Windham Unified bocce ends season showing improvement

By Matt Pascarella

During the final game of the season, Windham’s Unified bocce team showed they have kept improving game-after-game. Windham tied Gray-New Gloucester 3-3 on Tuesday, June 3 after falling to GNG 2-0 less than a month ago.

Windham senior Colby Schmid keeps his focus during the 
final Unified bocce game of the season against Gray-New
Gloucester at Windham High School on Tuesday, June 3.
PHOTO BY MATT PASCARELLA 

Since it was the last game of the season, Windham players were geared more toward having fun and celebrating a successful season. It was also Senior Night; Windham’s TJ McAllister, Colby Schmid along with unified partner Talia Campobasso and each of their parents were presented with a gift and thanked for their time and dedication to Windham Athletics. Jacob Smith was not present for the game but coaches say he deserves recognition for his time with the team.

“It’s really important to me to be involved in the unified programs because I see how much it means to them,” said Campobasso, who has been a partner for unified bocce and basketball; her job is to assist the players in learning the game and guide them if they need help. “With other people helping out it makes their day and their year. I’ve definitely seen a lot of improvement in how they work together. I saw how well we worked with the other team; we played Gray New-Gloucester a few weeks ago, but the chemistry and sportsmanship today was a lot better.”

This match consisted of three 15-minute games played on two separate courts. Gray New-Gloucester won the first set of games, 5-4 and 9-1. Windham answered GNG when they won the next sets, 5-2 and 5-4. In the final set, Windham won a game, 5-3, and Gray New-Gloucester won the other, 8-1, resulting in the tie.

Windham junior Zach O’Brion thought the team played very well. They had more wins than last time and played a lot better as a team. It was fun for him to play one last game with the seniors. O’Brion said he likes learning the game and having fun with his team.

“I think it’s been really exciting (to be part of the season),” said Windham’s new Unified bocce coach Kendall Dolan. “Getting involved in the unified sports was always something I really wanted to do, but unified sports happened the year after I graduated high school, so I wanted to find a way to get involved and luckily ... I was able to step in with Connor as the co-head coach, and it was just really nice to be able to do that. Even against Gray New-Gloucester I think they shut us out in all games the last time we played them, but we won a handful of matches today and we’ve just really learned more about the rules of the game and creating the amount of force on your throws. I’m really proud of them; they did a great job today.”

Dolan said sportsmanship will stand out when she reflects about this season. There were a lot of teams that Windham mixed and mingled players and partners in and out and she believes that it is a really important piece of social interaction involving different kids from different places; this was her favorite thing about the season. Windham was really standing behind the seniors and making it a special day for their senior game; they are going to miss Colby, Talia, Jacob and TJ.

Congratulations are in order for Colby Schmid, TJ McAllister, junior Mary Jean O’Brion, freshman Tristan Stanley, junior Jack Shirley, freshman Maddi Small and Jacob Smith on another great season of fun and good sportsmanship. <