By Dom Nicastro

The Revere High School girls track team backed up their undefeated league championship season with a massive win at the Greater Boston League championship meet on Friday, Feb. 2.

Revere scored 106.33 points, ahead of second-place Medford (91).

“There were PRs left and right and so many strong performances,” Revere coach Racquel MacDonald-Ciambelli said.

Liv Yuong was the top scorer (30 points) and the GBL champion in three events (55-meter hurdles, high jump and long jump). She clocked new PRs in the 55-meter hurdles (9.57) and in the indoor long jump (15-07.75). She will be headed to states now in both the high jump and 55-meter hurdles.

“All of these events overlapped and Liv was still able to give her all in each of them,” MacDonald-Ciambelli said. “Great prep as she works towards school records in the long jump and pentathlon.”

Gemma Stamatopoulos was the second top scorer with 26 total points. She was the champion in the 600-meter with a new state auto-qualifying PR (1:47.11) and was the champion in the 2-mile. She also squeezed in a third-place in the high jump with a new PR of 4-8.

“Gemma truly has such a strong competitive mentality and is so eager to get out there and race,” MacDonald-Ciambelli said. “Each race she comes in with a new goal and gets there. Gemma and Liv accounted for more than half of our team’s points total. Absolutely incredible.”

Revere scored massive PRs in the 55-meter dash for Ashley Rodriguez and senior captain Giselle Salvador, who each broke that eight-second mark.

The Patriots had PRs for all three 300-meter runners (Jaliyah Manigo, Danni Hope Randall and Rania Hamdani).

Sophomore Olivia Rupp had a first-place finish in the mile.

“She ran a super strong race considering she was out front from the start and had to run it on her own,” MacDonald-Ciambelli said.

Revere also scored PRs from Gianna Chiodi in the 600-meter, Genevieve Zierten in the mile and 1,000-meter, Basma Sahibi in the 55-meter hurdles (10.94) and Neyla Vranic in the long jump (13-07).

The Patriots scored a huge win from the 4×200-meter relay team, defeating Lynn English by .01 second at the line. This pushes them closer to a state qualifying time and also only one second away from the school record.

“This team came in with a goal this season to top the GBL, and they proved themselves week after week, meet after meet,” MacDonald-Ciambelli said. “This GBL Championship win was so well deserved since I see them work so hard at practice each day. Every single athlete has improved from December, and it is so rewarding to work with them and watch their confidence as student-athletes grow. We will have a few athletes head into some final invitationals as we hope for more state-qualifying times. I’m very confident we will see many more PRs well into February.”

Revere boys win GBL meet

The Revere boys made it a clean sweep at the GBL meet, winning as a team with 124 points ahead of Somerville at 111.

Joao Victor Cunha set a new school record in the 600 meters winning in a time of 1:23:43. This broke a 28-year-old record set by Shane Weiner in 1996.

“JV’s record was almost an afterthought,” Revere coach David Fleming said. “More impressive was his race strategy. Prior, he told his teammates to let the Medford runner lead the race then when JV made his move, they should follow. It resulted in JV winning, Medy Bellemsieh coming in second and Kenan Batic finishing fourth. In the 600 alone, we outscored Somerville, 22-1. That was by far the biggest point differential in any event.”

Allen Hou won the 55-meter dash with a time of 6:65. The new personal record qualified Hou for the 2024 Nike Indoor Nationals in New York City.

“Allen was so mentally tough in this race,” Fleming said. “He actually got off to a poor start, but made a huge move in the middle portion and simply refused to let anyone beat him. This win is a big breakthrough for Allen.”

Richard Vilme won the high jump event with a jump of 6 feet.

“You can’t say enough about Richard,” Fleming said. “He’s a tremendous athlete who battled through a tough competition with a monster 6-foot jump. Also extremely important was Oliver Escobar, who set a new personal record by clearing 5-6 for second place.”

Youness Chahid scored a team-high 16.5 points placing second in the 1,000-meter, third in the mile, and by being part of the winning 4×800 meter relay team in 9:18.32 with Kenan Batic, Edwin Alarcon and Mohammed Fares.

“If he could have, Youness would have run in every race,” Fleming said. “Nobody wants to win more than Youness. He put his heart and soul into his races and helped lead the team to the win. Kenan’s incredibly strong first leg (in the 4×800) put us in a lead that we never gave up. The second leg of the 4×800 was run by sophomore Edwin Alarcon, one of the unsung heroes of the meet. Edwin got spiked during the baton exchange and ran the entire leg with just one shoe. Somehow, he was able to extend our lead.”

