Old Rochester, Old Colony teams make it to the playoffs

Four winter sports teams from Old Rochester Regional High School and Old Colony Regional Vocational High School qualified for the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association state tournament in basketball and hockey. 

Old Rochester boys basketball. The Old Rochester Regional High School boys varsity basketball team is ranked number 7 in the state tournament for Division 3 with a record of 13-7.

They won their first playoff game against Auburn High School, ranked 39, over the weekend. 

Head Coach Steve Carvalho said the team does well in sharing the ball and teamwork but needs to focus on playing an aggressive offence and a disciplined defence.

“We promote the greater good and being unselfish and sharing the basketball and playing our style of play,” Carvalho said. 

Ultimately, Carvalho wants to “survive and advance” in the playoffs, but hopes all players improve daily. 

“There's a bulldog or two out there that is going to do something tonight that maybe they haven't done in the last few weeks or months,” Carvalho said. “So we just want to keep staying after it and doing what got us here.”

Old Rochester girls basketball. The Old Rochester girls basketball team is ranked number 10 in the Division 3 state tournament with a record of 16-4. 

They beat Whittier Regional Vocational High School, ranked number 23,  this past weekend. 

Head Coach Rick Regan felt good about their game against Whittier since the team came out strong, but had a lull in the middle of the game.

“We had some key hoops late and the defense was there the whole game, which I thought was the difference overall,” Regan said. 

Going into the next games, he hopes that the team can stay consistent and handle any pressure the other teams may give them. 

He is proud of how his team has come together throughout the season thanks to the leadership of the seniors. 

“[The seniors] have set the tone and the bar as to where we need to be, as to how we need to work, how we need to get better every day and how we need to be as a team,” he said. 

Their next game is Wednesday, March 4 against North Reading High School, ranked number 7, at 5:30 p.m. away. Results were not available by the time of publication. 

Old Colony boys basketball. The Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical High School lost their first playoff game this weekend against Bethany Regional Vocational High School, ranked number 15. 

Old Colony was ranked number 18 in the Division 5 tournament and their season record is 15-5.

Head Coach Donald “Boomer” Rodrigues is proud of his team even though they took a tough loss. The team rose to the challenge of being a younger and physically smaller team. 

“I told them we didn't have much size, so we had to play fast, we had to play defense, we had to run and create extra possessions,” Rodrigues said. 

With a young team, Rodrigues is confident that next year the team has a shot at the state championship since the makeup will mostly stay the same. 

“We really only played six guys this year because the freshmen weren't ready, but they're going to be ready next year,” Rodrigues said. 

Old Rochester Regional boys hockey. Old Rochester Regional varsity boys hockey lost in the first round of playoffs to Dover-Sherborn High School. They were ranked 30 in the Division 4 state tournament. Their record was 6-10-4 going into the playoffs. 

Head Coach Zach Ledogar was proud of his team, especially of senior Tucker Roy who made 58 out of 61 saves as the goalie. Freshman Sam Long also made the only goal of the night. 

Even though the team lost, Ledogar said the team came together to support one another through the lows. 

“We did a really good job in just staying in the game, staying present,” he said. 

Ledogar hopes they can win even more games next year and get back to the playoffs. 

“This year we had a very young team so we made some young mistakes and next year we hope to eliminate that and then also put the puck in the net more often,” he said.