Bent Hits 1,000, But Red Raiders Fall to Wellesley

The Barnstable High School girls basketball team played its heart out but in the end proved to have fewer weapons last night than the visiting Wellesley High Raiders, and fell in the first round of the MIAA Division 1 South Sectionals.

  Only a sophomore, Molly Bent may very well one day prove to be one of Barnstable's all-time best. But last night at Barnstable High School, individual milestones were overshadowed somewhat as Bent's Red Raiders fell to the visiting Wellesley High Raiders, 66-49, in round one of the MIAA Division 1 South Sectionals. Barnstable finished at 14-6 for the season. Bent scored 24 points on the night and netted her 1,000th career point from the foul line midway through the 4th quarter and she stood humbly and stoically as the crowd gave her a standing ovation. She is the only Red Raider in the 90-year history of Barnstable High School basketball to score 1,000 career points so early in her high school career. But the gifted shooting guard did …

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BHS Snatches OT Hoop Victory from D-Y Dolphins

In a packed house last night in Hyannis, the Barnstable High School basketball team outlasted the visiting upstart Dennis-Yarmouth Dolphins in thrilling, overtime fashion, 69-65, thanks in large part to the hot hands of Manny Perry and Sean Skagstead.

Dennis-Yarmouth looked like it was in the driver's seat all night long. That is, of course, until senior point guard Manny Perry drilled a jumper as regulation time expired to knot the score at 56-56. Perry finished the night with a well-earned 16 points, including an invaluable 5-6 performance from the charity stripe in overtime - an effort that very well may have proved the difference. Junior tall man Sean Skagstead - a new student this year at Barnstable High - matched Perry's offensive output with his own 16-point effort - an effort that seemed flawless beneath the basket throughout the evening. But with just 2:00 to go in the game and D-Y seeming to erase every ounce of momentum Barnstable tried to build with some inspiring play from …

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Musings from The Mills

There Were Smiles in Heaven for the Red & White

Being a teenager is difficult enough, but losing a parent can amplify those typically awkward times and it's more than often that a teenager who has experienced such a tremendous loss will act out. Not so for two incredibly tough BHS football players.

At the risk of sounding maudlin, I'm finding it fairly difficult writing this column. That's because it's about two very special young men who've time and time again captured my heart, buoyed my spirits and shown me, if not the entire Barnstable High School football team, that football at the high school level truly is a game of heart. In spite of last year's successes for the Red Raiders - the OCL championship, the playoffs - last fall into winter was a pretty tough time for two Red Raiders in particular: Derek Estes and Robbie Stuart. Last night, Derek Estes and Robbie Stuart played the games of their lives. Estes' touchdown-saving tackle in overtime bore the ineffable quality of divine inspiration. Stuart's tackles on Everett's outside …

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Red Raiders Steamroll Durfee in Season Opener

Barnstable High (1-0) nearly duplicated last year's season-opening rout of Durfee High last night, when it opened the 2012 campaign with a 55-6 thrashing in Fall River, a game replete with the offensive excitement Red Raider fans have grown to love.

Two plays. Two men. Instant victory. In just 19 seconds last night at B.M.C. Durfee High School in Fall River, the Barnstable High School Red Raiders scored all the points they would need to defeat the host Hilltoppers. On the opening kickoff, senior Tedaro France raced downfield 100 yards, was almost tackled at the opposing 15, but squirmed free and netted the first touchdown of the Red Raiders' 2012 campaign. France's 100-yard touchdown on the game's opening kickoff was just the second time in Red Raider history that a kick returner ran for a 100-yard touchdown score. 1970 tri-captain Arthur Pacheco of Centerville held the record all alone for 42 years until last night. Pacheco had a 100-yard kickoff return touchdown on October 17, 1970 …

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Good Things Are Bound to Happen

On the heels of its first outright Old Colony league title since 2002, the Barnstable High School Red Raiders hope to take their success of 2011 and turn things up a notch and take the season further than an invitation to the playoffs.

  Things sometimes seemed a bit strange on the Red Raider gridiron last fall. There was the D.J. Crook injury at New Bedford... the knock-down, drag-out one-point loss at Dennis-Yarmouth that could have gone either way... there was a trip to the playoffs, even with a 7-4 record...there was an almost week-to-week debate in the stands as to who would be quarterback... there were some pretty tense moments on the practice field with bruised egos and tempers flared. But in the end not in a decade had a Red Raider team come together like it did versus Bridgewater-Raynham that chilly night in early November. Even when placekicker extraordinaire Tom Mullen's streak ended in the first quarter at an astonishing 33-33 PAT kicks, did the Red & White …

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Falmouth Nine Clip Red Raiders in Nailbiter

The Falmouth Clippers handed the red-hot Barnstable High School baseball team its first loss of the 2012 campaign, a 4-3 nailbiter that had all the makings of a quality ballgame, replete with late-inning dramatics, lively dugouts and some gutsy pitching.

Pitch for pitch, Falmouth's Kyle Kasperczyk and Barnstable High's Pete Liimatainen matched each other. After six innings, each respective pitcher had thrown almost an equal number of pitches and the score remained deadlocked at 3-3 yesterday. But after a fruitless Red Raider seventh frame, the host Falmouth Clippers loaded the bases with one out on closer Dan Holzman and then Kasperczyk came through with a screaming line drive over a drawn in infield, garnering a walk-off RBI single. The finale? Falmouth 4, Barnstable 3. Holzman took the hard-luck loss for Barnstable (5-1) while Kasperczyk picked up the "W." The lanky Falmouth right-hander basically won the game for himself with his game-winning baseknock. Barnstable's Dylan Morris helped …

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Red Raiders Take Baseball Season-Opener

Barnstable High received five shutout innings from senior Willie Nastasi and staked the lanky righty eight runs before Falmouth made things look interesting, as always, in the top of the seventh with three runs but Dan Holzman closed it for the 8-4 win.

As far as high school baseball games go, this one seemed about as average as they come. But for the first five innings, senior righty Willie Nastasi looked anything but average as he threw 70 pitches, allowed no runs, no hits, walked three and struck out three. In the top of the sixth, the UConn-bound tri-captain gave up a basehit to Falmouth High’s Zach Zaino, followed by a double from Wyatt Hamilton and another basehit. The difference was that Barnstable had staked Nastasi a 6-0 lead until that one earned run crossed the plate for Falmouth in the top of the sixth and it was a lead the Red Raiders (1-0) would not relinquish as the hosts closed out the season-opener with an 8-4 victory. Hard-throwing junior closer Dan Holzman, all 6’2, 230…

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