After this one, if you want to label me as a nerd, I’d really have no way of defending myself.
But I went back through the entire school year, and did the math so you don’t have to.
This is building off a column idea that was run last summer, when — for some reason — I limited myself to just the spring season when looking at the CAL MVPs and All-CAL First Team selections that came from our area. How our five Daily News area schools from the Cape Ann League (Amesbury, Georgetown, Newburyport, Pentucket and Triton) stack up against the rest of the league has always interested me, especially as a project during the slower summer months.
So why limit the research to just the most recent spring season?
Well, fear not.
I went back through it all, and totaled up both every MVP from each season on the calendar, as well as all of the All-CAL First Team selections. That includes even the “smaller” sports, like cross country, both track seasons, golf and swimming. Since there are 12 schools in the CAL, meaning we cover about 40% of the league, I was hoping our athletes would make up at least that same percentage of the All-CAL First Teamers and MVPs.
And this year, it was pretty much spot on.
As far as the CAL MVPs go, our athletes combined for 17 out of the potential 50 this year — which comes out to a decent 34%. That started with the likes of Newburyport’s Ciara Geraghty (field hockey), Colin Fuller (football), Nora Geerlings (volleyball), Jack Oreal (golf) and Michael Mohoric (boys XC) earning the titles during the fall, along with Triton senior Ava Burl being crowned MVP for girls cross country.
Our area would sweep the CAL Kinney basketball scene during the winter thanks to Newburyport’s Carson Gretz and Pentucket’s Amelia Crowe, then the Triton duo of Josh Adler and Sam Whitaker split the MVP honor in swimming. Finally during the spring season, Newburyport saw Fuller and Brian Lucy (boys lacrosse), Reese Bromby (girls lacrosse) and Jalen Wise (boys track) earn the title in their respective sports, along with Georgetown’s Maddie Grant be named the CAL Baker softball MVP while Pentucket’s Molly LeBel and Triton’s Emma Penniman split the honor in the Kinney.
But that overall year-long percentage improves when it comes to our All-CAL picks.
In total there were 401 First Team selections for the entire school year, and Daily News area athletes combined to make up 168 of them (41.9%). Boys cross country was our best sport during the fall with 7-of-15 selections coming from our area, with football being a close second at 8-of-23. Girls indoor track would then help us out a lot during the winter with 15-of-22 All-CAL selections (which includes all four athletes that make up a relay), and thanks to the likes of Amesbury’s Bodie Marcotte, Newburyport’s Luke MacIsaac, Pentucket’s Chase Pelletier and Triton’s Josh Hersey, our area had 11-of-23 First Teamers in boys hockey.
But percentage-wise, boys outdoor track was our “cash cow” this spring with 19-of-27 selections coming from the area (70.4%). We had 9-of-15 in softball thanks to those three MVPs, and in boys lacrosse it was Pentucket’s Aiden Napolitano, Nate Stys and Mac Cole getting us to 9-of-17.
That is all.
Do with this information what you will.