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Concord-Carlisle boys, Boston Latin girls tennis teams advance

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Concord-Carlisle boys, Boston Latin girls tennis teams advance


LEXINGTON – As three of the other matches around him finished Tuesday, Charlie Derkazarian knew the third set of his up-and-down No. 3 singles match could decide whether or not his Concord-Carlisle boys tennis team would advance to the state final.

He was up for that challenge.

Teammates rushed his section of the Gallagher Tennis Courts after he sealed a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 win to help lift the No. 2 Patriots to a 3-2 Div. 1 state semifinal win over sixth-seeded Brookline.

His performance, paired with wins from Lucas Bikkesbakker and Ben Ostrovsky, powered Concord-Carlisle to a sweep in singles play. It’ll play top-seeded St. John’s Prep for the Div. 1 state title.

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“I embrace it, I really like when I get the clinching win – the win to go to the finals, it feels good,” Derkazarian said. “Obviously, it’s a team game, but it just feels good (to play that role). … I can’t really describe the feeling, it’s just euphoric. It feels really good.”

Bikkesbakker sealed the No. 1 singles match 6-4, 6-3, before Brookline’s first doubles team of twins Kiran and Ravin Bhatia grinded out the second set of a 6-0, 7-6 win. From there, every other match went to three sets.

Dhevin Nahata battled back in an epic second singles battle, but Ostrovsky powered through for a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 win. Derkazarian finished his match before second doubles did, but both lasted over two hours. Brookline’s duo of Peter Khudyakov and Anish Shrivastava edged out a 7-5 win in the tiebreak of the third set.

“It wasn’t stressful, but it was intense,” Concord-Carlisle head coach Marcus Lewis said. “It’s too bad that one team has to walk away without moving on. Obviously I’m very happy for my guys. They’ve worked extremely hard, we’ve done a lot of extra sessions. We’ve extended our practice times, some of the guys trained over vacation. So, they’ve paid their dues.”

Derkazarian fell behind 5-0 in the first set to Brookline’s Winston Chan. But after winning the next four games, Derkazarian felt a momentum shift despite losing the set.

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“My opponent was very good, all credit to him,” he said. “But actually (one of my teammates) was there with me the whole match. He was cheering me on the whole time and was getting me really hyped. And then I just started gaining momentum, and I think that momentum just carried me through. … My attack, my forehand, my backhand, it was all really working.”

“He dug a little deeper today,” added Lewis. “He upped his game today, he upped it for sure.”

Bikkesbakker trailed 4-3 in the first set of his match, and Ostrovsky traded games with Nahata through much of the second and third sets.

The first doubles team (Dan Lynch and Arman Samani) took the Bhatia twins to tiebreak in the second set after a 6-0 loss in the first set, while TJ Fahey and Pedro Nachbin battled in their second doubles match’s third set.

Latin rules

On the girls side, longtime Boston Latin coach Paulanne Wilson didn’t feel the need to use last year’s loss in the Div. 1 state semifinals as a motivational talking point entering the same round a year later.

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Everyone in the program remembered on their own just fine.

By defeating sixth-seeded Newton South, 4-1, at the Gallagher Tennis Courts, the focused No. 2 Wolfpack avenged that loss to secure their first state final trip since 2003.

“We should’ve been here last year, I mean it was just a bummer,” Wilson said. “They’re a great bunch of girls. They take it seriously, they take tennis seriously, so there’s a ton of tennis they play. … I didn’t have to say a word because we already knew where we were last year and where our goal was this year.”

Boston Latin’s young stars flourished, as all four match wins came in straight sets. Sophomore Halina Nguyen won her No. 1 singles match 6-2, 6-1, while fellow sophomore Vanessa Vu took No. 2 singles 6-1, 6-4, despite a slow start in the second set.

Freshman Lillian Nguyen and eighth-grader Gisele Ngo secured No. 1 doubles 6-2, 6-0, while Rachel Lantsman won No. 3 singles 6-3, 6-3.

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“They’re young, but they play tournaments, so they know the crowd and everything,” Wilson said. “You just have to let them know that everything’s OK. Everything’s OK. If it doesn’t go your way, it’s still going to be OK. But you’ve just got to fight to the end.”

Vu showed that fight in the second set of her match, overcoming a deficit to deliver her win in straight sets.

“She did (get back on track),” Wilson said. “She was definitely behind in the second set. But she believed in herself, I believed in her, and that’s all that counts.”

Boston Latin will face No. 4 Wellesley in the state final, searching for its first title since it three-peated from 2001-03.

Boston Latin’s Halina Nguyen reaches for a shot during a state tournament match against Newton South’s Olivia Whitaker. (Nancy Lane/Boston Herald)



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Boston, MA

Boston woman works year-round to keep food pantry shelves stocked:

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Boston woman works year-round to keep food pantry shelves stocked:


WEST ROXBURY – The holidays are a busy time for food pantries. But with the number of Massachusetts families facing food insecurity now at a staggering 35%, according to the Greater Boston Food Bank, keeping those shelves stocked is a year-round job.

Darra Slagle is passionate about food. And it comes in box after box, bag after bag, to Rose’s Bounty food pantry in West Roxbury where she is executive director. 

“I just love doing this. I love feeling like at the end of the day, my job meant something,” Slagle says.

“There’s always something to do”

And she’s tireless, wrangling countless volunteers at the pantry.

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“There’s always something to do here,” Slagle said. “There’s so much work that nobody is ever at a loss.”

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Darra Slagle stocks shelves at Rose’s Bounty food pantry.

