This was no ordinary year for Eagle-Tribune high school sports teams. Between the Massachusetts and New Hampshire schools, there were 18 state champion teams and one New England title.
Yes, 19 titles. That’s not a misprint.
Count them up.
Leading the way was Pinkerton Academy, which took home a whopping seven titles. Girls cross country and gymnastics and boys basketball, indoor track and baseball also all celebrated with titles. The Astros also won two state championships with the spirit team.
“We are very proud of the fact that our athletic program produced seven state champions this past year, as well as five others who advanced to the semifinals or championship game,” said Pinkerton Academy athletic director Brian O’Reilly.
“Their success points not only to the excellent athletes that we have at our school but a host of dedicated coaches who put the extra time and effort into setting high goals of athletic and scholastic performance. Six of our seven championship teams have won multiple state championships over the past several years.”
Here’s a look back at the titles (not including the spirit teams).
Fall Season
Timberlane Girls Soccer
This team was absolutely loaded with talent, and that talent absolutely dominated all season long. The Owls finished the season 18-1, losing an early game to Portsmouth. Timberlane was able to get revenge by defeating Portsmouth, 1-0, before 1,000 screaming fans to capture the program’s first ever Division I state crown.
The win also extended the team’s winning streak to 17, while outscoring opponents 64-8 during that stretch of play.
With the game scoreless late in the second half, senior Leah Morrier – the Eagle-Tribune’s Player of the Year – had the ball in the deep right hand corner and sent a pass over to the front of the net where freshman Rylee Donahue headed it in for the game winner.
Morrier was named the New Hampshire’s Gatorade Player of the Year.
Pinkerton Girls Cross Country
Another team that was deep in talent, the Astros had three of the top five finishers and five girls finish under 21 minutes to come home with the New Hampshire Division I state championship held at Manchester’s Derryfield Park.
Contessa Silva was the team’s top performer coming across third overall with a time of 19:23.46. She was followed by Isabelle Groulx (4th, 19:28.59), Susannah “Sookie” Folsom (5th, 19:29.50), Kalisan Marzolf (12th, 20:22.83) and Parker Knowlton (20:59.50).
Methuen/Tewksbury Boys Swimming
This title does have an asterisk with it because no other team competed against the Red Rangers co-op team. However, if teams did line up, they would have been in for one tough challenge.
Methuen/Tewksbury was led by Carter DeLano, who won both the 100-breaststroke and 500-freestyle, Tewksbury’s Matthew Jo, who won both the 100-backstroke and 200-IM and Divier Ramos was the winner in the 1-meter diving competition, with teammate Juan Polanco taking second.
Both the 200-medley relay and 400-freestyle teams also won. The medley team consisted of DeLano, Jo, Tewksbury’s Alan Dang and Ethan Corthell. The freestyle team was DeLano, Corthell, Johnathan Phan and Jo.
Pelham Football
The Pythons extended their incredible winning streak to 41 games, capturing the program’s fourth state championship in a row with a 35-6 drubbing over Plymouth in the Division II state championship game.
Plymouth took a 6-0 lead before the Pythons scored the game’s next five touchdowns, two by Dom Herrling and one each from Connor Travis, Nick Muise and Jake Ciulla. Pelham had 311 rushing yards on the day and 381 total yards of offense.
Defensively, Pelham gave up just 83 yards of total offense, had five interceptions, while, the trio of Memphis Patterson, Diego Jiminez and Aiden Lynch were simply unstoppable.
The game was also the last for head coach Tom Babaian, who stepped down shortly thereafter.
Winter Season
North Andover Boys Track
The meet came down to the final event, the 4×400, and the group of David Muir, Soham Nath, Brendan Dee and Jacob Nuttall ran a combined time of 3:31.65 to capture first place and more importantly give the Scarlet Knights their second straight Division 2 state championship.
An hour before that clinching race, the 4×200 relay of anchor Ajani Muzasadila, Owen Delaney, Ben Iglesias and late injury substitution Ernesto Fiallos ran to victory in 1:32.43.
Four individuals also placed in the top three that day including second places from Dylan Cote in the 1,000 meters (2:33.50), Luke McGillivray in the two-mile (9:45.54) and Mickey Valentino in the shot put (50-3) and a third from Nuttall in the 55-meter hurdles (7.89).
Pinkerton Boys Track
On Super Bowl Sunday, the Astros easily ran away with this title scoring 111 points with runner-up Bedford ending with 72.
Junior Matt Morrison was the star of the meet as he won the 55-meter hurdles (7.61) and was second in both the 55-meter dash (6.47) and 300 (35.63).
Other second places came from Finn Christensen Kraft in the 3,000 (8:56.80), Nathan Binda in the 600 (1:24.93), Jason Rzasa in the 1,000 (2:36.38), the 4×400 relay team of Aiden Dowd, Cody Santomassino, Jamison Isaac and Binda with a time of 3:35.03 and Jordan Chick in the shot put (48-5).
Coming through with third places included Caden Michaud in the long jump (21-6), John Child in the 55-meter hurdles (7.88), Dowd in the 600 (1:25.36), Noah Dingle in the 1,000 (2:40.73) and Luke DeLangie in the shot put (47-3.75).
Pinkerton and Central Catholic Gymnastics
Pinkerton captured the New Hampshire Division I state championship. The team was led by Abigail Lee, who was second in the bars (9.50) and fourth in the vault ( 9.325) and Rebecca King was third in the bars (9.425) and third in the floor exercise (9.45).
Central Catholic has an asterisk on this title as the Raiders were second at the state meet, but finished first at the New England Meet for the second straight year – and accomplished the feat without one of its top performers in Zinnia Hopkinson.
