Two years ago, girls flag football wasn’t even a sport at Pentucket.
And yet just recently, current senior Amelia Crowe was selected by the New England Patriots for two major honors.
For starters, Crowe has been nominated by the Patriots to receive the Maxwell Football Club’s National Flag Player of the Year award. She is one of only 32 girls in the entire country to be nominated, and a winner — which will be announced at a later date — will get to travel down to Atlanta, Georgia in March to receive the Player of the Year award during the Maxwell Football Club award ceremony.
In addition to this, Crowe has also been nominated to be in the NFL Flag National College Showcase, which is held during the Pro Bowl in California. Each NFL team selects one athlete to represent their organization in this game, and the Patriots have chosen Crowe. Of the 32 nominations, around 10 are chosen to play in the game.
It’s two exciting potential opportunities for Crowe, who was instrumental in starting the girls flag football team at Pentucket two years ago alongside former teammate Ava DiBurro. But now, her focus is entirely on basketball. Crowe is our reigning Daily News Girls Basketball MVP, who averaged an area-high 15.8 ppg with 50 3s for Pentucket last winter, and who committed to Babson College late in the summer.
Fair named Georgetown softball coach
Just because it was the obvious choice doesn’t make it any less of a grand slam.
Earlier this week, Georgetown made it official in hiring Kevin Fair as its new varsity softball coach. Fair has been the program’s top assistant over the past handful of years — putting in countless hours to both scout and maintain the Penn Brook Elementray field — and his daughter, Ava, is a returning Daily News All-Star first baseman who will be a senior on this year’s team.
Fair takes over for Jay Santomassino, who compiled a 55-42 record over the last five years at the helm. Together, the duo have turned Georgetown into a yearly statewide title contender. The Royals made a run to the Division 5 finals during the 2024 season, and last spring, they made it back to the Final Four. Last year also saw the Royals (20-4) win the program’s most games ever, as well as claim their first CAL Baker title since 2010 while breaking decade-long-plus losing streaks against North Reading, Amesbury and Triton.
Fair has been a major part of that success, and now he takes it over.
And besides his daughter, Fair will have plenty of other returning talent this upcoming spring to keep Georgetown at the top of the CAL. The Royals are set to welcome back Bentley-bound starting pitcher Maddie Grant, as well as fellow All-Stars and lineup staples Ellie Barbarick, Jenna Johnson, Gillien Figueroa, Mia Girard, Cora Robinson and Megan Maguire.
Besides softball, Fair is also the head varsity coach of the girls soccer team. The program has gone a combined 57-34-14 over his five-year tenure, and this fall, the Royals (9-7-5) moved up to Division 4 but still landed a huge upset win over No. 2 Douglas to make it to the quarterfinals.
Fair will now embark on his first year as the head varsity coach of the boys basketball team this winter. The Royals are the defending Division 4 State Champions, but return plenty of talent headlined by Daily News All-Stars Brendan Lowen, Irvin Zapata and Jomar Terrero.
Local All-Star for St. John’s Prep golf The St. John’s Prep golf team had an excellent season and finished second at the Division 1 state championship meet this fall, and a local athlete was a huge reason why.
Newbury native Jack Carew is a senior on the team, and was just recently named a Salem News Golf All-Star. The captain fired a team-best round of 78 at the state meet, and also averaged at least one birdie per round. Committed to play golf at Division I Fairfield University, Carew shot nine-under at the AJGA FM Championships at Chicopee this summer, and was also a medalist at the US Junior AM qualifier thanks to a three-under round of 69.
Also a model student, Carew currently has a 4.12 GPA.