Brown baseball was organized back in 2016, it's been 10 years since it all started. Over the years, the players and team have progressively improved, but when Brown first founded a Baseball team, the records weren't particularly stellar.  However, Brown has been steadily building a successful program. All of the success can be traced to the current players and the coach who made it all come together, Coach Jake Amettis. Now the team is 13-2. This is not only the best record in school history, but it is our first season with a winning record. So what was the road for Brown baseball to get to this point of success, and what can be expected of the team in the future? 

The Lows of Brown Baseball

In Brown's first season, the team went 1-6  only beating Doss 11-10. It’s not unexpected for a team to struggle in its earliest seasons, but this season was particularly rough. Over the next three seasons, the team went a combined 6-22 improving marginally, and  as the first class that started with the team phased out in 2020, the struggles became more severe. . Even worse than the team losing its founding members, the covid-19 pandemic canceled the 2021 season and pushed the team’s progress back a year leading to its worst season ever. The 2021 team went 0-9  not winning a single game for the  season; however, with a new coach (Coach Jake Amettis) the team picked up and climbed back to some mild success. In 2022, the team went 3-9: its best season at the time, and it was only up from that point. With a poised Sophomore and Freshman class, the team achieved its best success ever, going 7-8 in 2023 and 8-10 in 2024. 

The hard road of developing talent and a team that personifies chemistry and work ethic leads into this year, where the team is having unprecedented success for a young program under the innovative leadership of Coach Jake and assistant coaches Jason, Bailey, and Joey.

Brand New Success

The success of the team this season comes from solid pitching, strategic fielding, a smart batting line up, and the chemistry of the team that is committed to growth, not only their own personal stats or victories. This was the first year the team beat some reputable schools like Waggener, Seneca, and Francis Parker along with shutting down their rivals W.E.B Dubois repeatedly and by a large margin. The team currently being 13-2  far exceeds the expectations this team had heading into this year, but it's only been possible because of the efforts this team has put in together led by Oscar Wright to climb the rankings in the state.  Osacar is ranked #1 in the state for on base percentage, 2nd for stolen bases, and 4th for slugging percentage; moreover, he is an excellent pitcher ranking 30th in striking out batters this year.  What’s even more impressive is that he’s only a sophomore. Also, there is an up and coming 8th grader named Quinn Gallagher who starts at shortstop and is ranked 16th in state amongst high school baseball teams at on base percentage.  

Is it Sustainable?

The baseball team is looking really good this season and is looking to have success heading into the playoffs this season and building for the future. With losses of around 6 senior starters the team will need to look to the underclassmen to rebuild but with promising underclassmen like Oscar Wright, Sam Benson and Quinn Gallagher then can look to sustain the success they've gotten. The future looks very promising for Brown not even just baseball but athletics in general and under Jake Amettis will keep improving and rising the state rankings. 

Swimming is not easy. I joined the swim team this 2024-2025 school year. It presented its own challenges and opportunities. When I started swim, I was completely convinced that I was terrible at the sport. But that was only because I was comparing myself to the other swimmers. After I stopped comparing myself to the people who had been swimming since they were seven, I was able to get better at the sport much faster. I decided to ask my other teammates what some of their experiences were the first time they swam just before our first meet of the season. I wanted to make sure my nervousness was  not uncommon. 

I asked them how they felt before their first meet, and about how they felt now. Noah Wilkins, a freshman who previously swam on The Shawnee Swim Team, said he was, “...pretty nervous at his first swim meet, but he wasn’t signed up for anything that he wasn’t prepared for.” He also said that he was, “...feeling great, really excited and prepared.” He wasn’t the only one. Isabella Stiebling (7th) and Emma Brown (8th) had similar responses, saying that while a little nervous, they were not unprepared at their first meet. “We have a pretty great coach,” said Karma Bohler (7th), “he always makes sure that we are ready for the meet, and never pushes us to do something we don’t want to.” Azie Green agreed, adding, “Coach William always watches us individually, and gives us tips, so we can personally improve our stroke. Other coaches will just tell you the same thing over and over again, then get mad when you don’t improve. Our swim coaches don’t do that.” 

I asked the swim team why they chose swim instead of a more common sport like basketball or volleyball. They had some mixed answers, but most said that either they just like to swim, or they had tried out some other sports and decided that swim was the best choice. Personally, I never liked the more traditional sports, so I have always tried to look at other options that many people didn’t play or even know about like rock climbing, axe throwing, roller derby, archery, and golfing. I decided to choose swim this year because I had never swam competitively before, and I had met some of the other teammates at a swim clinic a few weeks prior to school starting. Also, swimming makes you flexible and builds muscles all over the body, where other sports will only build muscle in sections of your body and can make you more stiff as you get older. 

The Brown team is full of strong swimmers who are doing very well at their meets. They haven’t earned worse than 5th place in any meet so far and seem to be averaging 3rd–2nd place for most meets. The Brown Swimming Bears are a really good team whether or not they are in the pool. They always shine with Brown’s four pillars and help each other grow in any way they can.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Vasilellis, Nikos. “Advantages Of Swimming Compared Other Sports.” 