Senior Riley Salerno was crowned the New England All-Around Champion with a 37.775 score, while, Ashlyn Pinet won the floor exercise (9.7), and Chloe Salerno (9.30 on vault) and Sophia Sierpina (9.20 on vault) also had strong performances.
Haverhill Wrestling
The Hillies won both the Division 1 and the All-State titles.
At the D1 Meet, CJ Wood (120) and Brent Nicolosi (165) were crowned champions, while other place finishers included second places from Michael Morris (113) and Matt Harrold (215), a third from Shea Morris (138) and a fifth from Aiden Morris (106).
At the All-State Meet, the Hillies beat out a handful of other talented squads including St. John’s Prep, Shawsheen Tech and Methuen. Nicolosi was the lone champion at 165 pounds, and then five of his teammates also placed including thirds from Shea Morris (138) and Harrold (215), a fourth from Michael Morris (113), a sixth from Wood (120) and a seventh from Aiden Morris (106).
Salem Wrestling
For the second straight year, the Blue Devils ruled the mat, earning the New Hampshire Division I state title.
Salem had two champions, three finalists and 12 place finishers on the day. Dominic Murphy (113) and Brody McDonald (120) were the two champs. Finishing second included Spencer Buscema (126), Caleb O’Rourke (138) and Cam Monahan (144).
Evan Lynch (132) and Danny Hughes (175) both took third. Maddox Boudreau (106) and Jason Belkus (157) took fourth, Zander Wood (190) was fifth and sixth places came from Jimmy Nelson (215) and Tyler Pavidis (285).
Pelham Boys Basketball
Just a few months after leading the football team to another title, Herrling was back at it as he and Zach James combined for 15 of the team’s 19 fourth quarter points to lift the Pythons to a 51-41 win over Hanover.
It was the second straight state championship for the Pythons. It also marked the tenth time in the past 20 years that the program was in a state final.
Herrling was the only Python in double figures with 15 points and nine boards. Adrian Villanueva and Peter Hemmerdinger had eight apiece, while Logan Dumont and James had seven. Travis delivered six points, six boards and a couple of charges taken.
Pinkerton Boys Basketball
After being outscored 31-15 in the second quarter, the Astros came storming out of the locker room and played a perfect second half, completing dominating and connecting on 22 of 40 from the field, while holding Nashua North to just 33 total points, which was more than enough to come away with the 90-76 victory before 2,500 fans at the University of New Hampshire.
Senior Jackson Marshall finished the game with 31 points and 14 rebounds, while Drew Brander was also immense with 26 points, including four treys. Charlie Ludden was the third player in double figures with 18.
For his career, Jackson, a four-time Eagle-Tribune All-Star and later named the co-Player of the Year, scored 2,073 points. Earlier in the playoff run, he became just the third player in Eagle-Tribune area history to reach two thousand points.
The Astros finished up at 20-1 in New Hampshire and 23-1 overall, winning their third straight Lowell Christmas Tournament back.
Spring Season
Pinkerton Baseball
Speaking of Pinkerton, championships and Jackson Marshall … it happened again with a 9-0 shutout win over Exeter.
Junior pitcher Michael Cioffi went 5.2 innings, allowing just four hits before sophomore Hunter Brasier came out, got out of a bases loaded jam before finishing it off with two more scoreless innings. He was also the winning pitcher in the state semifinal game, tossing five scoreless innings in the extra inning win over Nashua North.
Offensively, Josh Jones provided a huge two-run triple, Leo Boucher and Elijah Sharp had RBI hits and later so did pinch-hitter Jake Adrien.
The title was the second for Pinkerton (20-1) in three years. The Astros beat Londonderry for the 2022 Division I crown, then fell in the title game to the Lancers last spring.
Central Catholic Girls Lacrosse
Much like several of these other aforementioned teams, the Raiders were loaded with talent and had state championship on the minds from the first minute of tryouts back in late March.
Central Catholic took home the program’s first ever title with a 14-8 win over No. 2 seed Wellesley in the Division 1 championship game.
The game was tied up at 1-1 early on before Central scored four straight on goals from Kerri Finneran (two), Olivia Rondeau and Abby Yfantopulos, which opened things up.
Wellesley made a short comeback in the second half, cutting the deficit to 10-6 heading into the fourth but the Raiders put it away with four more goals down the stretch, while the defense led by Delaney True, locked things down.
Windham Girls Lacrosse
In just her second-year as head coach, Jordyn O’Boyle led the Jaguars to the program’s fourth state championship, a 10-6 win over Winnacunnet in the Division II title game played at Stellos Stadium in Nashua.
Windham got out to a quick 3-0 lead before Winnacunnet cut it to 3-2 after the first quarter. The Jaguars responded with big goals from Chloe Hall and Sophia Ponzini as part of a 5-0 stretch to put the game away.
“In the last four years, we’ve either lost in the semis or quarters, we’ve never made it this far,” said Ponzini. “Not only was it our goal to make it to the finals, but to win was just the cherry on top.”
North Andover Boys Track
The powerhouse Scarlet Knights made it two titles in two seasons — and three straight Division 2 spring track state titles — and did so in dramatic fashion again.
The 4×400 relay of anchor David Muir, Leo Ferrucci, Mark Muiruri and Trevor Hunter delivered in the final event of the day, taking gold in 3:26.44, locking down the team title for the host Scarlet Knights at Merrimack College. The Knights finished with 111 points, besting No. 2 Wellesley (90).
The Scarlet Knights’ other victory went to Mike McNaught, who won the pentathlon — his first every time competing in the event and just days removed from the passing of his grandfather.
Twitter: @JamiePote