A Strong Winter Season

Brooks teams had a solid winter season, punctuated by three New England championship tournament appearances.

This winter, the Brooks girls basketball team made a storybook run into the NEPSAC championship game, the boys basketball team made noise into the New England semifinals, and the boys hockey team also punched a card to the postseason. The girls squash team, meanwhile, gained valuable experience at the U.S. High School Squash Championships.

Girls Basketball Tries for Three

The girls 1st basketball team, which lost key players Sam Dewey and Taina Mair to graduation last year, came up just short of notching a third consecutive New England championship title this year. Brooks entered the tournament as the seventh seed, but pulled together to knock off bracketbusting wins against second-seeded St. George’s School and third-seeded Beaver Country Day School to find itself in the championship game against top-seeded St. Luke’s School.

Brooks couldn’t pull off a third win from the underside of the bracket, and ceded the title to St. Luke’s School. As Head of School John Packard noted in Chapel when congratulating the team, though, winning two away tournament games to reach the championship

“is no small feat.” First-year head coach Ben Chase also applauds his team’s performance throughout the tournament. “Both games were terrific,” he says. “The girls never quit. I couldn’t be more proud of the way we played.”

Over the course of the year, sixth-former Kendall Eddy earned All-ISL honors. Sixth-former Maeve Gaffney and third-form headturner Summer Warren brought home All-ISL Honorable Mention honors. Eddy, Gaffney and fifth-former Jess Maina took home All-NEPSAC hardware, and fourth-former Sophie Broussard and Warren also earned All-NEPSAC Honorable Mention nods.

“This season was a whirlwind,” says Chase. “I can’t say enough positive things about the character of the girls on our team. They handled challenges with incredible maturity, and they worked hard and stayed focused on the process.”

Boys Basketball Plays to the Semifinals

The boys 1st basketball team played hard under first-year head coach Kenya Jones, earning a 14–9 record and a spot as the fifth seed in the NEPSAC championship tournament. Brooks beat fourth-seeded Kingswood Oxford School in a 57–55 quarterfinals win that saw Brooks mount a major comeback in the second half after falling behind 22–2. The squad couldn’t get past top seed and eventual champion The Rivers School in the semifinal game, though. Nonetheless, Head of School John Packard congratulated the team in Chapel on the following Monday. “The theme in all the games I saw this weekend was how incredibly hard our kids played,” Mr. Packard said. “It made me so proud.”

Jones had nothing but good things to say about his first year at the helm of the renowned program.

“We worked incredibly hard this past season, and it was inspiring to see how much we accomplished as a team,” says Jones. “It was great to see how we supported each other, on and off the court, to continue to maintain the successful Brooks basketball culture. We are losing six seniors, including our two captains, and they will be tough to replace, but we have a good group of young players ready to fill the void.”

Marcos Montiel ’23 earned All-ISL nods for his performance, and Nomar Tejada ’23 and Timmy Mulvey ’24 took home All-ISL Honorable Mention bids. Mulvey and Tejada also picked up AllNEPSAC spots, and Montiel and fourth-form newcomer Emersen Davis earned spots on the AllNEPSAC Honorable Mention team.

Boys Hockey Dances

The boys 1st hockey team fought through an impressive regular season to earn the seventh seed in the NEPSAC Small School Piatelli/ Simmons tournament. Brooks traveled to Holderness School in the first round and fell, 3–1, and the students they left on campus appreciated their efforts. Students packed into the Keating Room to watch a livestream of the game — and also stay updated on the concurrent boys basketball and girls basketball games noted above — and fans kept rooting for Brooks until the final buzzer blew.

Mr. Packard also congratulated the team in Chapel, noting that the team “represented the school beautifully and competed from start to finish.” Sixth-formers Jeremy Emch, Jake Lipani and Will Rassier, along with fifth-former Ethan Simpson, earned All-ISL honors. Fifth-formers Tanner McFaul, Scotty Moritz and Cam Smith earned All-ISL Honorable Mention spots. Rassier and Emch were also named to the All-NEPSAC Honorable Mention team.

Squash at Nationals

Both the boys 1st and girls 1st teams competed at U.S. High School

Generations of Brooksians reflect on their time playing girls sports at Brooks, and on how the experience has helped them find success and confidence in their lives today.