RHS Sports Roundup: Saving the Best for Last:

RHS Boys Track Wins GBL Title on Last Lap of Last Race

The Revere High boys indoor track and field team completed an undefeated dual-meet season and captured the 2022 Greater Boston League championship in the most-dramatic way imaginable with a victory in the 4 x 400 meter relay — the last race of the day — thanks to a surge in the final lap by the Patriot anchor runner, JV Cunha, giving Revere a 46-40 victory over Somerville.

“This was definitely one for the ages,” said RHS head coach Sam Ros.

The Revere-Somerville matchup was part of a tri-meet at the Merullo Fieldhouse that included the Lynn Classical Rams. However, it was the match-up of the Patriots vs. the Highlanders that was the focus of attention of the teams, their coaches, and the fans.

“The Lynn Classical meet went as expected,” noted Ros of Revere’s win 68-16 win over the Rams. “The Somerville meet was an exciting and close affair right from the start.”

The Patriots were without the services of their ace hurdler, Ricardo Goncalves, who may be the best in the GBL, who is sidelined with a hamstring injury.

“We knew we were in a hole with Ricardo still out,” noted Ros. “Our second hurdler, Javan Close, is new to the team and to the event this year and has slowly been progressing. With his improvement I felt we could still win the hurdles,” said Ros.

“But just first or second place wasn’t enough,” Ros added. “We had to try to grab at least a third place. I gambled and moved Allen Hou, our second-best 50-yard sprinter, to the hurdles because he showed promise earlier in the season during hurdle practices, the gamble being I was trading Allen’s potential third place in the 50 yard dash for a potential second place in the hurdles — one point for three points.

“Things were on our side with Javan and Allen coming through to  finish first and second to put us up early, 8-1,” said Ros.

“In the 50 yard dash, I knew Mark Marchese would have his hands full against Somerville’s Jose Cumarin,” Ros continued. “Jose is the best 50 sprinter in the league. Mark would have to have a perfect start to beat Jose. Mark did have an amazing start, but came up 0.01 seconds short of Jose.”

Ros’s gamble with moving Hou to the hurdles paid off, however.

“If Allen had run the 50 dash instead, he may have grabbed third, but Somerville would have grabbed second and third in the hurdles. After two events it would have been a 9-9 tie, but because of the gamble, we had a slight advantage, 11-7, after the first two events.”

Somerville took the lead after the third event, the mile. Revere’s Kenan Batic took third place with.a time of 5:27.5.

The Highlanders maintained the lead through the fourth event, the 300 meters, despite a valiant effort by Patriot Keny Guerrero.

“In that 300 meters, Keny was racing the fastest 300 meter runner in the league, Andrew DaCosta (who is also the defending 400 meter champion from last spring season),” said Ros. “Andrew took the early lead, but Keny chased him down and fell shy of the win right at the finish line. The rematch between these two will be exciting next week at the GBL Championship Meet at the Reggie.” Mario Ramirez took third for Revere in the 300 to keep the score close at 20-16 in favor of Somerville.

However, Revere rebounded to take the lead in the shot-put, led by Mo Hussein, who took first-place with a personal record (PR) toss of 37’-3/4”, breaking 37 feet for the first time.

“Mo has worked hard and continued to improve all season,” said Ros. “That throw puts him in the top five in the league.”

With Hussein winning the shot put and Elmadhi Elkamazebi taking second, Revere went back on top, 24-21.

However, the Revere advantage did not last for long after the next event, the 600 meters.

Revere senior captain Victor Pelatere put up a good fight with a time of 1:37.5 and had the lead for most of the race, but unfortunately got outkicked at the line by Somerville’s runner.

The same thing happened in the battle for third place. Patriot Tommy Desir got outkicked right at the line by Somerville’s second runner.

That left matters deadlocked 27-27. The next few events went back and forth with lead changes.

“In the 1000 meters, I went over a strategy with JV Cunha that we hoped would work,” said Ros. “Somerville’s runner had the best time in this event this season that was a couple of seconds faster than JV’s best time.

“I knew that when JV runs behind someone, he usually has one really strong and definitive move to take the lead of most races. Our strategy was to have JV wait until the second-to-last straightaway to make his move,” said Ros. “The Somerville runner took and held the lead the entire race until this point. JV made his move. The Somerville runner fought back, but was unable to completely hold JV off and JV took the win.”

However, Somerville took second and third, leaving the score at  32-31 in favor of Revere.

Somerville then forged ahead with a 1-3 finish in the two-mile run.

