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Boston Globe
28-05-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
Westford's Maddie Smith wins friendly over Concord-Carlisle's Erika Redmond at MIAA North/Central/West golf sectional
Maddie Smith (left) is congratulated by friend and opponent Erika Redmond after winning the individual title at the MIAA North/Central/West sectional by one stroke. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe A friend broke the news after the round that Smith, who shot a 2-over-par 74, won the individual title and Redmond's 75 score was good for second place. Advertisement 'We're great friends,' Smith said. 'We play a lot of tournaments over the summer together. We're on the US National Development team for Massachusetts together. We play a lot of golf together. It's always a great time. So I was, honestly, when I looked at the tee sheet and saw I was playing with her, I was really excited.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Concord-Carlisle senior Erika Redmond went 3-over to finish second. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe Redmond and Smith played in the fall for their respective schools during the boys' golf season. Smith, whose sisters golf at Central Florida (Molly) and Georgia (Morgan), earned an The pair even teed off at The Haven during the boys' state tournament, aiding their performance Wednesday, even though the distances were longer and the pins were in different locations seven months ago. Advertisement 'It's definitely a completely different game,' Redmond said. Wellesley golfers (from left) Jenna Saini, Alika Lavu, Denise Pan, and Ruby Savarese teamed up to win the North/Central/West girls' golf sectional championship at The Haven Country Club in Boylston. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe On the team side, Wellesley won with a combined score of 358. Wachusett finished second (373) and Nashoba Regional (399) was third, edging out fourth-place Hopkinton's 400 for the final team spot at the state meet. Wellesley won it without placing a golfer in the top 15. Alika Lavu and Denise Pan tied for 16th with matching scores of 86, and Jenna Saini and Ruby Savarese both carded 93s. Related : 'We are lucky that we have a group of girls at the high school that really want to play golf,' Wellesley coach Ken Bateman said. 'We've had that for a number of years, and we kind of justbuild on that each year.' There will be 37 golfers and six schools, Wellesley's Denise Pan tees off on the fifth hole on her way to a tie for 16th place. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe Westfield's Lauren Connor finished fifth with a 6-over 78. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe Ruby Savarese helped Wellesley win the team title with her 93. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe Wellesley's Alika Lavu kicks up some turf as she follows through on a tee shot on the 17th hole. She finished at 14-over in a tie for 16th place. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe
Boston Globe
17-05-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
Eastern Mass. boys' volleyball: Globe Players of the Week for May 8-15
Liam Quinn , Chelmsford — Putting up 26 kills, 10 digs, and 6 blocks, the Merrimack-bound senior came up big in Anthony Rubim , Greater Lawrence — Dealing 45 assists, reaching 1,000 for his career, and clinching at least a share of the conference title were part of the junior's day to remember in Advertisement Brookline's Alec Smagula sets the ball during a Bay State Conference match against Natick at Brookline High School on Tuesday, May 6, 2025. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe Alec Smagula , Brookline — The junior recorded 15 of his 35 assists in the third set of a sweep against Needham, in a week that saw the Warriors finish the gauntlet of top Bay State Conference matches with just one loss, putting them on the brink of clinching the conference title. Obi Umeh , Acton-Boxborough — The senior popped 18 kills and five blocks as the Revolution won a four-setter over Newton South. He added 11 in a sweep of Milford. ACTON, 5/29/2024 - Obi Umeh (4) of Acton-Boxborough and Jayden Pelletier of St. John's Prep (1) during A-B's victory over St. John's Prep in a Division 1 first-round volleyball match. JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE (Sports, Traub) JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE/Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe AJ Traub can be reached at
Boston Globe
17-05-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
North Andover boys and girls race to repeat titles at MSTCA Division 2 relays
