It's Monday, and you know what that means. It's time for the Sports Buzz, the fastest three minutes in Brookline sports coming your way right now:
Well, as the Brookline High boys cross country team headed into last week's tri-meet with Framingham and Natick, the Warriors were still relishing in their huge success at the Amherst Inivitational. The boys team won both the varsity and junior varsity races and combined with the girls' varsity win, Brookliine won the coveted Crowley Cup for the team with the lowest combined boys and girls varsity score. The cup is named after longtime Amherst Regional High coach Randy Crowley, who was a good friend of the father of Brookline head coach Mike Glennon.
"Our families spent lots of time together when we were kids," Coach Glennon said. "This was the first time we won the cup, and it was a big deal to me."
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Making it even more so was the way in which the Brookline varsity team won its race. It was dramatic, to say the least, with senior standout Chernet Sisay overtaking Marshfield's Kevin Thomas over the last half mile of the 5K course. Sisay won the race in a time of 15:41, with Thomas finishing eight seconds back.
"We got off to a great start and had our pack up front early in the race with our top five runners in the top 15 just past the mile mark," Glennon said. "Through the middle part of the race, which runs on trails through a farm, [Thomas] led with Sisay on his shoulder."
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There were several key contributors along the way. Fellow senior Mark Perry was close behind in the top 10 and closing fast on the top group. Junior Aaron Klein, who started fast, was holding on just around the top 10, with fellow junior Jesse Fajnzylber striding a short distance back from him. Senior Tharindu Weersinghe was trailing in the mid 20's having fallen back a bit from the fast early pace. But, as the last Brookline scorer, it was crucial for him to hang on with abut 3/4 of a mile left in the race.
Perry caught everyone but the Bennie brothers of Wachusetts to finish in 16:00. Klein ran a superb race finishing 11th in 16:32, while Fajnzylber, who won the Brookline Athlete of the Meet award finished 17th in 16:49. Weersinghe capped the Brookline scoring in 36th place, in 17:25.
Brookline scored 70 points to defeat Amherst and Oliver ames by 78 points, as the latter two finished with scores of 148.
"That difference proved enough to win the Crowley Cup with 302 combined points [with the Brookline girls team] to Oliver Ames with 330 and Amherst with 332," Glennon said. "It was a good start to over Invitational season with a full varsity lineup."
Meanwhile, the Brookline boys freshmen team fared well, with Ethan Goroff finishing first for the Warriors and ninth overall as Brookline closed in sixth place as a team.
The Brookline boys junior varsity squad dominated with senior Max Shore edging sophomore teammate Alex Peebles-Cabin for the win in 18:00. The Warriors' top duo were followed by teammates, sophomore Jake Simon (4th, 18:20); senior Hikari Mamata (6th, 18:41); and sophomore James Brown (12th, 18:53).
Through a combination of injuries and carelessness with the ball, the Brookline football team has started the season a disappointing 0-3.
To the gridiron we go, and after an opening day 21-7 defeat to Natick that was filled with promise, the Brookline football team has been plagued by turnovers on the road at Braintree and Walpole. Two weeks ago, Brookline turned the ball over six times in a 27-7 loss to Braintree and the trend continued against 3-0 Walpole as it lost the ball three times in a 29-0 defeat.
Some of Brookline’s troubles on offense are due to not having the player who they built their offense around, Nick Scott, who was unavailable the past two weeks because of a high ankle sprain. Without Scott and his brother Leon, who left the game at Walpole in the first quarter with an injured rib, the Warrior offense became stagnant and Walpole took advantage.
“We’re really close, a handful of plays here and there make all the difference in the world,” Brookline head coach Kevin Mahoney said. “But Walpole is one of the best, if not the best, team in the league.”
Despite allowing 29 points, Mahoney was pleased with his defense’s performance against Walpole.
“I thought the defense played well. It was a 10-0 game at halftime and we had two sacks on them,” Mahoney said. “[Shane Blass] had runs of 64 and 45 yards to start the second half that set the tone for the rest of the game, but otherwise I thought we did a good job preventing them from beating us over the top.”
Blass burned the Warrior defense for 226 yards and scored all three of his touchdowns in the third quarter to help seal the game for the Rebels.
Continuing a brutal early schedule, Brookline was slated to host Norwood this past weekend and face one of the biggest dual-threat quarterbacks in the league in Tommy Munro. Munro helped Norwood top Natick on Sept. 17 for the first time since 2005 with118 yards on the ground and two touchdowns and covering him was to be a point of interest for Brookline on Saturday.
“He’s one of the best quarterbacks in the league – he can run and has great touch on the ball,” Mahoney said. “We’re going to keep an eye on him.”
Pat Ouellette contributed to this report.