“In that race, we needed something special out of Mohamed Ouakani,” said Ros. “Going into it, we knew Mohamed didn’t have a shot at first place, but he had to fight for second to help ensure us of possibly getting to the relay. On paper, Somerville’s second runner had a better time than Mohamed by 20 seconds.

“Throughout the first mile, Mohamed was in a battle with Somerville’s second and third runners,” Ros continued. “Everytime Mohamed tried to get by, they would counter him. Finally, with less than a mile to go, Mohamed made one big move and never looked back. He burned the legs out of Somerville’s runner and secured a second place finish for us with a time of 12:04, more than 30 seconds faster than the third-place Somerville runner.”

With one individual event left, the high jump, Revere needed at least a second and third place finish in order to have a chance at a victory with the relay.

“Tommy Desir, as he has all season, was consistent and took the win with a leap of 5’4”,” said Ros. “Javan was just edged out, based on misses, and took third place with a jump of 5’-2”, giving us six needed points and the slight advantage of 41-40 going into the relay.”

So that brought it all — the outcome of the meet, an undefeated season, and a league title — down to the final event, the winner-take-all, 4 x 400 relay.

Guerrero led off, with Pelatere running the second leg, Mario Ramirez the third, and Cunha at anchor. Somerville had their four best runners with Andrew DaCosta anchoring.

“Keny gave us the early lead, which Victor and Mario held onto in their respective legs,” said Ros. “The excitement happened as expected on the anchor legs. JV took the baton with about a foot lead, but Andrew came roaring out and took the lead before the first lap finished.

“JV settled in behind Andrew over the next lap and used the same strategy we used earlier in the 1000 meters,” Ros continued. “Going into the penultimate turn, JV made his patented big move and retook the lead from DaCosta. Andrew tried to counter, but just didn’t have enough as JV won by over a second, securing us the championship.”

The fieldhouse erupted with the RHS runners and fans swarming JV just beyond the finish line.

“I didn’t celebrate right away because you never know which way the officials will lean towards this type of behavior before the meet is officially over,” Ros noted. “So I waited to see that the officials were not going to flag us for unsportsmanlike conduct before I joined in on the celebration myself.”

Ros and his crew now will compete this Friday in the GBL Championship Meet at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center in Roxbury. In addition, a handful of Patriots will move onto the MSTCA Rising Championships as well as D-1 States.

Cunha has qualified for Nationals in the Emerging Elite Division, so his season won’t end until mid-March.

RHS Boys Basketball have a Garden Party, Defeat Hamilton-Wenham

The Revere High boys basketball got a chance to live the dream of every hoop player when they took to the hallowed parquet floor of the Boston Celtics at the TD Garden to meet Hamilton-Wenham in the Andrew Lawson Invitational Basketball Tournament this past Saturday evening.

The charity event, postponed from January 16th to the 30th because of the COVID spike and moved again to February 5th because of the snow storm, was a long time coming for Revere and the Hamilton-Wenham Generals, as they had committed to play in the tourney last season.

The connection between the two schools is a special one, as Revere head coach David Leary and H-W head coach Michael DiMarino are childhood friends, classmates, and teammates who graduated together from Dom Savio in 1997. DiMarino also has been a teacher in the Revere school system for more than 15 years.

The game itself was sloppy at times, but intense right from the start. Revere jumped out to a fast 9-0 lead behind the hot shooting of junior guard Domenic Boudreau (20 points, six rebounds) as he made a tough contested layup, a deep three-pointer, and two free throws.

Revere also got baskets from senior center Hamza Ghoul and junior guard Alejandro Hincapie. Hamilton-Wenham began to settle down once they made their first basket and finished the first quarter on a 13-0 run to make the score 13-11 in favor of the Generals at the end of the frame.

The second quarter was where most of the sloppy play occurred as H-W went into a matchup zone defense that gave Revere trouble. The Patriots picked up their aggressiveness in its man-to-man defense and both teams struggled to score. Senior tri-captain Jack D’Ambrosio (seven points, six rebounds, four assists) made a fast break layup and Boudreau knocked down two more mid-range jump shots, but that was it for the quarter.

Luckily for Revere, their defense held up, limiting the Generals to seven points in the period, leaving the Patriots with a 20-17 advantage at halftime.

However, Revere began to find themselves offensively after the intermission.

Senior tri-captain James Clauto (six points) made a high-flying, fast-break layup and sank all four of his free throws in the third quarter. D’Ambrosio and Boudreau scored four and five points respectively and the Revere defense was able to hold H-W to just eight points over the eight-minutes, giving Revere a little breathing room at 32-28 heading into the last quarter.

