Major coaching changes coming to local varsity programs

It's become a part-time job in itself to figure out who is returning to their coaching posts and who is moving on. And the more I look, the more openings I find. These changes will alter the face of local sports as many longtime coaches have moved on. I expect many of these appointments will lead to longer features in the print edition of the Times Argus.

This fall, there will be two new varsity football coaches in our four-team coverage area: U-32 welcomes assistant Brian Divelbliss to the helm and assistant John Murphy will become the varsity coach at Montpelier. Divelbliss was most recently an assistant with U-32 and the athletic director/PE teacher at Williamstown. He will now teach and coach at U-32. Murphy was most recently part of the Montpelier youth football program and replaces Arne McMullen. Divelbliss replaces longtime coach Mike Law, who retired after last season.

I was just perusing SchoolSpring.com and discovered several openings at U-32, including that of girls varsity ice hockey coach. Dave Pickel is apparently only coaching the boys now. There is also an opening for a varsity cheerleading coach, JV girls basketball coach and varsity baseball coach. Word has it Travis Paquet, most recently the women's basketball coach at VTC and former coach at Harwood, will replace Mark Mooney as the varsity girls basketball coach at U-32. Mooney is now an administrator at Twinfield.

While not in our coverage area, Green Mountain in Chester is also looking for new basketball coaches - both boys and girls varsity - for the coming winter. Longtime boys coach Stretch Gillam has moved on to South Royalton while Terry Farrell, also a longtime Cheiftain coach, has apparently left his post as girls coach.

Williamstown posted an opening for a varsity girls soccer coach, which looks to mean longtime coach Jay Villa has left. They are also in need of a JV boys basketball coach - a position most recently held by Spaulding alumn Kellen George.

Northfield has an opening for its varsity boys basketball coach, most recently held by Nathan Driscoll.

Spaulding needs a JV field hockey hockey coach - a post most recently occupied by former Crimson Tide field hockey player Becky Millington. I know Spaulding will also be searching for a varsity girls basketball coach as well as a varsity softball coach after I tried to contact Mike Binaghi for softball stats for all-stars and he informed me he had been "let go." No further word on that move by Spaulding.

Randolph will also be in the hunt for a softball coach to take over for legend Alan Stewart. Stewart - and there is no "replacing" him, it will be the beginning of a new era - has retired from coaching after this most recent spring season that, once again, found the Galloping Ghosts in a state championship game.

Any vacancies I missed in the central Vermont area?

Good luck to the coaches who will be joining us, and best wishes to those who have moved on. Thank you for your service to central Vermont athletics!

-Anna Grearson

 

POY alumni hoop game

There is something awesome about good, local basketball in June.

Last night I went over to Main Street Middle School in Montpelier to watch this year's Lone Wolf boys team coached by Joe Salerno - the former Montpelier varsity boys and Vermont Frost Heaves coach, and who covered a few basketball games for the Times Argus this winter - take on a team of former local and Lone Wolf athletes. Apparently this has become a summer tradition, with Rick Brigham, the father of former Solons Sam and Evan, coaching the alumns. It's not an "alumni" game, officially. That will come July 16th at the Aud in Barre.

What struck me even before really watching the game was the faces of the players. Times Argus boys basketball Players of the Year Billy Boyd (Hazen), Chad Copeland (Twinfield) were there on opposing teams (Chad is just a junior and will return along with all but one of his D-IV champion Trojans this winter), and former local stars Sam Brigham, Andrew Gribbin, Thomas Passburg, brothers Matt and Sean Dowling, and top-tier players from around the state: Anthony Grannai, Marcus Willingham, Eric Suder (injured, but he was there watching) and others.

Matt St. Amore wasn't there, but who could blame him - he was off winning his third state championship of the school year, having now won titles in soccer, basketball and baseball. 

There were others missing, it was so good to see all these players on one court - and have it not be snowing outside. 

The Lone Wolf program travels to big-time tournaments, mainly out of state, and will host a huge showcase on August 14 at St. Michael's College. The players are exposed to all kinds of college coaches and recruiters, and it's exciting to think what the future holds for these young athletes.

-Anna Grearson

Post-championship notes from CSC

I saw three of our local teams vie for lacrosse championships at Castleton State College on Saturday - GMVS boys faced Rice and the Chelsea girls took on Oxbow. Two of our smallest schools were on the biggest stage their sport offers in this state for high school competition, and both had fantastic showings.

The Green Mountain Valley School is a ski academy that offers just soccer and lacrosse - its students are devoted to skiing in the winter, and all year long for that matter. Saturday was the Gumbies' first-ever final appearance, and the week prior, they won notched their first-ever semifinal win. The 2011 playoffs were just the third the team has competed in. Ever.

