Category Archives: Sports

Sports program of Bishop McNamara HS

Sports, Team Features

Football has a redeeming season

Leave a comment

Last year, Bishop McNamara went one whole football season with zero wins. Coaches, students, and players were devastated.

Now, many people still want to know why, even as the team began winning more games in 2018.

Varsity quarterback Miles Miller ‘19 said, “Winning a few games this year feels great compared to last year.” He said this year they had a better team with better chemistry. He said his players had to depend on and trust each other more, as well as the coaching staff had to trust the players.

According to several players, last year’s varsity team just was not in the right place. They wouldn’t work together as a team, and that put a strain to how they played.
Since then they learned from their mistakes and applied what they learned as “One team, One family, and One McNamara.”

Varsity football head coach Mr. Keita Malloy said he felt good when his team was up, and bad when they were losing. As a coach, it is always difficult knowing his team put in all the work they had and then the turnout was not what was expected or planned.

Sports, Team Features

BMHS Baseball: How Far Will They Go?

Leave a comment

Lindsey Bayes ’21

Staff Writer

Bishop McNamara’s baseball season is just around the corner, and a strong team is beginning to form. The high competition level among these young athletes was set early, and is consistently rising as the February 20th tryouts approach. Varsity Head Coach, Anthony Sosnoskie has been evaluating his rosters and has high expectations for this season. Sosnoskie said, “All teams take shape during the season, but there are different layers to build on after ten months of prep. Whether it’s off-season workout plans or in season work, we are preparing. As a coach, you start to look at what we do well, what we don’t do well, and how we can improve.” From October through December, the team has been working hard on the field, in the weight room, and in the classroom. The baseball program has also been involved in various community services, which include volunteering at the District Heights Fire department and participating in Wreaths Across America.

During the offseason, the baseball teams have also been working with Sean Fraser, a yoga instructor in Maryland. Fraser said, “The biggest benefit, is mental strength. When Michael Phelps is about to swim at the meet you best believe he is focused, and not distracted. This is why meditation is important. When you are able to focus all of your attention on the present game, exam, challenge, or problem you can usually figure out a solution more clearly and quickly.” First baseman of the Washington Nationals, Ryan Zimmerman has also turned to yoga. “It’s the hardest thing I do for an hour. But after I’m done, it’s definitely worth it. By the end of last offseason, I really started to notice myself getting better at it and how much better I felt in my body”, Zimmerman said in an interview with an MLB reporter. Other teams in the MLB have also been promoting yoga, such as the New York Yankees and the Chicago Cubs.

This season, Sosnoskie plans on carrying sixteen to eighteen players per roster, which brings up the question, “Will cuts have to be made before the start of the season?” The answer to this question has remained unclear, but at the moment, there are about thirty-five players who plan to tryout. One thing is certain and that is the competition for playing time between the returning and newer players. Coach Sosnoskie said, “There’s always competition out there everyday. If I had to write a line-up today, I don’t know what it would look like. I’m just waiting for the cream to rise to the top. Michael Scott has caught a lot of varsity games. There are also a lot of freshman who are competing to get out there and catch some as well. Miles Peterson is one who comes to mind.” Even with the competition among these athletes, Sosnoskie has said that they are a very close knit team that come to play every day.

With the season quickly approaching, the players have set their goals and are ready to leave it all on the field. First Baseman, Jared Mammano said, “Goals for myself are to play the game how it’s supposed to be played, not to let any moment get bigger than me, and to just do my job.” Catcher, Miles Peterson said, “My biggest goal is to get a batting average over .300 and a pop-time under 1.9 seconds.” Everyone on the team is able to accomplish their goals with the support of their teammates and the coaching staff, which is compiled of Anthony Sosnoskie, Andy Schindling, L.J. Hoes, Micah Headd, Mike Wright, Jordan Martinez, and Aaron Graves. The first game of the season is an away game on Saturday, March 10th at 12 p.m. against Sidwell Friends. Come out and support your Bishop McNamara baseball program.

 

 

Athletes, Sports

A Day In The Life Of A BMHS Student Athlete

Leave a comment

By Ian Lynch ’17, Staff Writer

A student Athlete faces many challenging factors in their typical day. Athletes must know how to prioritize. Athletes need to make sure you have time for just about everything, but school must come first. Student athletes have long days and may have trouble with being focused in school due to lack of sleep. Student athletes have to stay up later than the average student who do not play sports to get their homework done after practice. McNamara’s baseball star Nick Washington ’17 says, “You are gonna have long days feeling tired but you have to overcome the diversity and get the work done.”

