Boston City TV, MA Boston Neighborhood Sports, 8 Sep 2014

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: Boston Neighborhood Sports - 9/8/14

Description

This week in Boston Neighborhood Sports, we bring you highlights of the Brookline vs. Boston Latin football game, along with a story about a newly created division in the Savin Hill Little League. For full coverage of the Brookline vs. Boston Latin football game, please visit: http://www.cityofboston.gov/cable/video_library.asp?id=8701

A

The first day of school was last week, which means this past weekend was week, one of the high school football season. On friday night, three boston public school teams were in action, including the boston, latin wolf pack who hosted the brookline warriors at white stadium. Let's head straight to white stadium for the highlights there, you see latin wolf, packing coach, john mcdonough latin, had it going early on. Thanks to this young fella justin springel, tough run up. The gut gets the wolf pack to the 14 yard line. Latins quarterback andreas kaplan knocked it in there.

A

They were up 6-0 second quarter now again: latin driving, but sprinkle fumbles, the football this time around brookline recovers at their own 42., brook lyon. Now, with the ball quarterback dan gittleman-egan, looking at the sideline and tyler patterson with a great catch. Let's take a second look at it: unbelievable catch by the young tight end there for the brookline warriors very next play. It's gildedegan the quarterback keeper great run for gilman eagan.

A

Here he takes it down to the 24-yard line, setting up the warriors deep in wolfpack territory, then, just before halftime it's bruce falk, getting the carry over the right side. He finds pay dirt warriors. Would then tack on the point after and they would go up seven to six at the break fast forward to the fourth quarter. Now justin springel, again running with force this time for a 28-yard touchdown run, he puts latin up 12-7, but brookline intercepted the two-point conversion and got two points out of it.

A

So they're down 12-9 next brookline possession gittleman egan hook it up with patterson again this time for a 32-yard game, then brookline at the 24th jeffrey sands, finding the edge right there for the warriors. He gives them a touchdown and the lead 16-12 their midway through the fourth quarter and later on in the fourth brook line at the 19 gittleman eagan, one more time, hooking up with patterson this time for a touchdown as brookline goes on to win 23-20 what a game at white stadium to start off the season.

A

Let's get to the rest of the scores from the weekend latin academy, with a very impressive win over east boston, 30-0, ian coakley, 30 52, rushing yards and a touchdown, then on saturday, new mission edges out chelsea 14-6, stephen thomas, with a big 53-yard touchdown run to put new mission ahead.

A

So both latin academy and new missions start the season on a positive note. Next week, every boston public high school football team will be in action on friday and saturday now, even though we're fully entrenched into the football season. Let's take a look back to the spring and summer when, in dorchester a new little league baseball division was created to help kids do more than just swing a bat.

A

For over four decades, the saving hill little league has been home to hundreds of dorchester baseball players with dreams of making the major leagues.

A

But in the spring of 2014, another group of dorchester ball players had their baseball dreams realized when the saving hill little league formed a challenger division.

B

The challenger division is an opportunity for kids of all abilities with cognitive and or physical disabilities to play the great game of baseball. It's.

C

Really, based upon the the belief that every kid should be able to play baseball and every child should be able to participate on a team while not.

A

The first of its kind in the u.s, the seven hill challenger division, is the first to hit the little league diamonds of boston. The league is up and running thanks to project deep and project bind founder, brennan mcdonough.

C

It really started with with my daughter sophia, who is eight years old, has down syndrome and has been watching her. Three older, siblings play baseball for the last. You know eight to ten years and this year she came home and said I want to play baseball and her brothers actually then kind of looked at me and we were all sitting around the house and said why don't we start a challengers? You know division.

A

And with organizations like the henderson inclusion, school and project deep already in place, the neighborhood of dorchester was the perfect spot for the mcdonough family's idea to take shape.

C

Fortunately, in dorchester we have the infrastructure, that's that's there to build a successful program. We have project buying the boston inclusion network with disabilities out of the boys and girls clubs, which would help source children who would be able to be in the challenges division. We have the henderson inclusion elementary school, which is also a partner of ours and obviously that's just a tremendous resource for identifying potential players for the challengers division. We're.

