Pentucket senior Holly Jakobsons certainly knows what time of year it is.
Primarily a defensive specialist, Jakobsons is turning it on offensively at just the right time.
In the Division 3 North quarterfinals against Swampscott, Jakobsons scored a season-high 14 points and, last night in the 58-48 semifinal victory over St. Mary's of Lynn, she scored 11, her second highest output of the season.
Moreover, she scored Pentucket's first nine points of the game.
"I just have more confidence going into the tournament," said Jakobsons. "The adrenaline gets me going."
Whatever the reason, Pentucket coach John McNamara is certainly pleased with the development.
"Holly's been shooting the ball well and stepping up for us," said McNamara. "I hope she keeps it up."
Preparing to rebound
Pentucket star Ashley Viselli remembered the Sachems' 57-45 victory over St. Mary's back in January, so she knew what to prepare for.
"We know that (St. Mary's 6-foot-1 center) Tori (Faieta) can be tough to handle, so I worked during practice on rebounding and being physical," said Viselli.
The preparation worked as Viselli finished the game with 15 rebounds as well as five blocks.
Faieta (21 points, 16 rebounds) incidentally, is hearing impaired and usually can't hear the whistle. She recently became the first player in St. Mary's history to record 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds.
Sachem's crazies
They're not yet as vocal and unorthodox as Central Catholic's crazies, but Pentucket's student body is working on it.
Several hundred Pentucket students, mostly clothed in green, sat together and cheered wildly in last night's victory. All dressed up and leading the cheers were members of the Pentucket football team, including Marc Lovett, Mike Doud and Cam Spofford.
Central's young guns
The best may be yet to come for the Central Catholic hockey team, which returns nearly every impact player from this year's team, which was ousted the yesterday in the Division 1 North semifinal.
"We have a lot of very good young players who did great things this season," said Central head coach Mike Jankowski, whose club finished up 3-4-2 after a 12-2-1 start.
Sophomore Tommy Evangelista (20 goals) and junior Johnny Daniels (15 goals) along with freshman Mike Keller (four postseason goals) are impact players. Also back is goalie Kyle Williams, another sophomore, and his 1.55 goals-against average and junior forward Nick Leonard and sophomore forward Ryan Daigle.
"Hopefully this is a great place to start next season," said Jankowski.
The enforcer
Nick Leonard is known as a finesse player, but he didn't play like one last night.
He knocked an Arlington Catholic forward clear off his skates and into the boards.
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