The winter season is off and running. Six teams had their first game last week, but it is still early in the season. To get a feel for what this winter looks like for Warrior athletics, check out the sports section’s latest in-depth report on the upcoming winter season.

First, here’s a quick note on the games.

The boys basketball team put together a impressive opening act for the 2011-12 season with a win at Bedford, 69-45. The girls team had some off the court distractions this week and weren’t able to recover; they fell to Bedford, 59-32. The youthful boys hockey team lost to Blue Hills, 3-2, but there seems to be a bright upside to this team, and they will only get better as the season goes on. Wrestling opened up its season with a quad meet against Lexington, Holliston and Hudson, gearing up for this weekend’s holiday tournament. Both the boys and girls swim teams took care of business Friday, beating Newton South.

Now it’s time to talk about one of my favorite parts of winter: IBL.

The Intramural Basketball League (IBL) will get underway this Tuesday. The two-day combine was held last Tuesday and Thursday, and the draft was worthy of being live streamed on WSPN on Thursday night. The eight captains, me included, went into the team room and made use of the two flat screen TVs (I wish).

Anyway, the draft commenced, and I got the last pick. It wasn’t too bad, though, because I would get the last pick in one round followed by the first pick in the next, so I would always have back to back picks. I went into the draft with a single draft strategy; I wanted to have a team of friends.

I’m pleased to say that I was successful, and the draft couldn’t have gone any better. Since my counterparts were going for “wins,” my friends fell perfectly to me in every round. Now even though my “friends team” doesn’t really have a lot of basketball skill, we do have an upper hand in team chemistry because most of us played soccer together this fall.

So while other teams will be struggling to remember each others’ names, we will be playing perfect help defense, as long as we play basketball defense the same as soccer defense. I won’t trash talk too much just yet, but I think my “friends team” could be a sleeper in the league. I mean, we did have practice this weekend.

Now I will give some preseason awards voted on by me, myself and I.

Preseason All-IBL
Jerry Lerman (Green)
Jeremy Brofsky (Orange)
Mackland Steele (White)
Chris D’Amico (Red)
And finally myself (purple); yeah, I’m being that guy, but I think I belong here, and this is my blog.

Second Team
Ricky Levitt (Blue)
Brett Thomas (Black)
Oliver Levin (Green)
David Smith (Grey)
I’m going out on a limb here, but he put together a very impressive combine: George Liu (Gray)

Obviously these are subject to change because not a single game has been played, but it’ll be interesting to see if I’m at all close. After the first week of games, I’ll make my championship pick, but I need to see how teams look first. I’m a little biased right now, but Purple, my team, might actually have a chance. The league seems to be wide open this year.

By the end of the week all teams, including IBL, will have started their seasons. Check Warrior Scores for the latest scores from the winter teams.