Mark Marfione, who guided the Marblehead High boys hockey team to the program’s second state championship during the 2023-24 season, has stepped down after three years at the helm.
The 42-year-old Marfione is taking the head coaching job as Brookline High, where he will also begin work as a special education chair. A large part of the reason for the move was that the commute from his home in Somerville will be cut in half (or more).
During his three seasons behind the Headers’ bench, Marfione’s teams went a combined 47-20-6 and made the playoffs each season, going a combined 7-2 in the postseason. They prided themselves on winning battles along the walls, being defensively responsible, winning the majority of faceoffs, and coming up clutch when it mattered most.
“It’s been a tremendous three years,” said Marfione. “I was always so impressed by the Marblehead kids. You never know what you’re going to get coming into a new job, but they were some of the best kids I’ve ever coached — on and off the ice.”
A special ed teacher at Marblehead High the past two years, Marfione became the Headers’ head coach in November 2022 — mere weeks before the season began — after spending five seasons as the head coach at Cambridge Rindge & Latin.
“I’m very proud of what we were able to achieve in Marblehead. We fulfilled our potential,” said Marfione.
His 2023-24 squad, captained by forward Charlie Grenier and defenseman Hogan Sedky, will go down in North Shore sports annals as one of the greatest turnaround seasons ever. Marblehead dropped its first six games — five of those by just a single goal — and sported a 2-8 record through their first 10 contests before going on a tear down the homestretch, winning seven in a row and finishing 10-1-1 over their final dozen games of the regular season.
After two victories to open the playoffs, sixth seeded Marblehead then knocked off three higher seeds — each one greater than the last and all of those one-goal decisions.
First they went down to the South Shore and scored twice in the first 10 minutes to eventually hold off third seeded host Scituate, 2-1, in the Division 3 state quarterfinals. A raucous semifinal crowd at Stoneham Arena saw goalie Leo Burdge make 23 saves and sophomore London McDonald notch the game-winner goal to knock out previously one-beaten Shawsheen, 2-1.
Then came the Division 3 state championship game at TD Garden in Boston against top ranked and heavily favored Nauset, which came into the final riding a 22-game winning streak. But 31 saves in net from Burdge and the game’s only tally coming in the first period from Avin Rodovsky gave Marblehead a momentous 1-0 triumph and its second-ever state crown.
“We were able to get the most out of everyone,” stressed Marfione. The kids’ ability to be coachable and work hard was fantastic. It was their buy-in and willing to do what we asked of them that allowed us to win some improbable games there at the end.
“My coaching staff was a huge part of it, too: (former MHS hockey stars) Liam (Gillis), Timmy (Kalinowski) and Kyle (Koopman). I was able to delegate so much to them, and because of that we could dig in on so many specific details of the game because those guys knew them so well. That’s not something that happens much in high school hockey; the four of us all had the same goal, but each of us brought something different to the table.”
Marfione led the Headers back to the Division 3 state quarterfinals this past winter, against meeting top seeded Nauset. Marblehead took an early 1-0 lead on captain Kyle Hart’s goal a little over two minutes in, and it was 1-1 midway through the third period before the hosts eventually pulled away for the win, 5-1.
Now Marfione is moving on to the Bay State Herget League with Brookline, a Division 1 school that will face league opponents such as Wellesley, Walpole, Natick and Braintree.
“It’s going to be exciting,” he said. “It’s always fun going into a new league and getting to know the situation is and figure out how we can make our team as successful as we can. It’s what we did in Marblehead, and it worked out pretty well.”
Contact Phil Stacey
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