Hamilton-Wenham, a much-bigger team, began to assert themselves inside the paint. The Generals scored the first four baskets of the quarter and snatched the lead, making it 36-32 with 5:18 to go.

Revere senior center Hamza Ghoul (eight points, nine rebounds) made a layup to cut it to a two-point game, but the Generals answered with a three-point play to go back up, 39-32, with just 3:30 to go.

Boudreau then made a basket, Ghoul sank two clutch free throws, and junior forward Vincent Nichols swished a nice pull-up jump shot with 1:34 to go. The teams traded free throws and it was 40-39 in favor of H-W with under a minute left.

Boudreau got to the basket and made a sweet, left-handed layup to give Revere the lead. H-W missed on its next possession and had to foul to stop the clock. Ghoul made two more clutch free throws and D’Ambrosio made another free throw to close it out, and Revere held on for the 45-40 victory.

‚ÄúWe are so happy for these kids,” said Leary afterwards. “They‚Äôve been through a lot these past few years and something like this was important for the players, the cheerleaders, our travel program and the city.

“Thank you to Mayor Arrigo, Revere Athletics, and our student body for supporting us,” Leary added. “These memories will last a lifetime and to coach against a great friend was a dream come true.‚Äù

The win puts Revere at 6-6 on the season with a busy week ahead. They were set to host Lynn English this past Monday and travel to Malden last night (Tuesday).

They will entertain Somerville tomorrow (Thursday) evening for Senior Night festivities and then travel to Medford on Saturday.

They will return home to take on East Boston this coming Monday.

Two Victories for RHS Girls Basketball

The Revere High girls basketball team earned a pair of victories this past week over Greater Boston League rivals Medford and Chelsea.

Last Tuesday the Lady Patriots traveled to Medford on the occasion of the Lady Mustangs’ Senior Night and played the role of rude guests, claiming a 50-45 victory.

The contest was a hard-fought battle through the first three quarters before Revere was able to pull away in the final period.

Skyla DeSimone and Haley Belloise drained huge three-point field goals late in the game to help put Medford away. Senior Carolina Bettero poured in 30 points, grabbed eight rebounds, and made five steals.

“It was a statement performance by Carolina and by our team,” said RHS head coach Chris Porrazzo. “Carolina was on a mission from the opening tip and the rest of the team fed off her energy.”

Two nights later the Lady Patriots made the short trek down Broadway to take on the Chelsea High Lady Red Devils, who are coached by former Revere star Gena Restiano.

Revere had an easier time in this one, claiming a 40-19 victory. Bettero led the way with 15 points and sophomore Bella Stamatopolous added eight points.

Porrazzo and his crew, who now stand at 9-5 on the season, are scheduled to host Malden this evening (Wednesday) in a contest that will be highlighted by Senior Night festivities.

“Fan restrictions have been lifted and we hope a lot of people come out to support and honor our four hard-working seniors, Skyla DeSimone, Carolina Bettero, Maressa Oliveira, and Dianne Mancio,” said Porrazzo. “I’m excited for them on their special night.”

Revere will host Waltham Friday and Medford next Wednesday. The opening tip for both home games is at 6:00.

In between, they will travel to nearby Winthrop on Tuesday.

Twin Wins for RHS Girls Track

The Revere High girls indoor track and field team handily earned a pair of victories over Greater Boston League rivals Lynn Classical and Somerville last Wednesday in a tri-meet held at the Merullo Fieldhouse.

The final tallies showed the Lady Patriots topping the Lynn Classical Lady Rams by a score of 52-20 and the Somerville Lady Highlanders by a score of 43.5-26.5.

Liv Yuong was Revere’s top scorer in both meets with wins in the 50 yard hurdles (8.5 seconds) and the high jump. Liv’s leap of 4’-10” was a personal record (PR) and qualifies her for the Division 1 State Championship meet.

Senior captain Fatima Hartout had a season PR in the mile and took home first place with a time of 6:42.2. Sophomore Rocio Gonzalez was close behind in second place with a clocking of 6:48.8.

Senior Captain Jerelys Canales placed second in both meets in the high jump, clearing the bar with a height of 4’-2”, and took home first in the 50 yard dash vs. Somerville and second vs. Classical with a time of 6.9.

Francoise Kodjo placed third in both meets in the 50 yard dash with a time of 7.7 seconds. Yara Belguendouz (9.3 seconds) and Lynberlee Leng (10.6 seconds) placed first and second in the 50 yard hurdles.

Jessie Jones (50.2 seconds) and Kyra Delaney (50.5 seconds) placed first and second in the 300 meter dash in both meets.

