By: Matt McCarthy

The upcoming season is arguably one of the most highly anticipated and most exciting for the Rangers Boys basketball teams in years. The team has aspirations of making it back to the Clark Tournament finals with a different outcome than last year after a tough 72-61 loss to Bartlett.  The boys did have a very successful season, tallying up a 14-8 record.  They also hope to win the Mid Wach B League Championship.    

The team’s roster this season will take on some major changes with the loss of  key players due to graduation, including James Coffey and AJ Nowak and who all had their fair share of scoring bursts and game changing shots. The boys will also need to make up for the loss of Vinny Rosa  as well who held the team down on the defensive end while also providing moral boosters with their high flying dunks and athletic plays

This season Jake Hughes, Matt Doherty and Mike Doherty will be taking the court for their third varsity season. The star guard trio, will continue to look to their strength and talent to make up for what they lack in height.

Another junior, Domenic Casparriello, will look to provide an important scoring and defensive role as part of the starting lineup for the first time in his career.

This is a Rangers team that has been playing together since 2010, so expect the chemistry to be off the charts. At least six members of this years team have been playing together since they were ten years old.

“We are all looking forward to the season, it’s almost second nature now that we’ve been doing it since elementary school,” Matt Doherty said. “It’s really easy to play with each other because we all know each other’s tendencies.”

Also be on the lookout  for some new important pieces to the Rangers’ puzzle. Seniors Kaeden Bentley and Declan Donovan will look to provide leadership along with pivotal scoring down the stretch, especially in big games against teams such as Marlborough, Needham and Nashoba.

The boys will be facing off in their season and home opener on December 15 at 7:00 p.m. against a tough Nashoba Chieftains team that lost in the D2 state championship a season ago.

“They have a good squad obviously as the state runner up, but we are confident in what we can do, I think it will be a good game,” Casparriello said.