For the first time ever, I’m wondering we need some kind of minimum plate appearances for the Willie Awards.
Also for the first time, Salem High finds itself atop the leaderboard as the school in The Salem News readership area with the best state tournament winning percentage for the 2025-26 school year.
What are ‘The Willies’? Glad you asked.
Each June since 2009, I’ve been tallying up the cumulative state tournament records both by school and by sport. It’s a fun exercise designed to see which local high school has the both overall athletic program, which sport locally had the most success and which ones might be trending up or down in any given timeframe.
Remember that the dozen MIAA schools in the readership area are Beverly, Bishop Fenwick, Danvers, Essex Tech, Hamilton-Wenham, Ipswich, Marblehead, Masconomet, Peabody, Salem, St. John’s Prep and Swampscott.
Only sports whose state tournaments follow a bracketed, playoff format are included. Those 15 sports are: football, boys soccer, girls soccer, field hockey and girls volleyball in the fall; boys and girls basketball and boys and girls hockey in the winter; and baseball, softball, boys and girls lacrosse and boys and girls tennis in the spring (plus boys volleyball; however, no local teams made the postseason in that sport this spring).
All told, there were 112 teams from The Salem News readership area that made the MIAA state tournament during the 2025-26 school year. Only 16 of those advanced to the Final Four, nine played in a state championship game, and just two (Salem boys basketball and Bishop Fenwick girls basketball) won the ultimate prize.
The combined 5-2 postseason mark posted by Salem High this past school year rates out to a .714 winning percentage, the best of all 12 schools. All five of those victories came from the historic Witches’ boys basketball team, which won the Division 3 state title and was probably the best team in Massachusetts.
Yet as a school, Salem’s five total wins were tied for the third fewest. The Witches had the fewest total teams (3) qualify for the postseason as well. So you might say that Salem has won the area batting title without having as many plate appearances as the competition.
On the other hand, as a Boston sports fan would you rather see the Patriots, Bruins and Red Sox all make the second round of the playoffs … or have one of them win the championship if it meant the other three didn’t make the playoffs at all? I think most people would take the banner.
True to your school
Speaking of banners, this was the first school year since the statewide format began in the fall of ‘21 that St. John’s Prep didn’t win a state title; the Eagles won two in track, but this exercise focuses on tournament-style postseasons only.
The Prep ranked second in tournament winning percentage, going 14-6. As mentioned, the six losses were the most the school has had in the playoffs in a while. The Eagles made the Final Four in half the sports in which they made the playoffs (football, soccer and lacrosse).
Once again, Hamilton-Wenham had the most total victories with 20. The Generals have 99 state tournament wins since the statewide format began and came agonizingly close to hitting triple digits, losing three state finals on the last day of the 2025-26 school year in baseball, boys tennis and girls tennis, respectively.
Ipswich was next with 17 total wins, going 17-12.
Over the past six seasons, St. John’s Prep, Ipswich and Hamilton-Wenham have ranked in the top three in this annual exercise, and that trend certainly continued this year even with Salem in the top slot. The Tigers, Generals and Eagles were also tied for the most Final Four appearances, with each school sending three teams to the state semifinals.
Which school had the most total teams qualify for postseason play? It was Marblehead. The Magicians made the playoffs in 14 of the 15 sports that we track, a remarkable accomplishment (though not every school offers all 15 sports). With a 12-14 total record, Marblehead had one state semifinalist (boys tennis).
Masconomet had the next most total playoff teams (13) and tied for the second most wins with 17. It was a pretty impressive athletic season in the Tri-Town area, with Final Four banners earned by boys basketball and girls soccer.
Bishop Fenwick also had a winning record in the playoffs, no easy feat since it means (on average) that every team that makes it has to win a game. The Crusaders went 11-10 overall in postseason competition, with five of those wins coming from the state championship basketball squad.
Rounding out the rest of the local schools, Swampscott had a 7-9 mark, Danvers went 6-9 and Beverly qualified a ton of teams of the postseason (11) but only had five wins (illustrating how difficult Division 1 tourney play can be). Essex Tech went 4-6. Peabody only sent four teams to the playoffs, but made the most of it with three of those winning a tourney game (interestingly, the Tanners were the only school that didn’t win a boys tournament game the entire school year).
Feeling sporty
Another year, another racket made by the local tennis teams. It was all aces for boys tennis, which had the best state tournament winning percentage on the North Shore with a 13-6 mark and two teams in the Final Four.
Boys basketball had the most total wins with 14, and their 14-7 total record ranked second by percentage. It was also the only sport that sent two teams to the state championship game (Salem and Masconomet).
Girls tennis also won 14 playoff games and had the next highest percentage (.636) with a 14-8 mark.
Girls lacrosse was next at 13-9. The most remarkable thing about girls lax was that all nine teams to make the tourney won at least one playoff game … an uncommon occurrence.
Baseball wasn’t far off the mark with a 12-9 (.571) showing. Boys lacrosse also had a winning mark at 10-8 (.556), as did girls soccer at 11-9 (.550).
Four total qualifying teams in our readership area had to be the fewest ever in boys hockey, which went 4-4 combined in the postseason. In fact, I’ll bet there’s never been a season where the number of playoff teams in boys and girls hockey was the same … but on the girls side, there were no wins (0-4).
Both football and boys soccer posted 7-8 marks in the playoffs, while girls basketball went 6-7 (with only Fenwick and Peabody winning games). Girls volleyball checked in at 6-9, softball went 3-8 and field hockey was 2-6.
So the sports with the most total qualifying teams were baseball and girls lacrosse with nine each.
Seasonal summary
If you’re curious, the cumulative record of every state tournament game played by a Salem News area team during the 2025-26 school year was 122-110. The performance by local teams this spring was downright incredible, with a 65-48 total record. That had to be the most total wins in any one season in a long while … and somehow, there were no state titles.
To put that in perspective, the cumulative fall playoff record was 33-40, and for the winter season it was 24-22. That meant this spring we were treated to more total playoff wins (65) than we saw in the fall and winter combined (57).
That’s not something we’re likely to see again anytime soon.
Assistant sports editor Matt Williams has covered high school sports for The Salem News since the summer of 2006. You can contact him at MWilliams@salemnews.com and follow along on Twitter/X @MattWilliams_SN