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Unified Athletics Roundup: MIAA Coach of the Year, ARHS banner school, and more

by Beth Melo on

For those of you not familiar, Unified sports bring together people with and without disabilities to play and compete alongside each other. Two recent Unified stories worth sharing, prompted me to round up a few more from earlier this year.


Community Advocate – Assabet hosts unified track sectional meet – May 28, 2019

Hundreds of students from 19 area high schools including Hudson, Algonquin, Shrewsbury, Grafton and Westborough filled Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School’s Aztec stadium May 23 for this year’s central sectional unified track meet hosted by Special Olympics Massachusetts.

A long running partnership between Special Olympics and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA), unified track programs span 81 communities across the state and offer students with and without disabilities the chance to compete alongside one another. After four respective regular season meets, the 19 teams of the Central Massachusetts division gathered at Assabet for the first of two postseason meets, with the state championship following just a week later. (click here for full story with pictures, below is the Facebook post)

Hundreds of students from 19 area high schools including Hudson, Algonquin, Shrewsbury, Grafton and Westborough filled…

Posted by Community Advocate Newspaper on Wednesday, May 29, 2019

 
It looks like at least one of Algonquin’s team members went on to states from there, based on this instagram post from Algonquin’s school paper, The Harbinger:

 

 
 
 
 
 
View this post on Instagram
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Unified track member Sofia Roumiantsev was surrounded by support on her teams way to the state championship 🏆

A post shared by The Algonquin Harbinger (@arhsharby) on


The following stories are all from The Harbinger:

Hausmann wins Unified Track Coach of the Year award – May 28, 2019

Unified track head coach Kevin Hausmann was named Unified Track Coach of the Year for Massachusetts.

“I was completely shocked,” Hausmann said. “Someone had nominated me and I just care a lot about this sport, and I always have but it’s not really clear who had nominated me.”

Hausmann was chosen out of 65 other teams in the state. This award acknowledged Hausmann’s love, dedication and tremendous time commitment that he has shown for years to this program.

“I work very hard at it and it was just a complete honor to have that effort be recognized,” Hausmann said. (click here for full story)

Algonquin’s Athletics department tweeted pics from the ceremony:

Unified track creates new personal records against Westborough – May 17, 2019

Encouraging teammates and overwhelming support led Unified Track to have a successful meet against Westborough on May 9. The majority of the athletes beat their personal records, which is the team’s main goal. (click here for full story)

Unified basketball recognized for inclusivity at the state, national level – March 27, 2019 

The unified basketball team received two awards this past season, earning recognition at both the state and national level.

The team won the MIAA Educational Athletics Achievement Award for Community Service and was recognized, along with the unified track team, when Algonquin was named a National Banner School by Special Olympics US. Both awards were presented during halftime at the varsity boys’ basketball game on Feb. 8. (click here for full story)

On that same story, here’s a tweet with pics from photographer Jeff Slovin:

Apparently, Special Olympics tweeted the news about the National Banner School back in September:

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