half time 0-0. Within the last 15 minutes, DS had scored which got the Norton girls pretty tense. Unfortunately, the game ended 1-0, leaving the Norton girls devastated.

       The Norton girls’ varsity 2013 soccer season seemed to have a lot of ups and downs but they all held it together pretty well. Though they had a brand new coach, it didn't seem to get in the way of anything. Starting off, the team seemed to be unsure and not very confident, but by the middle of the season I think they all started to cope with fact that they can't change anything and they just have to play their hardest. The team had a very successful season ending with a record of 8-5-5 and holding 21 points. Though they lost their first game into the tournament, they could not have been any happier with themselves, their teammates, and the coaches.

Shaun White Goes Down Hill

Shaun White Goes Down Hill

Shaun White, a US professional snowboarder and a two-time Olympic gold medalist has left many people in shock with his performance this Tuesday, February 12, 2014. This year's Winter Olympics are taking place in Sochi Russia where the Olympians are staying in very unsanitary and incomplete conditions. Aside from that, snowboarding was first included in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. White was originally supposed to compete in two snowboarding events this year, the slope-style and the half-pipe where he only ended up competing in the half-pipe. White ended up dropping out of the slope-style event the day before it was supposed to take place because it was said to be very dangerous. The slope-style is an event for free-styling where the half-pipe is a smooth surface with curved edges to perform stunts.  Everyone was expecting White to do amazing just like every other year, right? Then what was it that changed everything?

Ayumu Hirano a 15 year old from Japan was called to be Shaun's biggest threat in the half-pipe this year. Ayumu ended up winning the silver. Before White's final run, he seemed to be a little confident while holding the highest score of the day with 95.75. He ended up not doing well on Run 1 in the finals where he fell twice, once almost breaking his board in half in the finals scoring a 35.00 even. As Shaun White gets ready to perform in his second run in the half-pipe event, he is looking a little tense as he has to beat who is currently in first place, Iouri Podladtchikov. Iouri is a Russian snowboarder who was holding the top score of  94.75. As Shaun White goes up for his final run he didn't fall at all, but had a couple bobbles which could have gotten him off track a little. This caused him to end with a score of 90.25 in the finals and land in 4th place. He was hoping to win two gold medals before he dropped out of the slope-style, but this year he sadly left with zero. According to ESPN, Shaun Claims that "Tonight was just one of those nights."

In the live event on Tuesday, February 12, 2014 Shaun White obviously did not perform as well as everyone had been expecting him to. According to USA Today, Danny Davis, another US rider who placed tenth place in the half pipe event said, "I think it's great the American public and the world now knows that there are other snowboarders besides Shaun White." "Shaun's, don't get me wrong, one of the most talented, one of the best riders there are, but there are guys who are just as good if not better and today Iouri was the best rider." This was evidently true, but according to ESPN many people are still left wondering why this happened. There is really no excuse. As White said "Tonight was just one of those nights." What may also be very shocking to viewers is the fact that according to "Business Insider" Cork Gaines, Shaun White is not very well liked among other snowboarders. "Davis said it may be jealousy for some riders. But more importantly, he pointed out what has long been known about White, that he is just not part of the snowboarding social network." Also, everyone thinks that White doesn't snowboard just out of appreciation of the sport, but to win. "But White's exclusion is less about feeling superior and more about just being insanely competitive." Overall, the lesson learned is you can't always be the best in everything you do and that was clear in this year's Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

 

Will Michael Sam be accepted in the NFL?

Michael Sam has currently announced that he is gay and is the first openly gay player to enter the NFL draft.  I personally think that he will and should be accepted into the NFL because I don't think that whether you are gay or not should play any role in your position on a sports team. Due to this, I don’t think that anyone will view him any differently, in fact they might actually respect him even more for having the courage to be open about it.

The Gangster in the Huddle

There were many contributing factors that led to Aaron Hernandez's life of crime. Hernandez's family life was not the best, his mother had a major gambling problem and his father had passed away when he was only 16 years old. His mother was also cheating on Hernandez's dad with a crack head and ended up marrying him when Dennis, her ex husband, died. Hernandez Shooting his friend Lloyd was not the only criminal act that he had done. In the past, Hernandez had gotten into fights, abused the drug "angel dust", carried a Glock .45 at all times, hung out with gangsters and was a part of a gang, and most importantly he was charged/linked to the shootings of six people in four different incidents. You would think that these acts of deviance would be a red flag for anyone looking to draft him, right? Apparently not. Aaron Hernandez was originally supposed to be a top pick for the draft, but because he kept failing all of his drug tests and had a criminal history, he dropped so far down. Aside from Hernandez himself, there were other people involved that are to blame. For example, Carlos Ortiz, he was in the back seat when the shooting was happening but either way, he was a witness and there when the crime was committed so he is to blame just as well. Also, Ernest Wallace who was a co-defendant in the murder and is also being charged. I also think that the coaches are to blame because they knew what activities he was into and never did anything about it. The coaches were well aware of Hernandez being involved in illegal activity, yet still allowed him to excel. I think that the cops should have stepped in because they never filed any reports and they could have easily gotten him in a lot of trouble but never did. I think that athletes appear to be so untouchable because sports are such a big market that if a player has a bad reputation that could cause people to become uninterested and cause the sport to have a bad reputation as well.

Broncos defeat

My predictions of the 2014 Superbowl were not correct, as much as I hate saying that. My original prediction was that Denver was going to win and Seattle would have no chance. I thought that Seattle would not get any touchdowns but clearly I was wrong. I don’t watch football much at all so I just guessed that the team I wanted to win would win. Denver did not play well at all including players like Erik Decker and Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning was known for not playing well in cold weather, though I thought he would play through it, it clearly affected him. He kept throwing the ball too far and over the players’ heads making it very difficult for anyone to catch it. I think when Manny Ramirez snapped the ball over Peyton Manning’s head and caused a safety, it led them off to a bad start and affected them the rest of the game. One highlight was for Percy Harvin on the Seahawks when he returned Matt Prater's kick 87 yards for a touchdown on the opening kickoff of the second half. For the Broncos, Peyton Manning threw a 14 yard touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas, then Wes Welker got the 2-point conversion resulting in them getting only 8 points throughout the whole game. Also, Smith scooped up a fumble in the third quarter, got through the Broncos offensive players for a 69-yard interception return for a touchdown. This resulted in Seattle dominating with a score of 22-0. The final score of the game ended up being 43-8. I was let down in the outcome of the event. I did not watch the whole game, but I did watch some of the half time show when Bruno Mars performed; I was not impressed. I found him to be very boring and his music is not something that interests me. I cannot sit down and watch a whole football game because I find it boring, but the parts that I did watch were alright. My favorite commercial was definitely the Budweiser one with the puppy and the horse. I wish that the Broncos had won, but the Seahawks clearly deserved it and wanted it more.