A crucial 7 points from North Andover's 'B' team were the difference Friday night at Bridgewater-Raynham, as the Scarlet Knights (84 points) outlasted Peabody (78) and Chelmsford (67) North Andover's Chris Ferris supplied points in the shuttle hurdles and a win in the pole vault for the victorious Scarlet Knights. Ken McGagh for the Boston Globe 'This is our favorite meet of the year,' North Andover boys' coach Steve Nugent said. 'This is one we can take as many guys as we want to. It's something that we circle on the calendar first. It's something that's really important to our team culture.' Advertisement 'We have faith in the boys and all the work we put in,' said North Andover senior Brendan Dee. 'We really weren't sure what was going on with the score, but it was a lot of camaraderie. This was a really great coming-together moment for our team. I think we all rallied around each other,' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Related : Dee — along with Trevor Hunter, Aidan McGarry, and Josh Quijada — helped North Andover to a first-place finish in the 4x200-meter relay (1:29.75). The Scarlet Knights added third-place finishes in the 4x100 (43.60) and 4x1600 (18:42.55) relays, and pole vaulter Chris Ferris placed atop the field. 'Everyone is working hard at practice every single day,' said NA senior Ethan Jacques. 'We're competing, getting better. That really showed today. Everybody came today and performed their best – even if they were on the 'B' team. We know everyone has a chance to score, and we believe in them.' Advertisement North Andover's Aidan McGarry clears a hurdle in the 110 shuttle relay. Ken McGagh for the Boston Globe For the North Andover girls — 'This was a nice one,' said NA girls' coach Rick DelleChiaie. 'In a meet like this, you're looking at all the events total, and one place makes all the difference in the world. Our 'B' team in the hurdles … there's the difference right there. The girls did a great, great job. What a meet.' North Andover's Juliana Yankowsky clear the high jump during the MSTCA Division 2 relays. Ken McGagh for the Boston Globe Luna Prochazkova, Hannah Shea, Julia Kroon, and Nicole Kroon came together to win the 4x1600 relay (22:30.19), with teammates Sophia Bowman, Mia Kmiec, Whitney Smith, and Eleanor Gosselin finishing atop the field in the 4x100 shuttle hurdles (1:06.87). 'As a senior, I only have three races left. So, I've been really focusing on my gratefulness for this sport and my team,' said Shea. 'I'm really just trusting my other three members in the relays. I'm having so much fun. I think that's really helped us win, and that's awesome.' Added teammate Laura Packard: 'We win as a team, we lose as a team. And tonight, we won as a team.' Peabody's Jayden Lopez comes in for a landing in the long jump. Ken McGagh for the Boston Globe
Boston Globe
10-05-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
Eastern Mass. boys' volleyball: Globe Players of the Week for May 1-8
Related : Shawn LaDuke , Methuen — Behind the senior's 55 assists, the Rangers won a five-setter to split their season series against Merrimack Valley rival Chelmsford. Metheun's Shawn LaDuke (right) dished a whopping 55 assist in a five-set win over Chelmsford. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe Michael Najjar , Central Catholic — The junior racked up 20 assists, 12 service points, and 3 aces to put the Raiders in the win column, sweeping a nonconference match with Essex Tech. Peter Reale , Newton North — Smacking 18 kills as a middle, the junior powered the Tigers over Milford in a 3-1 nonleague decision. Advertisement AJ Traub can be reached at
Boston Globe
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
There's a new Ground Round in Shrewsbury. We went to see what it's like.
Advertisement 'We were trying to control it, but once word got out that we were open, there were people pounding at the door,' says Joe Shea, who is reviving the Ground Round brand with his wife, Nachi Shea. (Right now they are focusing on Shrewsbury, without plans to expand.) 'It became a not-so-soft opening. We've been packed. There are people outside at 3:30 waiting, and we're slammed at 4.' Get Winter Soup Club A six-week series featuring soup recipes and cozy vibes, plus side dishes and toppings, to get us all through the winter. Enter Email Sign Up Customers on the waitlist mingle outside the new Ground Round in Shrewsbury. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe So what's it like to have dinner at the Ground Round again? We went to Shrewsbury to find out. It's a Tuesday evening, but it might as well be Saturday, given the dinnertime crowd. 'It'll be 40 minutes for a table,' says Nachi, seating parties at the host station. 'Is that OK?' After all these years, what's 40 minutes more? She gives us a buzzer and we settle in to wait. Advertisement The restaurant smells right: golden and buttery, eau de cineplex. Joe stands beside a glass popper, handing out baskets lined with green-checked tissue paper and filled with fluffy piles of bright yellow popcorn. The carpet has a geometric floral motif with yellow accents that match the detritus of an evening's worth of snacking. The end-of-the-night vacuuming must be epic. Ground Round employee Daniel Lima, 15, dispenses free popcorn, a hallmark of the original Ground Round restaurants. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe The soundtrack hasn't changed since the last time we were here, even if the steady stream of what are now oldies is delivered from a jukebox app accessed by an on-screen QR code. And the crowd's pretty similar, too: families, couples, friends, and teammates squeezing into booths in the dining room or perched at the bar watching a game. This Ground Round has a New Hampshire cabin vibe, with log beams and walls and a stone fireplace with a chimney that reaches toward the high ceiling. A rustic metal chandelier glows overhead. It's classier than the Ground Rounds I recall. Maybe that's why the kids seem less crazed and more contained: As little hellions, we ran rampant at Ground Round birthday parties, absolutely lit on soda, throwing now-illicit peanuts all over the floor. Now, there's just a little gentle frolicking, perfectly wholesome and adorable. When departing children reach their hands into a bowl of after-dinner Andes mints and their parents shout 'justonejustonejustonejustone!,' they actually seem to listen. We would have laughed and crammed whole handfuls into our mouths, wrappers and all. The parents seem better behaved, too. It's worth noting here that beer isn't sold by the pitcher anymore. A plate of steak tips and a turkey wrap with onion rings at the Ground Round. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe We eat free popcorn until our mouths are as dry as the Sahara and watch the classic cartoons — 'The Pink Panther,' 'Tom and Jerry' — that still play on screens in the dining room. Before we know it, our buzzer is buzzing. Advertisement The menu is filled with comfort food classics: warm pretzels with cheese sauce and fried mozzarella moons with marinara, soups and salads, burgers made with a custom beef blend, pasta. The bestsellers have been the cheeseburger, steak tips, and fish and chips, the Sheas say. There are some obvious nods to modern sensibilities: Soba with stir-fried vegetables and grilled tofu wasn't on any Ground Round menu I ever saw. 'It's a new age,' Nachi says. 'Food tastes have changed a little bit. People's palates and dietary needs and awareness have changed. We're making sure things are more elevated, a little healthier and less processed.' Executive chef Shannon Woodward and team make things from scratch rather than relying on frozen, prepackaged food. Steak tips are hand-cut; microgreen garnishes bloom on the plates. We get an order of bone-in wings in Gold Fever sauce, a la the 99. It appears to have everything remotely barbecue sauce-related in it: mustard, ketchup, vinegar, seasonings, sweet stuff, spicy stuff, smoky stuff. Obviously, these wings are gone in five seconds. The lodge-like interior of the new Shrewsbury Ground Round is reflected in a scale at the rear of the restaurant. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe The menu says the broccoli cheddar soup is a fan favorite, so we order a crock of that, too. It tastes like broccoli with cheese sauce, but in reverse proportions, with oyster crackers. It seems wrong not to have an iceberg lettuce salad on the table, but those days are behind us. There's a Cobb salad that looks pretty good, though. It's got grilled marinated chicken, gorgonzola, grape tomatoes, avocado, bacon, and more. Advertisement We order the Ground Rounder, a half-pound burger with beer cheese, bacon, and fried pickles on a grilled pretzel bun. If it's named for the restaurant, it's got to be good, right? Not wrong, but we're left wanting more of the beer-cheese sauce, which is made with Ground Round lager (crisp, refreshing, $5 a pint!). It has soaked into the bun and vanished. Next time, we'll try the classic cheeseburger. The fish and chips is a portion that could feed three people, golden battered fish draped over a pile of French fries, adorned with lemon wedges and more microgreens. It comes with coleslaw, plus tartar sauce and ketchup for dipping. And the steak tips are the star of the show, cooked a perfect medium-rare. They come with mashed potatoes and green beans, but my son has ordered the dish, and our server knows her target audience: She used to work at the old Ground Round in Shrewsbury, she tells us. She offers him fries instead, and he is pleased. There's an old-timey scale at the back of the Ground Round, but it's hard to imagine the return of the 'kids pay what they weigh' promotion, which charged 12-and-unders a penny a pound and traumatized a generation. Speaking of trauma, a mascot-like figure named Bingo the Clown has been retired altogether. 'The clown … I don't know if it was a full mascot, but it made appearances. We got mixed feedback on that, with people leaning toward it scared them as kids,' says Joe. (Don't do Advertisement A patron enjoys the classic Ground Round baseball cap sundae. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe But nostalgia unfurls its full glory when it comes to desserts. Yes, you can get an ice cream sundae in an upended plastic baseball helmet! Also the Ooey Gooey Flower Pot, chocolate pudding with crushed cookie 'dirt,' whipped cream, and gummy worms, served in a flower pot with a mini plastic shovel for a spoon. And nostalgia is what the Ground Round is really all about. The restaurant originally opened as an alternative to Howard Johnson's, when that business's traffic tanked along with highway travel during the 1973 oil embargo. 'With a turn-of-the-century atmosphere, these sell nostalgia and nightly musical entertainment along with peanuts in shells and pitchers of beer. Ground Round is everybody's idea of what life was like when grandpa was young,' reads a Forbes article from 1978. We're talking about a different turn of the century, but the rest rings true. The moment is right. We can go back again. Thankfully, Bingo the Clown won't be joining us. 271 Grafton St., Shrewsbury, 508-845-9044, . Sun-Thu 4-11 p.m., Fri-Sat 4 p.m.-1 a.m. (kitchen closes at 9). Reservations for 6 or more. Appetizers $8-$16, entrees $15-$36, kids menu $10, desserts $6-$10, cocktails $9-$14. The Ground Round Hound high-fives Sal Stevens, 4, of Marlborough, at the new Ground Round restaurant in Shrewsbury. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe Devra First can be reached at
