Boys Sweep Milton at Home

January 16, 2026
• Needham boys basketball is currently 9-1, while boys hockey is 5-2-2. 

Needham boys basketball kicked off the week with a dominant 80-41 win over Milton. The following night, boys hockey upset the Wildcats, 2-1, in an exciting matchup that came down to the final five minutes of the game.

What looked like a close matchup on paper didn’t turn out that way for boys basketball on Tuesday, Jan. 13. The Rockets, ranked 5th in the MIAA Division 1 power rankings, jumped out to a 24-8 lead at the end of the first quarter against Milton, ranked 13th in Division 2. Needham hit 4 of 5 shots from three-point range while the Wildcats struggled to get anything to fall. Senior Ben Marino led the team with eight points in the quarter, while Foster Wilinski added seven.

Milton continued to struggle offensively in the second quarter, scoring just 10 total points. Needham extended its lead to 28 points, 46-18, heading in halftime and shot 7 of 11 from behind the arc (64%), while the Wildcats shot just 1 of 9 (11%). Interestingly, the Rockets would have still been winning 21-18 if only their three pointers were counted.

The third quarter was more of the same, though Needham finally cooled off from deep, shooting 1 of 6 in the quarter. It didn’t matter much, as the Rockets’ inside game took over offensively, while Milton continued to struggle to find the basket. Going into the fourth quarter up 61-30, coach Paul Liner emptied his bench and played substitutes the rest of the way. The Rockets had 13 different players score in the win. Marino and Rozman led the team with 13 points each, while Cloonan added 12. Notably, Needham shot much better from three-point range (50%) than it did last week against Wellesley (28%).

The Rockets will look to get revenge over Newton North, which handed Needham its only loss of the season, on Friday, Jan. 16, at 6:45 p.m. in the A-Gym.

After starting the season 0-1-2, boys hockey has won five of its last six games, including a 2-1 win over Milton on Wednesday, Jan. 14.

Neither team found the back of the net until late in the third period, when the Rockets finally broke through on a power-play goal from junior Matt Ledbury to make it 1-0 Needham. Ledbury leads the team with six goals on the season. Shortly after, junior Ben Sherman made it 2-0 Rockets with his first career varsity goal, assisted by Nick Buckley.

Milton pulled their goalie with about a minute left, and did score to make it a one goal game. John Sullivan netted the goal on a strange play in which Needham goalie Lucas Olson lost the blade of his skate. Olson was dragged off the ice, and after a few minutes of attempting to fix the skate, the Rockets were forced to send Carson Brownridge onto the ice to play the final minute with little time warm up. Luckily for Needham, Brownridge made a several saves to preserve the win. Olson stopped 22 of the 23 shots he faced (95.7%) and earned his first varsity win in net before leaving the game.

It was an impressive win for Needham, who was ranked 21st in the MIAA Division One Power Rankings, as it handed No. 3 Milton (Division 2) its second loss of the season. But, by Friday, Jan. 16, the Rockets had moved up just one spot, to 20th, in the updated rankings. They face another tough test on Saturday, Jan. 17, against No. 4 ranked Hingham. The Needham Channel will be there to record that game, as well as the girls game earlier in the day.

Mike Levin has the highlights from these games in the video box below:

The highlights above ran as part of the Needham Channel News, a weekly newscast airing on The Needham Channel every Thursday at 7:30pm. The Needham Channel News can be found on the Community Channel: Comcast 9, Astound 15 and Verizon 29. Most Thursdays it also can be viewed on our HD Channel on Verizon 2129, Astound 613 and streaming on this site.