Student athletes have to constantly think about the future rather than the present. and in the day-to-day cycle they have to give 100% in everything they do. McNamara’s basketball star Charles Kelly says, “Every day is a new day with a new mindset of being great. You have to tell yourself that it is mind over matter giving 120% in the classroom and on the court.” Student athletes may face troubled times in the classroom from giving their all in their sport. You may come across people falling asleep, but that is merely because of the lack of rest they got from the day before.

Sports

Cheerleaders

Leave a comment

 

By Noah Whitaker ‘18 , Staff Writer

“Cheerleading a sport? The truth revealed!”

A common misconception is that cheerleading is easy, but it is in fact a very challenging sport. BMHS cheerleader Ashley Smith explains, “we honestly train as much as the football team would.” People may not know the hard work and preparation the McNamara cheerleaders put in to make the team and also show off their school spirit.

Simone Frederick pointed out, “cheerleaders do the same type of workouts as any other sport.” Tyler Muniz added, “we work harder or just as hard as a football team or basketball team would because cheerleaders want to overcome the stereotype which is all we do is say ‘go team’ and flip.

This is the stereotype that is common for people who do not know a lot about cheerleading. The cheerleaders are a hardworking group of girls that train as hard as another sport. You may not recognize it but they recognize all the hard work they’ve been putting in since earlier this year when tryouts were held. So before anybody says cheerleading is not a sport, that’s a false statement, cheerleading is a sport.

BMHS cheerleaders described their workouts as hectic and according to Kiersten Stokes, ‘DEATH!’   They run suicides, does core exercises, a lot of cardio work and they have to run a mile in the beginning of practice. You might even think that they run for the track team as much as they run. Sierra Sweeney said, “No one really knows how hard it is to actually cheer and it takes a lot of strength, endurance, stamina, and on top of that to cheer you have to actually really want to do it. A lot of my workouts are focused on abs, flexibility, and developing muscles.” To perform at a high level you, “need a lot of stamina to do what we do on the floor,” claimed Tyler Muniz.

All seven McNamara cheerleaders interviewed preferred competitive cheer to high school cheer. Was it because of the mile and hard cardio work they do majority of the week after school?

Well Simone Frederick said, I prefer competitive because it involves more traveling and you are pushed to develop better skills. Tyler Muniz also said she preferred competitive because “I like the traveling aspect and I feel there’s more drive in the girls doing competitive cheer.” When watching ESPN sometimes during the summer time they would participate in AAU (travel) cheerleading which is competitive.

The competitive cheer looked more of you needed to have a good sense of what you are doing because of all the pyramids and throwing up in the air you had to do. Compared to high school cheer where the team is no very large and less technique is being used. Competitive cheer uses more creative routines than high school cheer.

To make the cheerleading team. You need to have good back handsprings and a robust tumbling ability. Back handsprings are really important because Sierra pointed out that you must have a back handspring to make varsity.

So why is tumbling important? Sweeney said, the tumbling piece is what makes the performance exciting for the audience. But the tumbling is one of the most important parts in a performance.

Kiersten expressed, tumbling gives a ooh & aah to the performance. So what else were the requirements or process to making the cheerleading team? Kiersten Stokes indicated, “you also had to have some sort of memorizations to do the cheer and dance.” Veteran Charle Robinson said, “some of the requirements were your ability to do a variety of jumps, tumbling, memorization of cheers and choreographed dances.”

Lastly you also have to have the mental edge added to the athletic edge needed to make the team. Tyler Muniz pointed out, “workouts are very intense, not a lot of people are strong enough mentally or physically to do what most cheerleaders do in workouts.” That is a key factor into making the team and not being able to make the team.

The McNamara cheerleaders have the full basketball season left. They have been working hard and they have high expectations. Kala Washington pointed out that she would like to go to cheer events with this team. Stokes said confidently, “this team has a lot of potential.” They cheerleaders have high expectations for themselves and the team as a whole. It is time to take notice of the great things the cheerleaders are doing.

Sports, Team Features

Lady Mustangs Basketball

Leave a comment

Profile on Girls’ Basketball Team

Chase Ellington ’16 | Staff Writer

Building family and showing respect are the two McNamara pillars that describe the 2014-2015 girls basketball team. The success of this season caused a huge uproar.

Compared to last year, this team formed an unbreakable bond — a sisterhood grown through working together. Although minor faults affected the season outcome, the outcome was stronger than expected.

“I think where it all goes downhill is when it comes to us finishing,” shooting guard Simone Smith said. “We started off better than ever but not everything ended the way we expected.”

A case of when the team worked together is the Riverdale Baptist game. The team was down by seventeen with four minutes remaining, and a technical foul was called on the opposing team due to their lack of knowledge of how many times out remained.

Senior Kholby Oliver ‘15 was called to the foul line, isolated and full of pressure, to pull off a remarkable victory. Missing one out of two of the game winning shots, she still lead the team to an extraordinary win.

