Fourth Grade Basketball Team Dunks on the Competition

The Burlington boys' fourth grade basketball team came out on top this season, finishing the season on a 10-game winning streak to win the Merrimack Valley Youth Basketball Division 2 Championship.

But despite the overall season being a success, it was a season of development and adversity.

The team started out the season winning their first three games, and things were looking up, until they hit a four game weekend. Head coach Dan Borgasano said this was one of the lowest points of the season. “We had two [games] on Saturday and two on Sunday, which is a lot at this age,” Borgasano said “But I thought we could handle it. We ended up losing all four of them. This is after winning our first three and feeling good. We lost four in a row. At the end of that fourth game, it was very disheartening.”

Assistant Coach Keith Quimby said that the team came together pretty quickly, and had great camaraderie from the start.“While many of them are friends and have played together in other sports,” said Quimby, “this was the first year this team was put together. Being familiar with each other just allowed them to speed up the process.”

Quimby cited improved defense and rebounding as big reasons why the team was able to finish the season with 10 straight wins.“Those were the two things that we struggled with early on in the season. During the winning streak they played suffocating defense and it was 100 percent what fueled us as we moved towards the playoffs.”

Assistant coach Stephen Nawoichik stressed the importance of the defensive improvement during the second half of the season even further.

“Over the course of the next seven games, including the last three, which were the playoffs, the boys held their opponents to only single digit scoring in 10 of the 14 halfs,” he said.

Borgasano said that the fourth grade basketball team players worked hard all season and he hopes that it is something that the kids and their parents are proud of.

“Hopefully the kids can kind of look and the parents can look and reflect on it and say, ‘hey, this really is a great example that I can share for the rest of my life about how hard work truly paid off,’” said Borgasano. He believes the team has a lot of potential to keep performing at a high level. “I, along with Keith and Steve, went out and reflected on the season together and we talked about this being just the beginning for this group,” he said. “This team has what it takes to be very good for a very long time.”

The next step for this team will be summer ball, which Borgasano has already signed them up for.“We just signed them up for summer league to keep them together,” Borgasano said. “The lesson learned from all of this is hard work pays off.”

Jonny Ratner is a student at Endicott College studying journalism.