Chelsea has fewer than 40 girls in the whole school, yet the Red Devils have been a girls lacrosse dynasty for years - Saturday was their ninth appearance in the final in 10 years. They only missed in 2004 thanks to Montpelier. And they have five 8th graders on the team - five! And they play and play well. If to opponents feel like they see the same dominant girls forever, they do - they see them for five years, not four.

Oxbow has only been a varsity program for four or five years, and when the Olympians first started playing, they had back-to-back winless seasons. Musty also coaches soccer and basketball at the Bradford school, and a lot of the same girls play the same three sports. No wonder they've got great team chemistry. The Olympians are in the process of adding boys lacrosse, which I am looking forward to. Stowe is adding both boys and girls lacrosse in the near future as well.

Here are some of my quotes from Sam Jackson of GMVS, John Parker of Chelsea and Brian Musty of Oxbow that couldn't make it into my story but still are important in showing the accomplishments of these small programs.

Jackson: "We’ve only done this twice, and the first year we lost in the quarterfinals. It’s an interesting thing because, as a ski academy, our guys have a clear focus that isn’t lacrosse-related that takes a lot of time and energy for them. It’s what they’ve devoted themselves to and they’ve all been willing to put in additional time to be a part of this team and work hard at it when they could continue to focus on skiing or doing some dry-land stuff or taking a break after a long winter.

But these guys come out and really enjoy the team aspect of it and the older kids have done a great job of modeling during the winter the importance of getting your stick out and throw the ball around a little bit. We get a late start, we cram a lot of games into a short period of time, we don’t have a lot of time to practice and we don’t have a lot of guys, so it’s tricky for us. I think the kids are the ones who have decided it’s something they’re going to take seriously. They want to continue to excel and compete at. That’s where it’s coming from."

Parker: "It’s real exciting. We have a small school with only 35 girls and you can win a state championship at the Division-II level.

 

We have a super core group of girls with very good skills and who are very competitive. Games like this, it shows up. But I also want to give Oxbow a lot of credit.

We won it as a team, which was super."

Musty: "John does a great job with them, they have a great, strong program and a great goalie this year. We did pretty good shooting-wise on her. I’m really proud of my kids.

 

I don’t know if it’s reasonable or not but it will be the goal. That’s our goal every year, every sport I coach. We often talk at the beginning of the season for our goal to be one of the last two teams standing at the end of the season, and if we can do that, we’ve got a shot."

Congratulations, coaches and teams!

-Anna Grearson

"Hope"-ful news about Spaulding's Catie White

Snail-mail still exists for some college athletic departments, as I learned first-hand today with some actual mail from Hope College in Holland, MI.

Catie White, who sprinted through Spaulding High School and graduated about this time last spring, has apparently taken her talents to the Division-III school. Hope participates in the MIchigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association, and White was a member of the women's track and field team that earned a second-place finish in the league championship meet. The men won, which tells me White made a good decision track-wise.

White won the league title in the long jump with a leap of 17 feet, 1.5 inches and was part of the winning 4x100-meter relay. For her efforts, White was the only Hope freshman named to the All-MIAA team. There wasn't even a sophomore from Hope represented on the women's side. She also lettered in track and field.

-Anna Grearson

Championships aplenty

I admittedly went into these spring playoffs thinking we'd have a couple teams left standing by the time the title tilts rolled around. Well, consider me completely wrong. We have seven. And two are playing each other.

What I love most about the upcoming championship games is how much our teams deserve to win. And here's why:

1. Montpelier girls tennis. The Solons will face No. 1 Burr and Burton Thursday morning for the girls D-II championship in Manchester. Montpelier lost one of its top singles players in Carly Watson to injury earlier in the season, but the Solons' depth has more than proved its mettle since. Semifinals shouldn't be blowouts, theoretically, and that's exactly what Montpelier did - a 7-0 semifinal win is not a horrible sign. But, Burr and Burton is a tough sports school, and the Bulldogs will be a formidable opponent.

2. Northfield baseball. The Marauders enter Friday night's championship with an undefeated record. Normally, this would scare me. But, Northfield has won close games in addition to its double-digit victories. They have everything: Great pitching, solid hitting and a defense I haven't ever seen in high school baseball. They make plays others simply can't and they come up with hits at the exact right times. I can't wait for this final. The Marauders obviously have a rich winning tradition, but this team just has such a fun identity and good kids that without a laundry list of titles behind them, this baseball team is outstanding.