The other relay teams were important to the Revere title:

4×200 meters: second place: Bellemsieh, Oliver Escobar, Geo Woodard, Jeremy X.

4×400 meters: first place: Isaiah DeCrosta, Bellemsieh, Yousef Benhamou, Cunha

“Medy Bellemsieh has had an MVP-like season,” Fleming said. “I decided to move Yousef Benhamou out of his usual spot in the 4×200 and into the 4×400. This allowed us to move Kenan Batic into the 4×800, which gave us much more balance.”

Danny Hou, a football standout competing in his first year of track, came in fourth in the long jump with a leap of almost 19 (18-9.25).

Fleming said he knew it was going to be a close one with Somerville for the overall title.

“It was amazing to watch the team come together and pull this out,” Fleming said. “The credit goes to team captains JV Cunha, Medy Bellemsieh, Isaiah DeCrosta, Allen Hou and Kevin Purcifull.”

Revere girls basketball picks up three convincing wins

Revere topped Greater Lowell Tech, 50-30, Everett, 51-30, and Lynn English, 51-37. The Patriots improved to 13-5 overall and 11-2 in the Greater Boston League.

Belma Velic had 15 points and eight rebounds against Greater Lowell Tech. Shayna Smith added 10 points and nine rebounds.

“It was a solid win with great offensive tempo,” Revere coach Ariana Rivera said. “We were able to share the basketball and create open looks. Our discipline defense led to our success on offense.”

Celebrating Senior Night

“It was a great defensive effort across the board,” Rivera said. “We saw a lot of success in our full-court press causing chaos and following it up with some nice transition offense.”

Senior Alisha Jean had 16 points and seven rebounds. Senior Haley Belloise added 11 points and three steals. Senior Bella Stamatopolous had seven points and two steals. Senior Rocio Gonzalez scored two points and pulled down four rebounds, and senior Juliana Bolton came up with some great hustle plays and minutes.

All five girls hit the floor together to start the game and helped propel the hometown squad to a 14-8 lead after one quarter. Everett cut into the lead with a strong second quarter, and Revere went to the half with Revere clinging to a 22-18 lead.

Whatever Coach Rivera told the team at halftime worked, because the girls put up a dominant 17-5 third quarter to extend their lead to 39-23 and the rout was on.

A balanced scoring attack in the period had Shayna Smith and Nisrin Sekkat sticking threes and a plethora of Patriots contributing a bucket apiece including, Belloise, Jean, Gonzalez and Stamatopoulos.

The fourth quarter brought more of the same as Revere doubled up Everett, 14-7, with Belloise contributing eight of those points.

On a tougher note, junior captain Velic left in the third quarter with an ankle injury. She did not return and may miss the next few games, every indication since then has her being ready to go when Revere hits the postseason tournament.

This was Revere’s ninth win out of 10 games at home, with the lone blemish coming against Milton in the finals of last year’s holiday tournament.

Against Lynn English, Belloise had 15 points, nine rebounds and four steals. Marwa Riad added a huge spark off the bench with 13 points and eight rebounds. Jean domined the boards with 13 rebounds, two blocks and two steals.

Revere finishes out the year with two consecutive road games, at Somerville on Feb. 8 and Feb. 9 at Gloucester.

Revere boys hoop picks up win over Greater Lowell

The Revere boys basketball team (5-11) took the long bus ride up to Tyngsborough last Monday night to take on non-league opponent Greater Lowell.

Revere won, 58-49, against a young Gryphons squad. Junior guard Ethan Day had 18 points, six rebounds and five assists. Senior Center Amir Yamani added nine points and eight rebounds, and senior guard Domenic Belmonte added seven points and three steals.

Everett topped Revere, 66-61.

“So proud of our guys,” Revere coach David Leary said. “We were down 12 at half and down 15 mid third, but we never quit. We just ran out of gas.”

Junior guard Avi Lung had a fine night with 20 points, five assists and four steals. Day dropped 15 points and five boards, and senior co-captain Andrew Leone added 13 pts and six rebounds.

Lynn English beat Revere, 77-45. Day scored 22 points and added five boards, and junior guard Josh Mercado added six points and four steals. Revere has its senior night against Somerville Thursday, Feb. 8.