Generally, we have at least one team from our area make it all the way to championship weekend during the winter tournament season, but this year we don’t have any. The last two teams met with defeat this past Wednesday in the state semifinals.
We probably should have seen this coming, as we lost the equivalent of an athletic battalion March 3-4, including three of St. Mary’s four teams. That left a pretty thin herd the rest of the way.
Two teams that survived that first full tournament weekends, though, were Swampscott and Lynn hockey. Both won thrilling games — Lynn’s in overtime over Shawsheen and Swampscott’s in the last two minutes of play to beat Lowell. That set the two teams up for a memorable Division 3 North semifinal game that ended up being at Cronin Rink in Revere.
It is time, then, to do a wrap-up of the winter tournament season in the form of a list of superlatives (and their opposites), starting with the aforementioned Swampscott-Lynn contest, which gets the nod as Best Game.
There really is no second here. From the atmosphere (electric) to the game itself (heart-stopping), it was everything a high school tournament game should be. There wasn’t a dead moment in that 45 minutes of action, and the fans from both Lynn and Swampscott approached the game the way you’d have hoped they would. They rooted passionately for their teams, but respectfully. These two teams got after it from the opening faceoff and kept at it. I can’t think that anyone who saw that game, regardless of how embedded he or she may be in the ancient rivalry between Lynn and Swampscott, could have wanted anyone else but the Big Blue to win the North title (which they did, the following Sunday) and go on to the state final (which, sadly, they did not). The 3-2 final was very reflective of how close the game was. You left there realizing that you’d just seen something special.
Most Valuable Player: Dan Johnson, Swampscott. This won’t make my Lynn friends happy, but the Jets threw the kitchen sink at Johnson at Cronin Rink, especially at the end of the game when they had the extra skater on the ice, and the goalie stopped everything.
Rookie of the Year: Jack Gallant, Lynn. Gallant showed up for tryouts on Day 1 and the only goalie in the Jets’ system, Kenny Perez of Lynn Tech, was still playing football as the Tigers prepared for the state vocational championship game.
Gallant volunteered to put on the pads just so the skaters could have a goalie for shooting drills. But new coach Mike Roberts admired the junior’s courage for taking it on, and actually liked what he saw.
Gallant won the job, and while he had some difficulties at times, the Jets were 11-5-4 during the regular season and won two tournament games before bowing out to the Big Blue. And he had no chance on any of those three Swampscott goals.
Best Coach: We have to go with Adam DeBaggis, Bishop Fenwick girls basketball. The Crusaders’ finest hour came in the second round when they almost let St. Mary’s get away from them before coming back to win their quarterfinal game. It was the only real tough game Fenwick had until the Crusaders ran up against Williams in the state semifinal, but it was a huge victory for them.
Biggest Disappointment: So many to choose from. St. Mary’s boys hockey went two-and-out in defense of their Division 1 state championship; neither the Classical boys nor girls got past the first round; and Revere, the Northeastern Conference’s other big team, also lost right away.
All of that said, The Classical girls were the top seed in Division 2, only had one regular-season loss, and were in a position to make some noise. They didn’t lose to a cream puff (that Wilmington team also beat a decent Saugus team before playing the Rams) and, as often happens in basketball (more than any other sport) the Wildcats presented some serious matchup problems for Tom Sawyer and the Rams. Sawyer can coax wins out of players who might not be as individually talented as some other teams are, and his 19-1 record shows what he can do when he does have an exceptionally talented group of players (such as two of the five all-conference players, Paris Wilkey and Irianis Delgado). So in that sense, it was a disappointment to see them bow out right away. It would have been nice to see him, and the Rams, hang around a bit longer.
Happiest group of athletes: This has to go to the Bishop Fenwick girls, and I’ll tell you why. In their first game, they blasted East Boston, 54-6. DeBaggis was embarrassed by that (though he shouldn’t have been). But before too much could be made of it, East Bridgewater destroyed Madison Park, 93-7, taking whatever spotlight might have fallen on the Crusaders and placing it elsewhere. And there was plenty of it, too.
I have registered my opinion on this. The problem lies with the MIAA, which insists on seeding teams solely on record (instead of paying attention to how strong their leagues and their competition are) and placing teams in divisions based on enrollment and not power.
Most ill-timed game: The Fenwick-St. Mary’s girls game has to win this one going away. As we’ve already noted, the St. Mary’s win was Fenwick’s toughest by far. The scores of the Crusaders’ other wins: 54-6, 57-19 and 45-22. Once again, I repeat, find a way to put the best teams in the best games.
Player to watch in 2018-19: Jalen Echevarria, St Mary’s. In the Division 3 North final last Saturday, where no one from either side could hit consistently, Echevarria scored 15 points and shot better-than-reliably from outside. He was one of the mainstays for St. Mary’s boys basketball team’s top seed in Division 3 North, and led the Spartans to the sectional final last Saturday, where they bowed out to Watertown.
Not bad at all.