Practically Undefeated: Modeling Achievement and Joy

The 2024–2025 Park girls’ varsity basketball team finished the season with a 15-1 record, losing the very last game of the season by a heartbreaking seven points.

In the preceding weeks, everyone was excited. The team hadn’t had a season like this since 1998—and that was back when Park had Grade 9 students on the team, similarly competing against middle school opponents. After each game, in Morning Meeting, athletes announced results and the entire Upper Division student body joined in the momentum toward this exciting finale.

But for an ironic twist of scheduling, it might still have been an undefeated season. Usually, Park’s last regular season games wrap up before Hoopfest—the annual basketball tournament hosted by Park. Varsity coach Kara Fonseca notes, “We don’t usually have games after Hoopfest. The kids were tired. Looking at the schedule, there was some talk about ‘Maybe we should just call it. End the season as usual.’ But then we heard that DCD [Dedham Country Day, their final opponent] was undefeated as well. Calling the season off without playing the other undefeated team just seemed wrong!” It was a great game. Kara says, “They are a skilled, awesome team, really fun to play. They scored about 10 three pointers in the first half.” DCD was up by 25 points at the half, but Park came back in the second, outscoring them by a wide margin, falling just seven points short at the buzzer.

It was a dramatic end to a season that started amidst different layers of drama. Coach Fonseca had ACL surgery in the fall, and was on medical leave when the season began. Upper Division Humanities teacher Nick Young volunteered to fill in while Kara was out, along with Assistant Coach Lauren Dennis. Kara watched tryouts on Zoom, and then met with the team on Zoom to share the team rosters. Nick ran the first practices and coached the team’s first game, and when Kara returned to campus in January, he’d been having so much fun with the team that he asked if he could stay on to help out. “It was really nice having someone there to run plays with,” Kara says, particularly as she was still healing post surgery.

Whether from superstition or to manage expectations, it seems typical that coaches will open a new season with the caution that “it will be a building year.” Having lost almost all of the starters from the previous year, Park Athletics had reason to wonder what this season would look like. “But we won the first game, the second, and then the third…,” Kara says. The hardest part became how to win gracefully without burying the competition. “We could have won most of our games by 30+ points. We're a middle school team. We’re not in the business of doing that to other teams.”

This success transpired even as Park held fast to its commitment to ensuring that all students have equal playing time across the season. Kara credits Assistant Coach Lauren Dennis as “the subbing pro,” who kept tabs on every player, knowing who to put in when, to make sure every athlete gets in the game. “She is awesome,” Kara says. “When the girls come off the court, she’s the one right there talking to them about what went well, what didn’t, and to prepare them for what to do when they enter the game with pointers so they feel confident.”

While other schools in the league don’t necessarily adhere to the same “everyone plays” philosophy, it’s something Park holds as a core value, and it shapes the culture of the team. Kara observes, “Our ‘starters’ were so happy any time anyone did something great. When a girl scored her first basket in the season, everyone else was so excited. If a girl dribbled off her foot, teammates were so supportive. You don’t always see that on teams. The love and encouragement for every member of the team was very special.”

This culture grows, in part, from Park’s values, and from the fact that many Park coaches are teachers first, teachers who really understand middle school. “We teach them to be wonderful people, not just athletes,” Kara says, and the coaches themselves model the behaviors they want their teams to carry forward. “We have played some teams where the coach yells at the athletes or at the refs.” At Park, for both coaches and athletes, how they hold themselves is just as important as how they compete.

With so many teams vying for time in Park’s gyms, practice times can be a challenge. Because they were having trouble getting time on a full court, the coaches added morning practices once a week at 6:45 a.m. On other days, the team was able to practice at our neighboring Hellenic College. “It was a big deal that we were able to do that,” Kara says. “We were on a full court almost every day, which hadn’t been possible in a long time.” It was a cold, cold winter, but each afternoon, the team walked to practice with a great attitude, carrying basketballs and med kits, no complaints— just excited to play. 

This was a historic team, to be sure, and yet, in the end, they came up seven points short of “undefeated.” “There were so many tears when the buzzer went off and ended our season,” Kara says. “I worried that they’d go away remembering that loss, instead of the 15 games they’d won. But, they were great. They were still able to see how awesome their season had been.”

However, in the run up to the last games, Kara and Lauren had cooked up an idea to celebrate the season: they designed “Undefeated” sweatshirts with the plan to give one to each member of the team. They enlisted the help of a colleague who is a pro at silkscreening, and planned to produce them once the season ended. What they didn’t know was that two members of the team had heard the coaches talking about the surprise. While they didn’t tell their teammates, the two girls confessed after the last game. “We heard you and Ms. Dennis talking about the sweatshirts…and we assume that can’t happen anymore.” Kara and Lauren didn’t want to break their hearts twice, and thought, how might we still honor this amazing season? Lauren said, “Well, it was PRACTICALLY undefeated!”

That became the mantra. Each member of the team, coaches included, received a sweatshirt bearing the phrase “Practically Undefeated” on the back. The word “practically” is a bit smaller… and it's located where the hood mostly obscures it, but it only tells the truth. Honoring this extraordinary season, the sweatshirts were ready and distributed in time for Park’s spring Spirit Day in early April. Every member of the team wore hers.

On that Spirit Day, a Lower Division boy saw Kara’s sweatshirt and asked, “Were you undefeated?” When she told him they won 15 out of 16 games, he ran off down the hall and told his friend, “Did you know the girls varsity team only lost one out of 16 games?” And then that student told another student, and the word spread: these girls are awesome! Kara couldn’t be happier. “I wanted to make sure people knew what these girls were accomplishing. I wanted people to see the team and join in the excitement.”

Already, the coaches are excited for next year. Three out of five starters will be returning, along with a good number of rising 7th graders. Even better, Kara says, “For the first time ever, I have had 5th and 6th grade girls coming to me to ask what they need to do to be part of the varsity team.” An awesome trickle down effect is growing out of the announcements of the wins, the joy in the sweatshirts, the joy the team brought to every practice. Park has not, historically, been a “basketball school” with this level of excitement, the kind of vibe that more often happens in high school. Now, Kara observes, “Students are asking, ‘Are there basketball camps I should go to?’ and we have first and second grade boys running through the hallway sharing the news, thinking it's the coolest thing ever. That’s really great.”

It’s so powerful that these middle school students had the chance to be part of something great with the whole community behind them, to feel and show joy, happiness, and leadership on and off the court. “And,” Kara laughs, “they will never again have a sweatshirt that says ‘practically undefeated’! Where else but middle school can you celebrate silly things like that?” 

By Suzy Akin, Director of Strategic Marketing and Communications

#TheParkSchoolMA #ParkSchoolExcellence #ItAllStartsatPark  #ParkSchoolCommunity