Although only finishing with a regular season record of 3-2 and a sixth-place finish in the county championships, the bocce team was far from unsuccessful. The team was led by sophomore team captain Nic Lipari and coach Steven McMahon. 

The team’s coach, McMahon, teaches his athletes the basics: how to roll the ball, how to pick out targets and overall team strategy.  Since only one player had indoor bocce experience prior to the season, he knew the team had a lot of work to be done. 

For those who don’t know how the sport works, teams take turns rolling a ball toward a target ball in the middle. The closer your balls land, the more points your team gets. “You roll out a pallina or a target ball and then each team has four opportunities to get their ball closest to it, only one team scores per round from one to four points depending on how many of their balls are closer,” McMahon said when describing the sport. 

After an underwhelming regular season performance finishing with a record of 3-2, the bocce team ended up winning the divisional tournament, while simultaneously beating the two teams they lost to during the season, securing themselves a spot in the county championship competition. 

However, they ended up falling short of winning the county championship, finishing in sixth place. But after starting the season off with only one person who had experience in the sport, McMahon is more than happy with his team’s performance.  “I was very happy with the progress that we made. They improved tremendously from the beginning of the season and continued to progress each and every week culminating with a sixth-place finish in the county tournament,” McMahon said.

Sophomore Ethan Waller is also proud of the team’s hard work and performance. “We won a division tournament and I’m proud of it because we worked hard to get there and won, which means our hard work paid off,” Waller said.

Their disappointing championship finish isn’t the end of the road for the team, as they will be back even stronger next season with the same team members to compete again.“I’m looking forward to playing more matches and meeting new people,” Waller said. 

The coach agrees. “I look forward to having most if not all of the team return, which will be exciting to have so many players with experience,” McMahon said. “The eventual county champion is a team that we beat at the divisional tournament so clearly we have the ability, we just need to be able to be more consistent and that comes with experience.”