Taconic's Burke, Monument Mountain's Stone Recoginized

Before the basketball and hockey sectional tournaments dominate the headlines, we recognize a couple of dominant performers in what is known in college circles as the "Olympic sports."

 

Monument Mountain's Asa Stone and Taconic's Dylan Burke each has been recognized in this space before and each did plenty this month to earn another nod as the iBerkshires.com/Adams Community Bank Athlete of the Week.

 

Burke and his Taconic teammate Zabion Powell each placed third among wrestlers in all classes at this weekend's Massachusetts All-State Wrestling Championships.

 

Burke went 4-1 with three pins in the 182-pound weight class. He reached the championship semi-finals on Friday before dropping into the consolation bracket on Saturday morning at St. John's Prep.

 

Burke already had a sectional title and a Division 3 state championship on his resume going into the all-state meet. And he was part of the foundation of a Taconic team that won a state team championship in Wakefield on Feb. 17.

 

Based on their performances at the all-state meet, Burke and Powell each qualified for the New England High School Championships, to be held Friday and Saturday at the Providence Career and Technical Academy in Rhode Island.

 

Monument Mountain's Asa Stone was the cornerstone of the most dominant swim team in the county, and she continued her success right through the championship season.

 

At last week's Division 1 state meet in Boston, Stone placed fourth in the 100-yard butterfly and seventh in the 100 backstroke. She also swam anchor on the Spartans' fourth-place 400 freestyle relay quartet and the backstroke on the team's 200 medley relay.

 

Every time she entered the pool, she earned points for Monument Mountain, helping the Spartans finish seventh in the 37-team meet.

 

At the Central/Western Mass sectionals the week before, Stone finished third twice as an individual and anchored the team's second-place 400 free relay squad as she helped the Spartans finish fourth in the region.

 

The iBerkshires.com Athlete of the Week is sponsored by Adams Community Bank.