Mike Vukovcan One of the neat things for me over the last year or so has been learning about sports that I was not familiar with.
Growing up, I was someone that just played or followed baseball, basketball and football.
Fortunately, I’ve been introduced to different sports as I go around cover different teams and athletes in Hopewell.
For example, I had never been to either a volleyball or soccer match prior to this year and now I’m a big fan of those sports as I was able to really watch and learn about the game. In my opinion, volleyball in particular is the most nerve-wracking sport there is as you sit on the edge of your seat for ever serve.
Yesterday afternoon, I had the pleasure of taking in my first Bocce match as Hopewell hosted Moon. I’ll be honest, I had no idea what Bocce was until I was educated about it prior to the match by Hopewell student Bella Ceccarelli. Thanks Bella.
After watching the match in-person, it’s a really neat sport and one that I’ll be back to view.
If you’re like me prior to yesterday and have no clue what Bocci is and the objective of it, I had Hopewell head coach Chris Nee explain to us the key points.
“The goal of Bocce is to have your Bocce balls closest to the yellow pallina ball. The winner of the coin toss will roll the pallina and their first ball. The team with the closest ball will be “in”. The other team will then roll until they get a ball closer than the “in” team or they are out of balls to roll.
Once all the balls have been rolled, the team with the closest ball to the pallina will receive points. The number of points will be determined by how many of their team’s balls are closer to the pallina than the other teams.
Unified Bocce pairs regular education students with special Olympics eligible students and competes in the PIAA as an official winter varsity sport. The goal of Unified Bocce is to provide social inclusion through shared sports training and competition experiences.
A Bocce match consists of anywhere from two to four games depending on how many “teams” each school has. The winner of a match depends on how many total wins your school gets.
We have two teams at our school. For playoff eligibility, each “team” has an individual record. Our Blue team players are Devin Botte, Jake Knobloch, Parker Hoth, Logan Butter, Payton Korker, Chris Shiel, David Rogerson, and Aiden Trasp. Our Gold team players are Eileen Chen, Chris Nguyen, Addy Davis, Bella Ceccarelli, Sky Ross, Bri Inderelst, Jordan Sirianni, Hayden Opatchen, Jason Givens, and Kaitlin Moskes.”
Thank you Coach Nee for that introduction to Bocce!
For the season, the Hopewell Blue team finished the regular season with a 4-2 individual record, while the Hopewell Gold team was 5-1 and 4-0 in match play.
Both of Hopewell’s teams have qualified for the playoffs. The Gold team has earned the No. 1 seed while the Blue team will be the No. 4 seed.
In case you want to come check out a match, the first round of the playoffs will take place at Hopewell High School on Friday, February 14th, starting at 3:30 PM. The winner of that 4-team tournament will advance to the regional playoffs.
