A Fight to the End

     Head coach Dan Langmead had high hopes for the girls 2013-2014 varsity basketball team. The Lady Lancers finished the season last year with not the best record, but with very close games. Coach Langmead's goals were to start off the season strong and make it to the tournament, as well as make a new, positive name for the Norton girls basketball program. The Lady Lancers experienced a disappointing season, but continued to fight hard no matter what the outcome was at the end of the game.

     The Lancers season ended with another loss, making the ending record 0-20. Sure the season didn't turn out the way they wanted, but they always managed to fight through the tormenting crowds and keep their heads up and try to continue to play hard on defense to the end of the game, no matter what the score was. Captains Meg Pestana and Sam Lang always continued to be supportive and pick people up while they were down. If someone missed a layup, you could guaranteed that both captains would come over, tap you on the back and say "Hey, shake it off. Next play." This is what the Lancers needed to keep up their defensive game to get some stops and try to get some baskets at the other end of the court. 

     Offensively, when the Lancer's would take the time and slow the ball down to run the play correctly, it was very effective and would break down the other teams defense, opening up the lane to go to the hoop or freeing up a shooter to take the outside shot. Junior, Ashley Pelletier has a great shooting season as well as Junior Chloe Gill and Freshman Maddie Murphy. Guard Marisa Amato did very well moving and handling the ball to keep the offense moving. On the defensive end, Senior captains Meg Pestana and Sam Lang did a great job making sure no player from the opposing team had an easy post touch. Sam Lang lead the team in taking charges. She was always willing to sacrifice her body to take the charge. Meg rarely let the guard get it into the post. She played great defense on the tallest girls in the TVL and it showed. 

    Starting next season, Coach Langmead hopes to pick up were the team left off this season. He hopes that all the girls will play as much basketball as they can before the start of next season so that the girls are physically and mentally prepared to play again. The team is going to greatly miss the two seniors Meg and Sam, but next season as a team they hope to make the tournament. The girls are looking forward to a good season next year. The incoming seniors hope to make it a good one seen as it's their last season. Best of luck during the next upcoming season.

Skating into Fourth for the US

     U.S men blew a shot at a medal? The United States men's hockey team was ranked second going into the Olympics, clearly they were expected to medal when they obviously did not medal at all. The US lost to Canada in the semifinals as well as lost a chance for a silver or gold medal. But, in the finals, the US took an embarrassing 5-0 loss to Finland and also lost that last chance to medal in the 2014 Winter Olympics. Max Pacioretty, an American Forward told the Pittsburgh Tribute, "I'm not proud at all right now. I don't think anyone is. We were playing for a medal and didn't show up." The US men's hockey players clearly weren't impressed with how they played. They looked as though they were slow and very stagnate in the 2nd and 3rd period. 
     However the first period of the Finland US match up seemed to be going in the US's favor; they were out scoring Finland. If it wasn't for Finland's goalie, Tukka Rask, the U.S should have gotten a couple goals in the 1st period. Rask was on his A-game and blocked every shot coming his way. Coming into the Olympics, the U.S's biggest competition was Sweden because they were ranked first and were expected to win gold. As the games continued, Russia was a big obstacle the men needed to overcome. The game ended with a shootout goal from T.J Oshie in the 8th round. The U.S was supposed to come up and medal in the 2014 winter Olympics when in reality they blew it and came up short with fourth place.

Post Super Bowl

     The Super Bowl was sure different than most people expected. I was expecting the Seahawks to win personally because I believed that their defense would win it for them and it did. Peyton Manning didn't do as well as everyone expected. He honestly kinda blew it in my opinion. I will admit, he is a very good quarterback and everything, but he didn't have as good of a game that everyone thought he was going too. Manning threw dumb passes and didn't run the ball as well as he usually has in the past. Clearly, "Omaha" didn't work for Manning this time. The starting play of the game resulted in the snap going over Peyton Manning's head and into the end zone. That was not a very good start for Peyton and the Broncos. Also, there was multiple interceptions which helped the Seakhawks become victorious. Peyton Manning clearly under preformed and cracked under the pressure. He was talked about for weeks before the Super Bowl and how he was going to bring the Broncos to a victory, which clearly wasn't the case. The Seahawks had a great defensive game that stopped Manning before he could even start. Overall, the game wasn't too exciting due to the fact it was a big lead, but it was slightly interesting seeing Manning's face as his team crumbled right before his eyes.

Sam joins the NFL

Jill Poplawski
Norton High School


     I believe that Sam will be accepted into the NFL by coaches, players and fans. Just because of Sam's sexual orientation doesn't mean he isn't a great football player. Coaches and players want to win championships, and to do that they need dedicated players, they need Michael Sam.

The Gangster in the Huddle

Hernandez had multiple contributing factors to his life of crime. One of them being when his father died. His home life was different. His mother cheated on his father with an abusive coke addict and ended up marrying him when Dennis(Hernandez father) died. When that happened, Aaron didn't really hang around at home. The reason why Aaron dropped so low in the draft was because of his past drug use. He had failed multiple drug tests in college but they kept protecting him. Since he even admitted to his drug use, that should have raised a red flag to anyone considering drafting him. Some of Aaron Hernandez's actions were covered up by previous coaches to protect him. If his coaches never protected him as much as they did, he could have gotten help sooner and all of this may never have happened. Also, his gangster friends had a great impact on him. The cops should have filed reports when things first started going wrong instead of acting like nothing ever happened. Athletes seem so untouchable because of their amount of money they have along with how well liked they are around the world. When in reality, they're just like everyone else and deserve to pay the consequences.