IGNITE Spring 2019 | Page 16

Pennsylvania’s First Catholic Unified Bocce Ball TEAM IS ON A ROLL Standing room only. It’s a description usually reserved for big-ticket events at Archbishop John Carroll High School: basketball playoffs, graduation, or homecoming. But that’s the exact phrase spectators are using to describe the packed auditorium during competitions for the school’s first Unified Bocce Ball team. Since the team’s formation earlier in the school year, the community support has amazed the players, and their coach, Ed Scanlan. “I was blown away by the amount of kids that came to the home matches. Even our away match had a great turnout. I was shocked, because we didn’t really advertise it.” 16 The team is the first of its kind for Archbishop Carroll and the first Unified Sports Catholic school team in Pennsylvania. Operating under the umbrella of Special Olympics Pennsylvania Interscholastic Unified Sports, the team is composed of students from both Archbishop Carroll and St. Katherine School, a special education school located on the same campus.