Mass Prep Stars Weekly 7-25-14
Welcome to our NEWEST weekly column,
Mass Prep Stars Weekly
We are launching this weekly news and update column this summer and we will be running it on Wednesday's during the school year. We will use this column to post updated athlete news, athlete interviews, links, twitter updates, photos, videos and everything else Mass Prep Stars related. We will use this column to update all four of the sports that Mass Prep Stars covers at the moment (Football, Girls and Boys Basketball, and Boys Lacrosse).
Please feel free to email [email protected] with any athlete news items or athlete features that you would like to see included.
During the school year we will also continue to update our Athlete of the Week, Top weekly performers, Athlete Q & A's, Athlete's Speak, Player Profiles and Athlete Rankings Sections.
We are excited to continue to bring you Mass Prep Star athlete coverage for our sixth year! Our goals remain to continue to help promote, assist and give exposure to Mass Prep Stars Student-Athletes!
Ryan Kilian - Founder and Managing Director of Mass Prep Stars
Football
- Thayer Academy WR Jordan Allen '15 (pictured above left) made his college commitment known this week via twitter as the rising senior chose Fordham university. We caught up with the rising senior after his commitment and he gave us a little insight in to his decision.
"I'm extremely excited about my commitment," Allen told Mass Prep Stars. "I had received the offer from Fordham University back on June 4th from my recruiting coordinator Darin Edwards. After talking to the wide receivers coach on the phone and getting to know their offensive philosophy and pass heavy scheme, it was a easy decision to make. Coach Dupuis (WR Coach) told me that during the past three seasons they have had three wide receivers total over 1,000 receiving yards each. That is a fact almost unheard of. The type of wide receivers that they utilize are just the type of big, physical, fast, high flying receiver, that I am. After speaking with my parents I called Coach Edwards and told him I wanted to commit to Fordham University."
Allen is looking forward to a big senior season and is happy to have his commitment taken care of before the beginning of the 2014 campaign.
"It was a good feeling to be able to commit before senior season," Allen said. "Most players are not able to do that before their senior year. It was a relief because now I can focus on my senior season and training, while working with my team to get the right chemistry down to have a successful season."
Allen was also hearing from Wake Forest, Virginia, Harvard, UNC, Holy Cross, and Boston College before he made his commitment to Fordham.
- We also took in the 2014 Under Armour Northeast 7-v-7 tournament up in Exeter, NH last Saturday. St. John's Prep came away with the regional title, which will advance them and runner-up Tewksbury to the New England Championships on July 30th at Bishop Fenwick High School. Here are some of the athletes that caught our eye this past Saturday.
James Dibenedetto '15 - WR - St. John's Prep - Without a doubt DiBenedetto (pictured on right) was the most pleasant surprise from Saturday. The 6-foot-4 WR looked fabulous running crisp routes, and showing off ability to go up and grab the football, with soft hands.
Jake Burt '15 - TE - St. John's Prep - The Boston College commit displayed sure hands and provided a tough match-up, as his size and burst off the line stood out on Saturday.
Gerald Nvule '15 - TE - BB&N - Another impressive pass-catching Tight End, Nvule showed off his play-making skills and awareness in the short-field, 7v7 environment.
Nick Andreas '15 - QB - Danvers - Our Mass Prep Stars top ranked public school QB prospect, Andreas showed great poise, leadership and accuracy throughout the afternoon.
Others Mass Prep Stars who shined when our eyes were on them on Saturday were: James Sullivan '15 - RB Tewksbury, Owen Rockett '15 - ATH - SJ Prep, Ian Kessel '16 - RB/DB - Haverhill, Matt Andreas '17 ATH - Danvers.
- On Sunday the Natick High School Football Twitter handle announced that star WR Brian Dunlap '15 had committed to the process of admission at Harvard University. One of Mass Prep Stars featured Top 20 players in the Class of 2015 Dunlap will have all eyes on him this season, after missing the 2013 season with a Lisfranc foot injury. Dunlap tore up Mass. in his first two seasons, as the featured target of former Natick star and current Boston College QB Troy Flutie.
