Winter Teams
2023-2024 Season Recap
Our Indoor Track team spent the winter at UVM competing against much larger schools as there are only two divisions in indoor track. However, our team shined and earned two individual state titles while taking home 3rd place honors as a team on the boys side. Calder Rakowski was the VT State Champion in the 1000m run with the 4x800m relay team (Riley Gagnon, Cal Gramling, Grey Fearon, Calder Rakowski) continued their dominance in the event and was not only the the D2 team, but was only one second off the D1 record!
Our cheerleading team was small in numbers, but big in spirit this winter. With only five members on the team at the end of the season and numerous changes due to illness and injury, the team put on a show in the State Championship meet held once again at Vergennes. The future is bright with this team as there were over fifty participants in the resurgent youth cheerleading program.
The wrestling team continued their dominance on the mat during the season with two Vermont State Champions, Isaac Preston (junior) & Jamison Couture (senior). Both Isaac & Jamison also collected their 100th career victory this season, tremendous accomplishments. While the team will lose two talented wrestlers (Tyerell Lavoie & Couture), the return a number of wrestlers along with an outstanding 8th grade class that also boasted two undefeated state champions. Watchout for this team as the future has the potential to be something special!
Our basketball programs both had outstanding seasons and both earned home playoff games in the 1st round of the state tournament. While both teams won their 1st round games, both fell in tough games vs. tough teams in the 2nd round. Unfortunately, both programs will lose talented seniors, but our younger athletes earned some valuable experience and both programs are set-up for success. Top individual honors (as voted on by opposing coaches) went to Oakley Francis (Lake Division 1st Team & Lake Division Player of the Year), Devin Brisson (Lake Division 2nd Team) and Head Coach Eric LeBeau (Lake Division Coach of the Year) and Ashtin Stearns (Lake Division 1st Team & Vermont D3 Dream Dozen). The boys varsity team took home Lake Division Champions and their program has some of the largest numbers in the state and is one of the very few schools our size that field three full teams (varsity, JVA, JVB) at the high school level. With solid and improving middle school participation combined with almost 200 elementary basketball players, Vergennes continues to cement its legacy as a basketball town!
No recognition of our winter athletics would be complete without taking the time to recognize our wonderful coaches and volunteers. To say this was a crazy winter would be a huge understatement. With amazing turnouts in the youth levels (187 basketball, 58 youth cheerleaders, 34 youth wrestlers), this requires a number of volunteers to keep the team numbers as low as possible. Creating all those teams also requires many more games and events, this winter Vergennes hosted over 100 basketball games/wrestling meets/cheer/dance state championships, it was awesome! Everyone wants to come to Vergennes and play due to our wonderful facilities! I would like to extend a very big thank you to all our coaches, officials, volunteers, Alex Benfatti (athletic trainer), Kevin Hayes (athletic department staff) and especially our maintenance crew who kept our facilities in top shape throughout this winter.