The game showed that when working together, any obstacle formed against these strong young women could be conquered. After meeting with the team it was clear to see that there love and passion for the sport is overwhelming. The sisterhood formed slowly, because of the need to build trust and not let outside attributes get in the way of major success.

Their motivation, directed by Coach Frank Oliver, was well noticed. “He never gave up on us,” said Mangela Ngandjui ‘16, power forward and a leading scorer.

The outcome of the season was not in the favor of the crowd. A sad loss against Seton will go down in Mustang history, because of the closing remarks of the game itself. A crunch time situation game result of 41 to 40 left fans with dropped hearts and distraught faces.

The fight for victory was clearly stated, and the loss formed so much positivity amongst the team, because they are ready to come back better than ever and leave with the gold.

As we patiently wait for the 2015-2016 season, the current team expects to take it all next year and give our school another championship.

Look out for our Lady Mustangs as the uproar continues.

Game Stories, Sports, Team Features

The Greatest Game

Leave a comment

Thomas Leonard ‘15 | Staff Writer |

 

The year was 1990. George H.W. Bush was the president, the Berlin Wall had just been torn down, Vanilla Ice was one of the most popular musical artists, and Bishop McNamara Football was on top of the world. Their dominant regular season run through the highly competitive Washington Metropolitan Athletic Conference (WMAC) gave the fans of the Mustangs one of the most exciting and rewarding seasons in the history of McNamara football.

    The season began with a convincing 33-14 win over Madison High School, which was followed by a difficult 13-31 defeat at the hands of Garfield High School in Woodbridge, Virginia. This would stand as the Mustangs’ only loss in this season, as the next three games got the season back on track as McNamara dominated Holy Cross, Robert E. Lee, and O’Connell high schools by an average margin of 24 points.

As the season continued, Bishop McNamara prepared for their impending matchup against their conference archrival, the Stags of Dematha High School. One of the most important moments of the season occurred before that game. This event is especially memorable to current Math Department Chair Mrs. Angelina Diehlmann LR ‘85 who was a teacher at the time.

She remembers that the entire school gathered together for a pep rally. At this rally, the students and teachers sat in silence as the captain of the football team intently told his players that they had more heart and wanted to win the game more than Dematha.

Mrs. Diehlmann said that as the entire school community sat, “So quietly you could hear a pin drop,” they understood just how tight-knit and passionate the football team was. According to her, it was at this moment that everyone knew that they would win the championship.

However, going into the final minute of that game, the Stags, leading 3-0, were poised to end McNamara’s championship hopes. Dematha had the Mustangs right where they wanted them with 20 yards to go on fourth down.

The ensuing play, which the 1990-91 yearbook referred to as,“The most dramatic play in McNamara football history,” was vividly described in the October 7, 1990 issue of the Washington Post. Quarterback Girardeau “Junior” Bynum ‘91 got the snap, and lateralled the ball to wide receiver Asim Penny ‘91. Penny then threw downfield to wide receiver Andre Martin ‘92 who never stopped running until he reached the endzone. This touchdown proved to be the final score in the Mustangs 7-3 upset of Dematha.

Current McNamara teacher Garry Imes ‘92 has fond memories of this signature win that occurred in his junior year. He remembers that after this victory, the school community knew that the Mustangs were championship bound.

Although this was not the final game of the Mustang’s year, in many ways, it represented the climax of the 1990 season. After the Dematha game, the Mustangs easily dispatched the rest of their opponents, ending with a 47-3 rout of the Good Counsel Falcons; a game that was emblematic of the season as a whole in terms of McNamara’s dominance.

Despite the manner in which McNamara easily beat their opposition that season, they were still considered to be underdogs. Mr. Imes remembers how other schools would come to McNamara with bigger players, larger coaching staffs, and more expensive budgets. Despite the advantages the other schools had, McNamara still showed that it was one of the best teams in the area.

However, 1990 marked the end of the WMAC, as the next season was the first season of the current WCAC. 1990 also marked the last time the Mustangs have won it all, but if that season proved anything, it proved that the success of a team is not based on the price of their uniforms, the accolades of their coaches, or even the size of the players. It’s based on their will to win. As for the success of the current football team, many believe history has a way of repeating itself.

Game Stories, Photos

Baseball sweeps St. Mary’s, moves into WCAC championship

Leave a comment

On May 8, 2012, the McNamara Baseball team defeated the St. Mary’s Ryken Knights to sweep a best-of-three series and move on to the WCAC Championship Series, where they will face the Paul VI Panthers. The Mustangs beat the Knights 5-0 in a complete, shutout game pitched by Connor Hax ’13. The Championship is scheduled for Friday through Sunday, May 11-13 at the University of Maryland and will be a best-of-three series as well. Photos by Matt Nunez ’12, Editor-In-Chief

Click for a photo gallery from the game: