St Sebastians School - Arrow Yearbook (Newton, MA)

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SCHOOL CAGE New Electric Installations Give the Gym an Added Attractiveness. floor of the Boston Garden for the first time. The occasion was a Catholic school triple-header in which we were called upon to meet St. Columbkil1e's of Brighton, a team that we had matched baskets with for the past few years, but they had always managed to nose us out. Our first marker came on Hilt Collupy's successful conver- sion of a free try and that set us off on the right foot. When the first quarter ended with the teams deadlocked at 8 all, it was evident that the battle would be a nip and tuck affair that could go either way. In the second chapter, the Green clad warriors managed to build up a 15-13 advantage, but that was erased shortly after halftime and we took a commanding lead, never to be headed. Head man in our attack was Hilt Collupy who, after a mediocre five-point first half, came back strong to swish in six baskets from the floor and make good four out of five free tries. Although he was well shaken up by a bad fall early in the game, Bob McNabb was chief assistant to Hilt and his 7 points were the margin of our victory. To complete the tabulation, Captain jack Cremmen and Freshman Joe Shea sank a basket apiece and Sam Hefier added a sin- gleton that made the final score 33-26 in our favor. We chose a good day to put on a demonstration of our scoring power, for all the Boston papers had a reporter present and the next morning they all paid tribute to Collupy's 21 points that made him high scorer of the triple-header program. In ad- dition, john Aherne of The Globe de- voted his feature article in the evening edi- tion to a brief history of Basketball at St. Sebastian's and spoke of our rise as a hoop power. Crowning the article was a splen- did picture of a Red and Black trio, Bill Harwood, Coach Murphy and jack Crem- men, which had been taken the previous day at the Garden. The victory at the Garden and the result- ant publicity acted as a tonic that helped us to a win over St. Clement's of Somerville in our next engagement. In the first round, both quintets played a rather conservative game that made the 4-2 score resemble a

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T is rather with reluctance that school- boy athletes bid farewell to the grid- iron in mid-November and face the pros- pect of the long Winter that must inter- vene before the playing field becomes a diamond. Here at St. Sebastian's, however, Winter's aspect is made considerably bright- er by the anticipation of indoor fand there- fore certainl Hockey at the Skating Club, and by the advent of the Basketball season which converts our spacious cage into a lengthy court for the hoop game. Unlike many other schools, we take up the slack in the sports' cycle by calling out the bas- keteers as soon as the moleskins are put away, and the result is that we are able to get the competitive season under way even before the Christmas vacation. While its rival attraction, Hockey, draws many more candidates than Basketball, the court game always has its own loyal following among those who are surer-footed on dirt or wood than they would be on ice. When Coach Murphy issued the call for all aspiring hoopsters to report for the 1946- 47 season, it was with rather serene optim- ism that he viewed the season ahead of the Red and Black. The preceding year had witnessed the emergence of St. Sebastian's into Grade A court competition, and, from the team that had come through the rigors of that season, graduation had severed only one regular, Captain Dan Sullivan. To lead his new quintet he had Captain jack Crem- men, an outstanding guard who could qual- ify for any prep school team, and in addi- tion he had the experienced services of Bob W5 tial ,Z McNabb, last year's high scorer, Bill Har- wood, a tower of defensive strength, and Hilton Collupy, a polished jump-man. From the j.V.'s of the year before, he knew that he could count on Bob Kelly and Frank Kett to give a good account of themselves and he welcomed the assistance of candi- dates like Andy McAuliffe, johnny Ellard, Dick Watson, Tom Hartnett and Hugh Bradshaw. With a pre-season scrimmage against Browne and Nichols under their belts, our cagers opened the new season here in our own gym on December 6th against Our Lady's of Newton, a local school that has always had a fine Basketball tradition. Hugh Bradshaw started in Dan Sullivan's old slot, but, except for that lone novelty, the rest of the team was the same as that which wore the Red and Black in '45-'46. The contest started off evenly enough with McNabb and Collupy Ending the range early. At the quarter, the 6-6 score was surprisingly low, but in the second period the visitors began to pull away and at half time they led us 16-9. After the rest period we came back to outpoint them 13-12 in the second half, but their edge in the second chapter had done the damage and we had to accept a 28-22 final verdict against us. McNabb and Collupy emerged with four baskets apiece to pace our efforts, while Cremmen added another along with a foul try that was imi- tated by Bradshaw, Kelly and Hefler. The following Tuesday we were quite flattered to find ourselves playing on the

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tight Baseball struggle, but the second pe- riod saw us driving harder with the result that we held an 18-6 halftime lead. As events turned out, it was fortunate for us that we had turned on the heat early, be- cause St. Clement's came fast towards the end and our final margin of 54-29 was not too comfortable. High scorer of the day was Bob McNabb with 14 points, ably sec- onded by Collupy's ll. From the guard slots, jack Cremmen added 4 markers, while Bill Harwood sank his first basket of the year. Diminutive Bob Kelly accounted for the remaining 3 to close out the day's ac- counts. In the free try department we failed to cash in on our opportunities, for the scor- er's records credited us with only 2 suc- cesses in 11 attempts. An experiment with evening Basketball was next on the schedule, and, after super- vised study and supper at the School, we set out for Waltham to take on a powerful St. Mary's quintet. That they were a po- tent aggregation was not too evident in the first half, for we held them to a 19-11 tally, but in the later periods they really went to town while we were sagging at the seams. When the final gong sounded, we were on the short end of a 47-14 count, and the best that we could show was a 4 point total by both Collupy and Cremmen. The other six registers were divided equally among Mc- Nabb, Harwood and Hook. To account for the debacle we could only say that our bas- keteers did not have the elbow room that they had been used to in our cage, and the close quarters on the floor evoked so many fouls against us early in the game that our style of play was considerably cramped. The Christmas recess began at the close of school on December 20th and that occa- sion in years past was always marked by a banquet and entertainment. This year it was decided to substitute a feature Basket- ball game for the entertainment, and ac- cordingly Boston College High School was invited to provide the opposition for the Red and Black. Because it was the first ath- letic contest ever played at St. Sebastian's at night, the parents of our students were afforded an opportunity of inspecting the new lighting installations in our cage and, despite the blizzard which began at 7 o'clock, more than 400 spectators were on hand for the contest. While it was a fore- gone conclusion that B. C. High carried too many guns for us, the visitors had their troubles getting started and two early bas- LAST MINUTE INSTRUCTION Left to right: Bob McNabb, Bill Harwood, Coach Murphy, jack Cremmen, Hilton Collupy.