Recently, the Life Skills students took a win in their bocce ball tournament. Bocce ball is a sport like bowling, played outside. It has been played for thousands of years evolving into what it is today. 

     The goal of Bocce is to move as many of your bocce as close to the pallino as possible. The bocce is weighted and heavier than the pallino, which is the target ball. If you’re able to get your bocce closer to the pallino than your competitor, you get the points. Coach Victoria Bridges says that there is a 15-minute time limit, and whoever has the most points between the two teams in that time wins the game. 

      She adds, “Bocce ball is something they [special ed students] have done for years through Life Skills and it’s actually something that Harford County had chosen for the students to do.” 

      Paraeducator Sara Testerman mentions, “Bocce is one of three sports for special ed students.  Bocce makes every student a success.  There are no disabilities in bocce.” Bridges mentions, “we actually [play] in the mornings [before school starts] so that we give all the students in the life skills class an opportunity to do it.” 

     Student athlete Mikayla Reed says that her experience with bocce ball was interesting and fun, her favorite part was throwing the ball underhand. She enjoyed playing with her teammates. 

      Instead of playing multiple games leading up to a final tournament, they practice and then go to one game, which is the tournament, “It depends, we practiced about eight different times and then there is just the one tournament […] we have one team [who] we played 6 different games, so we play a different school each time.” She adds, “some schools had two different teams, some schools only had one team.” 

     Bridges mentions, “we actually had a very good, very successful tournament […] I think they enjoyed it [playing] but I think they enjoyed just being able to play and be around other students.” Student athlete Gean Martin says that bocce ball was, “really fun, really awesome” for her. She also says that she is a very good player, and her favorite part was the tournament.  

     Testerman says, “The players were very excited about winning.  They would ask after every game, ‘who won that game,’ ‘how many points do we have.’ […] Bocce has impacted the players in a positive way.  They feel like they are participating on a high school team.  They feel a part of a big event and feel included.”