Courtesy Boston Globe

(June 18, 2010) That was the phrase on the tongues of most Massachusetts sports fans during the past two weeks, but even with the Celtics in the finals and the Red Sox season in full swing, there are at least two sports fans who would much rather talk about the young athletes on the fields, courts, and rinks south of Boston.

Dominic Damiano and Del Lane aren’t professional sportscasters, but their weekly radio show about local high school and youth sports can make any student-athlete guest feel like the subject of an ESPN newscast.

For an hour every Saturday morning, Damiano and Lane host “Four Deep Sports Talk,’’ where they recap the week’s games, analyze plays, discuss teams’ records, and congratulate players on a job well done — no matter the score.

“We just want to brag about them, and give them a chance to brag about what they’ve been doing’’ said Damiano, a Brockton native who played football in high school.

The hosts send an individual shout-out to every team on the weekly Globe Top 20, and when they announced the teams in the south sectional brackets on a recent episode, they didn’t just make predictions, they also congratulated all the teams for an exceptional season. Lane also tries to stop by games on his way home from work, and his reviews compliment as many players as possible.

Damiano has volunteered and coached on Pop Warner football, Little League baseball, and Boys & Girls Club floor hockey teams for more than 10 years, and he developed the show so the achievements of children and teens would not go unnoticed.

Damiano started off small with a local access television show covering sports in Taunton, where he now lives. When he started the radio show with Lane in January 2008, he slowly began calling athletic directors in neighboring towns: Bridgewater, Easton, Halifax, and Canton. Since then the show has featured teams from towns around the region, including Braintree, Carver, Plymouth, Middleborough, and Stoughton.

Every week, when a coach from a local high school team comes into the studio to talk about the team and the season, the team is welcome to join them.

“We always keep it light-hearted. The kids come in and they goof on each other. It’s a lot of fun,’’ said Damiano, who lets the players read the top 20 list and talk about their games, hopes for the season, and plans for the future. A photographer often snaps photographs of the players in the studio and posts them on the show’s Facebook page so the students have something else to show off.

As the year’s high school sports season winds down, youth sports will take center stage for the summer, and the younger athletes will have their chance to show their talent.

“We don’t ever stop bragging about them,’’ Damiano said.

“Four Deep Sports Talk’’ airs Saturdays from 11 a.m. to noon on Hometown Talk Radio, WVBF 1530 AM.

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