Whaler Sports Roundup - December 7, 2023

The boys and girls swim teams, as well as the girls basketball team began their regular seasons on Thursday. Both swim teams earned wins at home while the girls basketball team lost on the road.

Boys & Girls Swim Beat Barnstable

The Nantucket boys & girls swim teams beat the Barnstable Red Hawks in their first meets of the season 61-49 and 115-49 respectively. The wins marked the first of new head coach Dylan Jones' Nantucket coaching career and he said afterwards he loved seeing the compete level from his swimmers.

"I saw a lot of really good swimming and racing and doing some of the stuff we do at practice," Jones said. "Seeing them actually race and swim for the first real time, meets are always different than a time trial. They race in practice, but it's always different when it's real and there's another team there. Lots of really good things and I was just telling the swimmers now I know exactly what we're going to work on next week. It's more like a lot of information for me and it is obviously awesome when we get that information with a win, right."

The boys team was in a tight match all night long with D'Marco Lewis securing a third place finish in the final event of the evening - the 100 yard breaststroke - which clinched them the victory after MacIver placed first in the event.

MacIver, along with junior captain Jake Johnson led the way for the boys. Jones made note of the performance of eighth grader Robert Graves, who placed first in the 200 yard freestyle and was the only male swimmer in the dreaded 500 yard freestyle - clinching his team some very important points.

"We had some awesome races from some of our less experienced swimmers," Jones said. Pavlin Aleksiev also had a key victory in the 100 yard backstroke (1:13.99) narrowly beating out Barnstable's Dylan Santos (1:14.68) for the victory in that event.

The girls meanwhile won handily and their depth was on full display all night long. Myah Johnson. Sara Dussault, Hannah Gerardi, Martina Savova, Evie Phelps, and Hannah Harrington either won individual events or were part of relays that won events.

"I know there were maybe some butterflies leading up to this day and some of the things we talked about they executed," Jones said. "So just how they handled themselves and even if they weren't feeling their best, they still swam really, really well. So I think that's sort of what I'm most proud of. I know earlier in the day, they weren't necessarily looking forward to a certain event but still killed it and did what they need to do for themselves and for the team."

The Whalers next meet will be on Tuesday, December 12 when they host the Nauset Warriors at 5 p.m.

Some photos taken from Thursday's meet by Current photographer Chris Tran are below.

Girls Basketball Loses To Cape Cod Academy

The Whaler girls basketball team lost to the Cape Cod Academy Seahawks 38-18 on the road Thursday afternoon to begin their season.

Head coach Rafael Osona said after the game that he felt like his team played well in the first half but struggled with their rebounding in the second half, which led to the game getting away from them in the third quarter as the Seahawks scored a number of second chance baskets.

Osona added that his team did a lot of things well overall and that he was satisfied with the play of his freshman players. Senior captain Joan Harris led the team with six points.

The Whalers will attempt to win their first game of the season on Saturday, December 9 at 12:30 p.m. when they host Martha's Vineyard.

SCHEDULE AHEAD:

Friday, December 8:

NO GAMES SCHEDULED.

Saturday, December 9:

The girls basketball team will host Martha's Vineyard at 12:30 p.m.

The girls hockey team will host Martha's Vineyard at 2 p.m.

Sunday, December 10:

The boys hockey team will host the defending Div. 4 state champion Norwell Clippers at 2 p.m.

The indoor track team will also be in action and is traveling to Boston for a meet.

For more sports content, follow our Current Sports Instagram page here. You can follow Current Sports photographer Chris Tran here.