Dunlap looked excellent in his return to acton on Sunday in the 2014 Under Armour South Sectional 7-v-7. ESPN Boston Editor Brendan Hall simply stated, "Whoa!" in a Tweet, after watching Dunlap lead Natick to the Championship and a bid in the New England final grouping next Wednesday at Bishop Fenwick.
Girls Basketball
- The Boston Showstoppers Basketball Club have had a big Spring / Summer AAU season and two of their biggest players, both literally and figuratively, secured early summer Division 1 commitments. Fenway's Jalissa Ross '15 and Brookline's Raven Brathwaite '15 both made their college commitments to New England schools known. Ross commited to the University of Rhode Island and Brathwaite pledged to the University of New Hampshire, via the Showstoppers Twitter account.
Both post players have made vast improvements to their games over the past two seasons in particular, and the Showstoppers program and staff are big reasons for that. Look for the Shopwstoppers to continue to make noise this off-season as they boast a slew of talented local products.
Also look for both Ross and Brathwaite to be prominently featured when our Class of 2015 Girls Basketball Pre-rankings is releasedi n the next two weeks!
Boys Basketball
- Is there any local product having a bigger summer than BABC and Vermont Academy guard Bruce Brown '16 (Boston, Mass.) (pictured below)? If you blink your eye or step away from twitter, you miss another High Major Division 1 offer for Brown. The National analysts are all raving about what we the locals have been seeing from Brown for years, dating back to 2012 when he starred on the hardwood (and gridiron) for Wakefield High School.
The athletic, slashing, physical guard has reportedly collected recent National offers from the likes of Auburn, Arizona St., Virginia Tech and Providence. Add those offers to earlier offers from the likes of Michigan, Minnesota, VCU, Wake Forest and Xavier and that makes for quite a beginning to Brown's pre-junior year summer.
Boys Lacrosse
- IMG Acadmey (FL) attackman Ben French '16 made his commitment known recently as the Canadian star committed to University of Vermont. We have featured French in the past, as his older brother is current UVA sophomore attack and former Deerfield star, Joe French. This is a big pickup for UVM, as French gives UVM an early potential star commitment. We caught up with French as he discussed his recent commitment and his 2014 summer in Canada.
"After attending numerous showcases, tournaments and camps over the last two summers I was able to visit a few different collages that expressed interest in me," French told Mass Prep Stars. "After meeting different coaches and seeing different colleges, my choice ultimately came down to personal fit. UVM turned out to be exactly what I was looking for in terms of an overall college experience. What set Vermont apart from the other schools for me was the coaching staff and their interest in Canadians.
Towson, Delaware, Michigan, and Marquette also expressed early recruiting interest in the IMG Academy attackman. French feels secure in his commitment and did not feel any pressure to commit early.
"I did not go into the recruiting process with a timeline," explained French. "I had no interest in rushing my decision because I understand how important it would be. I told myself I would like to visit a handful of different collages so I could ultimately know exactly what I was looking for and what I wanted in a school."
French is spending the summer in Canada and is looking forward to representing Canada again, this time in the fall with the U19 Team Ontario squad.
"This summer was the first time in two years I was not traveling from state to state almost every weekend of the summer," French said. "I was really excited to finally have a summer where I could just focus primarily on playing box lacrosse in Ontario. It was the first time I was able to play with my brother Joe, who just finished his freshman year at UVA. In early September I am really looking forward to competing for another national championship with Team Ontario!"
See some of French's highlights from teh 2014 season below.
Please follow Mass Prep Stars for live game coverage and athlete updates on Twitter @masspreps. Please stay connected with us on our Facebook page. You can also check out our NEW Instagram page, where we will bring you live shots and clips from Mass Prep Stars in action. Lastly, make sure you create your Mass Prep Stars athlete profile and use it as as your Scholastic Athletic Resume. You can create and update your bio/profile, statistics, photos, videos and news links and keep everything in one location!
Please follow Mass Prep Stars for coverage and athlete updates on Twitter @masspreps. Please also stay connected with us on our Facebook page. You can check out our NEW Instagram page, where we will bring you live shots and clips from Mass Prep Stars in action. Lastly, make sure you create and update your Mass Prep Stars athlete profile, by going to http://massprepstars.com/players/profile-options and use it as your Scholastic Athletic Resume. You can create and update your bio information, statistics, photos, videos and news links! Please Email us with any questions!
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