CBS Boston


Rose’s Bounty puts together food bags every week to help 2,000 people in a state where food insecurity reaches one in three households.

“And this city, this state that’s so wealthy that nobody should be going without food on their table,” Slagle said.

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Thousands of pounds of food orders

What Slagle gets little of is downtime. When she does, it’s at home making food orders for the pantry. On one day she showed WBZ-TV how she ordered more than 12,000 pounds. She will order 20,000 pounds for the entire week thanks to grants and donations.

“It’s a lot of effort on my part. Spreadsheets, I’m a big fan of spreadsheets,” she said.

Her drive to the pantry may be less than 2 miles from home, but passing these houses every day she says reminds her no one really knows the need behind closed doors.

“There’s probably a lot of mouths in that house to feed. Food’s expensive. Rent’s high,” Slagle said.

That’s what drives her to the pantry every day, ready for the next round of donations that will fill the shelves and help the homebound – the community Slagle wants to make sure doesn’t go hungry.

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“It’s a really happy place to be,” she said. “And we’re all working hard to do something good for our community.”



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Minnesota Twins acquire utility player Mickey Gasper from Boston Red Sox for reliever Jovani Morán

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Minnesota Twins acquire utility player Mickey Gasper from Boston Red Sox for reliever Jovani Morán


WCCO digital headlines: Afternoon of Dec. 24, 2024

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WCCO digital headlines: Afternoon of Dec. 24, 2024

01:32

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The Boston Red Sox continued to rebuild their pitching staff, acquiring left-hander Jovani Morán on Tuesday from the Minnesota Twins in exchange for catcher and infielder Mickey Gasper.

The 27-year-old Morán appeared in 79 games as a reliever for the Twins from 2021 to 2023, posting a 4.15 ERA, striking out 112 with 52 walks and holding opponents to a .208 batting average. He missed all of last season recovering from Tommy John surgery. He originally was chosen in the seventh round of the 2015 draft.

In Gasper, the Twins are getting a 29-year-old who made his major league debut last season and appeared in 13 games with Boston. The switch-hitter was selected by the New York Yankees in the 27th round of the 2018 draft. He was picked by Boston in the minor league portion of the 2023 Rule 5 Draft.

The Red Sox and Twins both currently have 39 players on their 40-man rosters.

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With the addition of Walker Buehler, the Boston Red Sox are starting to look like 2025 contenders

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With the addition of Walker Buehler, the Boston Red Sox are starting to look like 2025 contenders


Coming into this winter, it was imperative for the Boston Red Sox to make multiple impactful moves following a disappointing finish to the 2024 season. And in light of the Yankees making several key pivots following Juan Soto’s departure, inactivity from Boston through another offseason wasn’t an acceptable option.

Well, slowly but surely the Red Sox are putting together a solid offseason and starting to look like a team that is serious about getting back to the postseason in 2025.

The Red Sox’s biggest changes have been in their rotation, where they’ve had a serious overhaul. Adding starting pitching was the top priority for chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, and the Red Sox added arguably the best starter on the trade market in Garrett Crochet from the Chicago White Sox. But it takes more than one starter to get through the 162-game grind of the regular season.

The Red Sox then added left-hander Patrick Sandoval, who’s recovering from Tommy John surgery, and they solidified their veteran presence on Monday by adding right-hander Walker Buehler on a one-year, $21.05 million deal. Buehler, who was No. 23 on Yahoo Sports’ list of this winter’s top 50 free agents, brings to Boston’s rotation a veteran arm who has pitched on baseball’s biggest stages and experienced plenty of success. His 18 postseason starts are the most on Boston’s roster by far.

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Buehler, 31, had other offers, including a few multi-year deals, sources told Yahoo Sports. But the fit and the opportunity to play for a franchise such as the Red Sox while continuing to rebuild his value after a strong postseason was difficult to pass up, and now the pairing is a win for both sides.

At this point, the Red Sox rotation looks like a combination of Crochet and Buehler followed by 2024 All-Star Tanner Houck, Bryan Bello and Lucas Giolito, who missed all of last season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Kutter Crawford and Garrett Whitlock are also options to start. As the Dodgers showed en route to their World Series championship, you can never have too much pitching depth, and such depth will now be a strength for Boston.

With the rotation solidified, the Red Sox’s biggest need the remainder of this winter is a right-handed bat. So as we close 2024, the question now is which bat?

Boston missed out on Soto and several of the top free agents on the position-player market. Yhere are still a few impact players who would fit. Case in point: Teoscar Hernández, Anthony Santander and Alex Bregman are all still available.

Bregman seems like the player who would make the Red Sox’s offseason feel most complete. The two-time World Series champion is unlikely to return to Houston after the team signed first baseman Christian Walker, and Fenway Park would be an excellent fit for Bregman’s offensive profile. It’s not difficult for fans to imagine Bregman in Boston, where he could tap into his pull-side power again.

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What’s more, Bregman could play second or third base, which would give Boston flexibility to decide if the Red Sox really want to follow through on the plan to play Rafael Devers at first base and trade Triston Casas or if they’d rather keep Devers at third and Casas at first and have Bregman play second for the first time in his career.

The Red Sox’s place in the American League’s pecking order has definitely improved this offseason, particularly with teams such as the Astros and Guardians, two of the top squads in the league the past few years, retooling their rosters and the Baltimore Orioles relatively inactive thus far. If one or two more moves fall into place for the Red Sox, it’s reasonable to expect them to make a significant leap in the standings next season.



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