Carlson, Garabedian Are Winter's First Athletes of the Week

Just more than a week into the high school basketball season – less than that for some teams – only a handful of Berkshire County teams remain undefeated. This week’s iBerkshires.com/Southwestern Vermont Health Care Athletes of the Week lead two of those teams.

 

Taylor Garabedian is averaging 15.5 points per game for the 2-0 Hoosac Valley girls.

 

In the road opener, she scored 25 points in a 59-49 win over Hampshire Regional.

 

On Friday night, she scored just six points but pulled down 10 rebounds in a six point win over South Hadley.

 

Last winter as a junior, Garabedian averaged nearly 13 points per game for a Hurricane team that won 20 games, including a Western Massachusetts Class D title, and went all the way to the Division 5 State Semi-Finals.

 

On Wednesday, Hoosac Valley wraps up a stretch of three straight Suburban Division games to open the season when it hosts Berkshire County rival Wahconah.

 

Monument Mountain’s boys also opened 2-0 this past week. Their Friday Bi-County East opener against Belchertown was highlighted by senior Khalil Carlson scoring his 1,000th career point.

 

He became just the second boy at the school to reach that milestone. And while it is highly unlikely Carlson will catch school scoring leader Anna Kinne (1,773 points), if Carlson has many more games like Friday’s he will make a run that record.

 

Against the Orioles, he scored 27 points in the first half, pacing the Spartans to a dominating 97-52 win, before resting most of the third and all of the fourth quarter.

 

Afterward, Carlson said he had 1,000 points in his sights for some time.

 

“After sophomore year, I knew I had 555, so I was like, ‘OK, I’m more than halfway there,’ “ he said. “It was definitely possible. And after last year, I was at 956, so I was like [shrug], ‘OK, might as well do it the first couple of game this year.”

 

Carlson and the Spartans look to go 2-0 in their league and stay perfect on the season on Monday night when they host South Hadley.

 

The iBerkshires.com Athlete of the Week is sponsored by Southwestern Vermont Health Care.