Photo courtesy of Lifetouch

Senior Jomel Velasquez attempts a shot in a match against Churchill. A strong senior class looks to improve on last year’s results with hopes of a tournament run.

After last year’s satisfactory season, the bocce team is motivated to improve their record and team unity this winter.

The bocce season consists of five regular season games and a regional tournament. The teams that place first or second in regionals will go on to play in a county-wide tournament. The WJ bocce team has yet to make it to counties but O’Connor is hopeful that this year’s season will be better than last year’s.

“Last year’s season was tough. We had no regular season wins for the first time so we were the sixth seed going into divisionals. We beat Churchill, the third seed, in our first game and we ended up coming in fourth,” O’Connor said.

There are a lot of new players joining the team this year and O’Connor hopes the new and old players will work well together and play as a team.

“It’s a very new team this year, I want to get all of them on board and get them to work together and strategize,” O’Connor said.

Seniors Alex Cabrera, Jomel Velasquez and Michael Casey have all played on the team for four years now and will help teach the new players the ins and outs of the game.

Walter Johnson has had a bocce team for over eight years now and yet many people still don’t know what bocce is.

“Bocce is a cross between bowling and shuffleboard. You roll a large ball towards the target which is a smaller ball called a pallino. Points are only awarded to the team with the ball closest to the pallino,” WJ bocce coach Emilia O’Connor said.

Bocce games are open for all students to come and the team would love to have fans and supporters in the crowd. The first game will likely be the week before winter break, but the schedule has not yet been finalized.