After an extremely successful fall sports season, during which all of our varsity teams played in post-season, the winter should be exciting! Many seniors graduated from the teams, but our winter athletes are training hard to prepare for their seasons. Practices have begun and spirits are high!

Boys Varsity Basketball

Boys’ Varsity basketball graduated a huge portion of the team last year: Corey Mortimer, Nick Sulda, Anthony Afflitto, Teddy Smiarowski, Nick Fitzgerald, and Kenny Banas. With so much talent gone from the 14-8 team, the underclassmen have big spots to fill. Mat Sulda returns as the leading scorer, as an average of 17.9 points and a total of 624 career points. Coach Zerneri, as usual, expects great things from the team. Returning players Mat Sulda, Seaver Rickert, Keith Natale, Michael Molloy, David Longstreeth, and Derek McMahon are stepping it up this year in hopes of post-season play. Optimistic junior Seaver Rickert adds “We don’t lose; not now, not never!”  The boys all agree that with hard work and determination success is in the future for this team.  

Girls Varsity Basketball

After graduating two key members of their team, Sarah Wickles and Allison Slysz, girl’s varsity basketball has big shoes to fill this year. Seniors Alyssa Klepacki and Amanda Hebert hope to lead the team to great success, possibly improving their record from last year of 10-10, and simply put it, “We are pumped!” Important underclassmen Danielle Duseau, Emiko Barker, and Katie Yagodzinski will need to step up as potential starters. Coach Wilcox has very high expectations for this team and the first practice was a clear reflection of his hopes.  

Varsity Cheerleading

Cheerleading begins their season with a good sized group of 16. Seniors Sierra McDonald and Alyssa Woodward will lead the team, consisting mainly of sophomores. Lauren Bradford says “It’ll be a good season since we all have experience and hopefully new cheers. GO SA!”Coach Jen Charrete and new assistant coach, Keri Guyette, are excited for the season. Mr. Duncan’s son Gavin is especially amped to visit the basketball games specifically to see the cheerleader’s amazing skills! Smith staff and fans agree that the program is building to be a great representative group of our school. The squad is proud to lead their school with spirit through new cheers and tricks!

Ice Hockey

Members of Smith Academy: Daniel Pereira, Cameron Woodward, Barrett Rogaleski, and Brandon Pashek, are all able to play high school level ice hockey thanks to a co-op program with Greenfield High School. All four students played with the program last year and were very successful with a record of 5-12-2. Daniel Pereira returns for his senior year as a key defender for the team. Cameron Woodward, also a defender, is returning for his sophomore year as an important member of the team. Goalie Barrett Rogaleski obviously has a major role on the team, something he was very successful with the previous year. And Brandon Pashek returns for his junior year as a speedy forward player important for the team’s offensive success.  Coach Duclos has very high expectations for the team. The players have been playing in the off-season in preparation for the season very quickly approaching. “It should be an interesting season” says senior Daniel Pereira. All of the players agreed that the intensity of the first practice set the tone for a season of hard-work and success.