Advantages of Swimming Compared to Other Sports, Nereids Aquatic Coach, 28 Aug. 2019, www.nereids.com.au/blog/advantages-of-swimming-compared-to-other-sports.

With a record of 9 wins and 12 losses as of 2/03/25, the men’s Brown Bears basketball team is still on pace to have one of the most successful seasons in recent school history, and they could have and still could play  better. From a  rocky start, to close games that require  players to step up big time in big moments, and to making it to the All A championship game for the first time in 15 years, it truly has been a wild road to this point of the season. And I’m here to tell you all about it.

Starting with the first 5 games of the season, the team itself looked and was in a very different position than at this moment in time last year. The team was down which is now leading scorer and rebounder Dayton Evans for the first three games, which all ended in losses. Once Evans returned, the team still found it difficult to find its footing, losing the next two games to have a  slow 0-5 start to the year. 

Now for most teams in high school sports, this start to a year would lead to a complete meltdown and also a toxic team culture that would run through the team for the entire 30 game season. Not for this team, though. After getting a confidence boosting first win against Francis Parker at home, they have taken that momentum to go 9 and 3 in their last 12 games, highlighted by wins against Highland Latin and back to back wins against Portland Christian. With this hot streak of games by the team, they find themselves as the 9th best team in the region 7 group, which if the season ended how it sits right now, would be the first time this basketball program ended in top 10 since the 1999-2000 season, 25 years ago.

This team’s history making season doesn’t stop at the record, either. In the week before winter break, this team won the Portland Christian holiday tournament for the first time in school history, with senior Muhammed Seck being named the tournament MVP while junior Sam Valentine and sophomore Dayton Evans being named tournament team members as well. 2 weeks later, this team proceeded to fall short of another tournament win, but still walked away with a 3rd place finish in the Whiteifled holiday tournament, where again Dayton Evans and senior captain Jacob Mattingly being named tournament team members for their performances in the 2 game tournament. Quickly, this team became  productive across the board and throughout the team with having someone new every game stepping up to be the main focal point and the “star of the show” any given night. All stat leaders for this team (excluding assists per game by senior KJ Mitchell) have been rotating all season between multiple players, expanding the point of this team being  tied together like a well oiled machine and multiple people stepping up in key moments.

  All this led to the highly anticipated All A regional tournament. Winning this tournament has been a huge goal for everyone involved with the team, and it was highly contested until the very end. This first game of this tournament was against a Francis Parker team, who was hungry to get a revenge win and upset the hopes of the men’s team in the first round. It was highly contested, high in emotions and came down to the wire. After big momentum plays from both sides, junior Sam Valentine hit a clutch running floater over a Francis Parker defender to take the lead, and after a game icing free throw by KJ Mitchell, the Brown Bears scraped by with a  close win and moved on to the second round of the tournament. Led by leading scorers Valentine and Mitchell, as well as contributions by Evans and junior Cam Sharpe, the Bears avoided a disastrous ending to their ultimate goal. Now in prior years, this second round has been the round that saw the Brown Bears go home the most in this tournament, but this year was different. In a game against a 2nd seeded Highland Latin team, the Bears might have had their best showing all season when it mattered most to that point. Led by a monster performance by the duo of Evans and Mitchell, who had 26 and 19 points respectively. Add on top of that they grabbed 9 rebound together, combining for 10 steals (6 coming from Mitchell and 4 from Evans) as well as Mitchell adding 5 assists in the game, and you have one of the most impressive performances from two players in this school's recent history, in a game that it was needed the most. With Valentine and Sharpe adding 9 and 7 points respectively, the Bears cruised to a 64-48 win and now were playing in their first All A tournament championship since the 2009-2010 season, in which the Bears had also won its one and only All A tournament in school history. Even though the Bears fell to Whitefield Academy in a tough 48-51 loss, they fought through injuries to key contributors and cut the lead to a single point after being down as much as 11 points in the 3rd quarter of the game. It was a disappointing end to what seemed like a destined 1st place tournament finish, but the sheer fact of this team making it to the championship game itself was history making in itself. At the end of the biggest tournament of the season, it was KJ Mitchell and Dayton Evans (who now made it three straight all tournament team selections) who were awarded with top honors of the tournament.

All of what was previously stated above has been done in just 21 games in their 30 game season, so there is still room for more success and even more room for improvement. This fairly young and inexperienced team (in comparison to other high school teams), who is in its first year without its school’s all-time leading scorer has done pretty well for themselves up to this point. After being predicted to be the second to last placed team in the 16 team region in the annual preseason rankings, have done nothing but stayed on their path, through all the ups and downs that have been in their way, and slowly but surely made this already one of the most successful teams in school history when nobody truly believed in them outside of the 13 players, 4 person coaching staff, and the parents/fans of the ones involved.