June was a busy month for everyone, but particularly for Brie, who finished off her career at Acton Boxborough Regional High School as Captain of the Girls' Varsity tennis team. She graduated from ABRHS June 5th and is heading to RPI mid-August. Graduation is, of course, surrounded by a number of activities. The Senior Prom washeld at Gillette Stadium.  Brie and her friends rented a Limo.  The number of hours of prep work going into Brie's hair, nails, dress, and everything else rivaled the planning for the Big Dig but worked out much better in the end.

Tennis, however, was still in swing, with the Division 1 North Sectional matches.  There are four state sections for each Division. Div 1 North being the strongest.  The winners of each section go on to compete in the State Finals for their Division.  Below, Will and his doubles partner Jay score a point.

There was also an opportunity to visit Bill, SangOk, Andy and Dani, since Andy is on summer break from Rochester Institute of Technology.  Dani will be attending University of Rochester in the fall, so they will be near each other even though they are at different schools.

Another ABRHS tradition is the scholarship awards ceremony, where local scholarships totaling around $190,000 dollars are handed out.  Brie and Matt Ford (from the Boy's Varsity Tennis team) were awarded Tennis scholarships.

And sectionals are still going on; below, the boys beat Andover in the semifinals.  The Girls were playing an equal number of games, of course, and pretty much dominated through the semifinals.

And then there is the actual graduation ceremony, done on a overcast Friday that threatened to rain on the parade (so to speak). 

And then, sectional finals for Division 1 North, Girls vs. Westford Academy, Boys vs. the ABRHS' (and coach Kevin Curley's) arch nemesis for the past few years, Concord-Carlise.  Both the boys' and girls' teams, for the first time, played at the same location and time, which let Kate and Dave spend time watching both; Brie and Will were within one court of each other.  Will decisively won his match with his double's partner, Jay, and was one of the first ones off the court. Unfortunately, the Boys lost to CC 2-3, taking Will's match and second singles but losing the other three despite a serious effort by everyone involved.  The girls team split four of the five matches rather quickly, two wins, two losses, leaving the final decision of who would be the Division 1 North champion to Brie and her partner, Melissa.  Their match lasted almost four hours, and in the end, Brie and Melissa won, giving AB Girl's Varsity tennis their second Division 1 North victory in their entire history (the prior one was last year).

 

   This is a video of the sectional finals (just click on the picture)... it's fourteens minutes long, starting with team introductions, moving to warmups, the games, and the awards presentations.

You need decent internet bandwidth or this will take some time to load!


The Division 1 North Champions
And below, the Tennis Banquet, another tradition for both teams.  Kate has helped organize it the last few years.  On the personal front, Brie received the "Spirit" award and Will was named the Captain for the Boy's Varsity tennis team for next year (being a Captain as a Junior is unusual; being a solo captain is very unusual... the girl's team named FIVE co-captains for the next year).