D

Always looking for ways to extend the school into the community and brandon mcdonough approached me and asked if we might be interested in having some of our students participate in one day, we had tons of kids who really wanted to do it. Our.

C

Last partnership was project deep, the dorchester educational enrichment program, where we were able to tap into middle school and high school kids, who would be buddies and help out. So when you take all of those different collaborations and you put them together, you can then form a league, but perhaps.

A

The most fitting partnership for the challenger division is with the richard family, whose charitable foundation in honor of their son martin provides the funding for the new league.

B

My wife and I started the martin ritchie charitable foundation, whose mission is to support martin's message of no more hurting people. Peace through education, athletics and community and brendan had the idea to create a challengers division, the first of its kind in boston and when he brought the idea to to us, we it was. It was a natural fit.

C

Janie participates in the in the program. uh Bill is pitching. um You know, denise has, I think, has spent the morning taking uh pictures. They wrote a very big check which is going to make this it's a free program. um It's going to make us enable us to kind of take it to the next level they're also there, and when you put that together, you get a true partnership. Martin played.

B

Baseball here, henry my other son played baseball and jane, has certainly played baseball and she's part of the challenges league this year, so it was a natural fit. It was in our community. We just felt that we had we couldn't let this opportunity pass by how.

A

The challenger division works is pretty simple: each player gets one at bat during each inning, with each game lasting two innings or as long as the challenger players want before every game. Each challenger player is assigned a buddy who, if needed, can help them at bat or in the field.

C

The buddies then get paired up with one of the challenger players and they meet them at the field. They warm up with them. They, you know, help them when they're at bat, they guide them around the bases and then when they go out onto the field, they kind of shadow them usually.

E

When they're up at bat you'd, let them uh you know, swing by themselves, but if they are having a hot like a little bit of a struggle I'll I'll go up and help them his.

F

Buddy's actually been great, his buddy's great when we leave that's. What he's talking about is his buddy. This is something he's doing out of school he's having fun with him. He's got somebody else with him. That's doing it with him. His buddy's been great with him. His body's been really good.

G

All of the buddies are pretty nice and I did steal a few bases today and so learned the sign for steel and what what apparently wasn't the sign for steel had such a great time this year. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

A

With most of the buddies being little leaguers themselves, the ins and outs of baseball are often discussed on the field, but while the challenger players learn how to connect for a single or feel the grounder, the interaction they have with their buddy often runs deeper than just balls and strikes.

D

The first week we paired up buddies with with challenger players. They were very afraid they were afraid of the unknown all the way to this week when they're talking to each other laughing and joking, and they really have become friends. The.

C

Whole time they're talking with them, they're talking scenarios with them, they're or maybe they're, just talking about dinosaurs or maybe they're talking about what's going on that day, it's just you know it's truly a buddy, even though.

A

This little league division was first aimed at serving the challenger players. It's really been the buddies who have gotten the most out of this experience.

D

It's been so beneficial for the buddies to just accept kids with disabilities, just as other kids and not look at the disability first, but look at the kids first.

C

I think for the buddies, it's kind of showed them that hey, while this individual may have different challenges or different issues that they're working with they're. Just like everybody else, it's.

E

Really good, you know bringing me back to when I was young and getting into the game of baseball and then also like a huge sense of teamwork. While.

A

The saving hill little league challenger division has accomplished many goals in its first year of existence. The league's mission of providing every child the opportunity to play baseball is far from complete, with such phenomenal support from the martin richard charitable foundation and the dorchester community.

A

The founders of this uniquely beneficial program believe there's plenty of room for league expansion.

B

Once word gets out, we expect the league to certainly double or triple in size, so we've got some planning to do for next season. You.

C

Got to grow it according to the support system, but we have the commitment from saving hill little league and and all the other organizations to you know keep pushing forward. So you know I I'd like to double next year uh and and kind of just take it from there. Take it a year at a.

A

Time you can't help but smile after watching that, as brenda mcdonough said, the saving hill little league hopes to create two separate challenger divisions next season to have both a teen division along with a 12 and under division. That's going to do it for sports this week be sure to come right back here next week for more on boston, neighborhood sports.