3. Randolph softball. Alan Stewart has got to be one of my favorite spring coaches. He is always so positive and clearly his teams produce. The Galloping Ghosts ousted the Rebels of Leland & Gray in Tuesday's semifinal, a team coached by a former Randolph softball player under Stewart. His teams rarely have one single standout - they're a team of solid players. Sure, Arielle Connolly was a dominant pitcher, but this year, the team has done it as that - a team. They'll face Peoples Academy on Saturday afternoon in Poultney, so I guess that means we have eight teams playing for championships. The Wolves rarely called their games in this spring, so that may explain my not "counting" them in my list of locals.

4. The GMVS boys lacrosse team will face Rice on Saturday morning for the D-II boys final at Castleton State College. GMVS is a ski school that gets overlooked more than it should. These are top athletes and choose to go to school in Fayston to work on their skiing and hope to make a career out of it. They want to be career athletes - is it any wonder they're pretty darn good at soccer and lacrosse, too? 

5. Two of my favorite spring teams - Chelsea and Oxbow girls lacrosse - will face off for the D-II girls title on Saturday afternoon, also at CSC. I've covered both a few times this spring, and I can't wait to see how this one turns out. Both teams come at you from all angles. There's no one player to key on. Both have goalies that are absolutely outstanding. Karley Hamilton of Oxbow stopped 19 - 19! - shots in the Olympians' semifinal win over perennial power Burr and Burton. Oxbow made the BBA goalie make 4. 4! That's efficient shooting and top-tier defense. Chelsea's Morgan Tullar has done a fantastic job yet again for the Red Devils, keeping them undefeated for so much of the season. Both teams have one loss. One team will have two Saturday afternoon. And not to be too dramatic, but my girls lacrosse player of the year decision will heavily depend on what happens in that game.

And then....it's All-Star season. Who are your Players of the Year?

-Anna Grearson

Mountaineers have hit town

The Vermont Mountaineers got to town on Sunday - well, some of them - and they play their first game of the season Wednesday at Keene. Jamie Biggam and I have been to practice yesterday and today and we each have a story in the Wednesday edition of the Times Argus.

Manager John Russo gave me a lot of good quotes, but I couldn't get them all in. Here's what didn't make the paper:

On those players still playing in the College World Series: "We have 12 guys in regionals and we have four of those 12 who made it to Super Regionals: Kyle Crockett from Virginia (left-handed pitcher from Poquoson, Va.) and Matt Whitehouse from (the University of California-) Irvine (left-handed pitcher from Diamond Bar, Calif.), and Anthony Marzi and Anthony Aceto (outfielder from North Providence, R.I.) and Anthony Marzi (left-handed pitcher from Berlin, Conn.) from Connecticut."

On his biggest challenges headed into this opening week, aside from missing half his team: "Getting everybody playing time and swinging the bat again. Some of these guys have taken two weeks off and have gotten away from working out and playing and throwing. (Monday) pitchers threw in the bull pens and they hadn’t thrown in two weeks, so we’re getting them back into a regular pattern that they had been in at school and building arm strength back up. There’s a couple of pitchers who are still pitching, Kyle Crockett and Matt Whitehouse, who I think will be upper-echelon pitchers in this league. I think we’re real lucky to have real junior-laden position players and good hitters who were the third or fourth hitters at their Division I squads. That’s going to give us a little bit of an advantage early with making the adjustment to hitting with wood."

 

 

 

 

On what it's like to be back in Vermont after leaving the post two years ago: "I had to appologize to the kids (Monday) because when I left here three years ago, I didn’t think I was ever coming back, so when I got back, it brought up a lot of memories. I was telling the kids stories about players, like AJ Pollack and Matt Rizzotti, and Kyle Brault and a home run he hit, and (Monday) afternoon I appologized for killing them with stories. But coming back here has been an unbelievable experience for me, and my wife and family will be up this weekend. The family is really excited about being back for the summer."

On whether or not his players are ready for the Vermont crowds, which will include Vermont Frost Heaves season ticket holders (the Mountaineers offered season tickets to Frost Heave season ticket holders who were left with many unusable tickets after the team folded in January): "I think they are. Opening night and the first couple games are some of the most exciting because of how hard the kids play and it’s like the first practice - the reason we don’t usually get off to the best start at home is because the kids are trying maybe too hard. Getting them to play comfortable and relax and not nervous anymore, which is why I think we play a little bit better in July than we do in June. We’ll try to get off to a better start this year."

Vermont will play its first game of the season at Recreation Field on Sunday, also against Keene, at 6:30 p.m.

-Anna Grearson