Knight Time Baseball

Josh Finkle ~ October 3, 2019

The fall sports season is normally for soccer or football, but not anymore for the twelve boys on the Upper Valley Knights fall baseball team. The team selected players from Blue Mountain Union, Oxbow, Thetford Academy, Rivendell, Littleton High School, and Woodsville High School, to create the best roster they could.

Most of the team is balancing school, football/soccer, and baseball this fall which is difficult for some as not everyone has been to every game. The team plays twelve games, doubleheaders every Sunday for six weeks. The games are played in Pittsfield NH, Manchester NH, and Winnisquam High School in Tilton NH. The league is put on by the Concord Sports Center. There are teams from southern New Hampshire to Northern Vermont. It is for players in grades nine through twelve.

The Knights are in eighth place in the standings at 4-4 with four games left before the playoffs. This weekend the team plays at 1:00 and 3:00 at Winnisquam high school against the Cannons-Brandt who are in fourteenth place with only one win. The final doubleheader will be played on Sunday, October 13th which is one week the before the playoffs. The Knights won both games by a large margin on October 6th, as the Cannons fired a blank.

Sunday, October 13th was a great day for the organization as they won both games 5-0 and 9-1. The team finished 8-4 and they are the three seed in the gold bracket for playoffs. Playoffs are Sunday, October 20th at 9 am.

The Knights play the second-best Cannons team out of the three. If they win that they will most likely play the NH Bobcats at 3 pm. The tournament favorites are the 603 River Bandits as they have two pitchers committed to the University of Connecticut, a Division 1 college, and they throw ninety miles an hour plus, with one topping ninety-five.

The Knights, on the other hand, have no one topping eighty miles an hour. The playoffs will be an uphill battle but, head coach Patrick Burnett has nothing but the utmost confidence in the squad.

It was a cold but fun-filled Sunday for The Knights as they finished the season on Sunday, October 20th at Winnisquam High School on the lower field. The finish was not what they wanted but they are still proud of how far they went. The Knight ended up losing to the Cannons 6-1 as they were without their two studs on the mound and at the plate. It was a heartbreaking loss for a season that went so well.

The memories they made will last a lifetime and The Knights hope to be back and better next season. They will be losing five seniors and have a good core coming back, but they will need to do some recruiting to get to the top next year. The Champions of the Concord Sports Center fall baseball league were the 603 Bandits in the Gold Division, Winnisquam in the Silver Division and, Northern Lakes in Bronze.

Halloween is Here Again!

Stephen Lucas ~ October 3, 2019

Halloween is one of the biggest holidays of the year, and it makes everyone excited. There are some activities such as senior dress up day and the pumpkin walk that happen every year. The senior dress-up day is a tradition at LHS where, as it says in the name, the seniors dress up for Halloween and wear costumes around the school.

Halloween every year is an event where there are multiple things you can do on the date, such as staying home and watching scary movies, going trick or treating, or just buying candy and eating it until you feel ill. Many students are talking about Halloween and what they are going to do. Not many people are going to be going trick or treating but either staying home and doing nothing or watching a scary movie.

Some traditions for Halloween involve making Jack o’ lanterns, which a lot of people do for the littlest part of Halloween. Mariah Stillings, a junior at Littleton High School, said "I don't have any plans. I most likely am going to be staying home. I haven't gone out to trick or treat in years because I feel like I have grown out of it, but I would still like to get candy like I used to get." When asked about carving Jack o’ lanterns, Mariah said "My family every year has done them, so this year we most likely will, but as of right now, I am not sure what I would do." Her feelings for Halloween were as sweet as the candy she thinks about. "I still really like it a lot because I like how it makes everyone feel, and I love to get candy because my mom will get a big bowl of candy and leave it out for my family to eat whenever."

A little history on Halloween is that it started from an ancient Celtic Harvest Festival. They used old potatoes, rutabagas, and turnips to carve faces on them and place lights into them to ward off the spirit named “Jack”. This has since evolved into the better version where people use pumpkins and decorate them for fun instead of warding off evil spirits, but still quality time with one’s family.

My plans for Halloween are that my family and I are going to be getting pumpkins to carve pretty soon. I do not know what I am planning on making, but I always do when the time comes. For the night of Halloween, I am going to be staying home and watching a scary movie instead of trick or treating.

Students at Littleton High School express the general consensus that they will not be going out to trick or treat but will be with family or friends. Halloween still makes a buzz around the school, and many students are excited about it.

PSAT Testing Blankets LHS

Austin Marquis ~ October 3, 2019

On Wednesday, October 16, every junior in New Hampshire, along with the other 1.6 million in America, will be taking the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test or PSAT. The test is practice for the SAT that they will take next year as a senior and is also used as one of the determining factors for National Merit Scholarships, which awards $180 million each year.

The PSAT consists of four sections: evidence-based reading, writing and language, math without a calculator, and math with a calculator. You are allotted 2 hours and 45 minutes to complete all 138 questions. You are given an answer sheet, test booklet, a calculator, and a number 2 pencil as well. In 2019 a decent PSAT score is 460 for Evidence-Based Reading and Writing, and for math, it's 510. If you want to be in the top 1%, you would have to score a 680 for EBRW and a 720 for math.

In order to meet this mark, you should be practicing. Your school should supply you with a practice booklet. Once you complete that, there's tons of online practice test that you can do, taking a practice test can help identify what you need to work on, and then you can study those topics. Practicing consistently is crucial and can help increase your score dramatically. If you are really struggling in one subject, you should ask a trusted teacher for help.

After taking the PSAT, I interviewed some of my classmates to see what they thought about it. Many students said that it was too long, but a couple disagreed, saying that they didn't have enough time to complete some sections. Many students said they were unprepared and that they struggled in the math portion.

Everyone said that there were not enough breaks in-between parts and that the seats were very comfortable to be sitting in for nearly three hours. Some students suggested that taking them in the library and DLC room would have been much better. After finishing the test, the office allowed some students to be dismissed while others weren't. This angered some students because they knew that for the rest of the day, they didn't have any more work to do.

This year at LHS, sophomores took the PSAT, and the freshmen took the PSAT9 for the first time. They are now taking these tests because the school wants to prepare them better and also because it never hurts to practice. I asked some underclassmen on their opinions of the PSAT and PSAT9. Many of them said that it was boring, and they found it pointless. However, one of the students said that they found it fun and that they kind of enjoyed taking it. To put it bluntly, many students disliked the PSATs for multiple reasons.

The PSAT has been around for over 20 years now, and even if many students hate it, it's been proven that it helps increase your SAT score. So, in conclusion, the PSAT is a great test and should be taken very seriously.