Teammate Tiffany Esteves placed third vs. LC with a time of 52.3 seconds.

Senior Razan Belguendouz placed second in the 600 meter dash with a time of 2:42.2.

Natalia Lopez placed first in both meets in the shot-put with a throw of 24’-7”. Rocio Gonzalez (20’-1”) and Melisa Devedzic (19’-1”) placed second and third in the shot vs. Lynn Classical. 

RHS head coach Racquel MacDonald and her squad will compete in the GBL Championship meet at the Reggie Lewis Center this Friday.

Patriots Fall Short, 62-61, in Fierce Battle with Chelsea

The Revere High boys basketball team hosted their cross-town rivals, the Red Devils of Chelsea High last Thursday. As usually is the case when these teams get together since they resumed their rivalry more than a dozen years ago, the contest was a hard-fought and thrilling affair with fans on both sides (a good-sized crowd was on hand for the first time since COVID restrictions have been lifted) treating the encounter as if it were a Super Bowl.

The Patriots fell behind early, 6-0. Chelsea was doing a nice job handling the Revere pressure defense and got a few easy baskets.

Revere senior forward Ramadan Barry (15 points) made a nice steal and layup, then knocked down his first of two corner three-pointers to get the Patriots going. Junior guard Domenic Boudreau jumped in on the scoring act, as he also made a three-pointer to go along with a few nice drives to the basket.

The Red Devils would answer with another 4-0 scoring run of their own until Revere senior tri-captain Ihssan Mourouane made a nice move to get to the basket, bringing the Patriots within two points at the end of the first quarter, 20-18.

The second period was more of the same, as both teams continued to play up-tempo. Senior tri-captain James Clauto (seven points) made a reverse layup on the baseline and then added a three-pointer.

Revere would also get a spark off the bench from three juniors. Vincent Nichols made a strong drive to the basket, Alejandro Hincapie hit a floater in the lane, and then Sal DeAngelis got a kickout pass from an offensive rebound and drained a deep three-pointer from the top to push the Revere lead to 28-22 midway through the quarter.

However, Chelsea made some nice plays and kept coming back at Revere. Barry had another nice steal and fast-break layup for the Patriots and then hit the corner three-pointer to give Revere the slight edge at the half, 35-32.

The Patriots came out slowly after the intermission, but the Red Devils still had their hot shooting touch and it was evident that Revere needed to switch up their defense. The Patriots played zone the whole first half, but after falling behind 43-37, coach David Leary called a timeout and went to a box-and-one defense on Chelsea’s best scorer, Kamari Vazquez, who had 20 points and hit six three-pointers. The adjustment slowed the Red Devils down and got the Patriots going again, as Clauto sank another trey and Boudreau (16 points, nine rebounds) scored five straight points to keep Revere close, trailing 54-49, heading into the fourth quarter.

The final eight minutes proved to be an incredibly intense battle, with the teams’ tenacious defense definitely slowing down the game at that point.

Both teams struggled to score until Revere went back to Hincapie (eight points, three steals), who made four free throws and a nice driving layup to cut the Chelsea lead to one, 60-59, with 1:21 remaining in regulation, setting the stage for a wild ending.

The two teams did not score on their next possessions and with 41 seconds left, it was Chelsea ball coming out of a timeout. The Red Devils ran down the shot clock and hit a big basket with 14.7 seconds left to give them a 62-59 lead.

Revere called timeout to draw up a play to try to tie, but Chelsea had the three-point perimeter defended well, so Barry took the quick layup instead to make it 62-61.

Revere fouled to stop the clock at 4.7 seconds and put Chelsea on the line for a one-and-one.

The tension in the Merullo Fieldhouse wad palpable and it all led up to a controversial ending. Chelsea missed the free throw and Barry got the rebound. Ramadan pushed the ball up-court, looking to pass it to an open teammate in the corner, but the referee, who was on the court, accidentally got in the way of the pass trying to get into position, and the ball hit his shoulder and bounced out of bounds.

By rule, that play is out-of-bounds off Revere and that was how the game ended.

However, Leary had his focus on areas other than the last play.

“That was an unfortunate way to end the game and I wish we’d had an opportunity to get a final shot, but this game wasn’t lost on one play,” said Leary. “We were 6-for-15 at the foul line and we had 22 turnovers, most of them unforced.

“Chelsea shot fantastically,” Leary continued. “They made nine three-pointers, we made seven, and that was the difference. It seems like we split with those guys every season. We will learn from this — we just have to keep grinding.”