Sports

For the first time in what feels like forever, MIAA sectional and state champions will soon be crowned.

Coming off a year of uncertainty and the cancelation of interscholastic athletic postseasons, spring sports will get their tournaments started in the coming days.

Leominster High (14-1 entering Wednesday night’s CMADA tourney final against Shrewsbury) earned the top seed in the Central Mass. Division 1 tournament and won’t play until Wednesday courtesy of a bye. Tenth-seeded North Middlesex Regional (6-6) will face No. 7 St. Paul on Monday, while No. 13 Nashoba Regional (4-11) travels to No. 5 Westboro for a 4 p.m. contest.

In the CMass. Division 3 baseball brackets, Oakmont Regional (13-1) earned the top seed and will play in the quarterfinals on Wednesday. Central Mass. Division 4 will see fifth-seeded Lunenburg (9-4) travel to No. 4 Oxford on Wednesday for a quarterfinal, while No. 11 St. Bernard’s (1-14) faces No. 6 Sutton Monday in an opening-round game. The winner of that contest faces No. 3 Ayer Shirley (12-2) on Wednesday.

Softball playoff games will kick off on Friday, with several local teams set for action on the road. Fifth-seeded Nashoba Regional (8-7) will head to Dudley to face No. 4 Shepherd Hill for a 4 p.m. start in the Division 1 tournament, while No. 6 North Middlesex Regional (7-7) makes the drive down 190 to play third-seeded Wachusett Regional for a D1 tilt.

Leominster High (4-9), the seventh seed in the Division 1 softball brackets, will be the guests of No. 2 Grafton on Friday afternoon.

In boys lacrosse, fourth-seeded Lunenburg (5-4) will host No. 5 Arlington Catholic in the quarterfinals of the Central/East Division 3 tournament on Friday and in the Central/West Division 2 tourney, No. 7 Leominster (9-4) hosts No. 10 Shrewsbury Friday afternoon.

The Central/West Division 3 tournament will see a pair of local programs represented, with No. 4 North Middlesex (11-4) hosting 13th-seeded Granby Friday at 5 p.m., and No. 11 St. Bernard’s (4-8) will hit the road to square off with No. 6 East Longmeadow.

Nashoba (7-7) will be the seventh seed in the Central/West Division 1 girls lacrosse tournament, hosting No. 10 Northampton, while in the Division 2 tourney, No. 11 St. Bernard’s (0-13) travels to face No. 6 Mount Greylock.

The eighth-seed in the East Division 1 girls lacrosse bracket, North Middlesex (8-4) hosts No. 9 Acton-Boxboro on Friday evening.

Track and field athletes will get a crack at sectional glory starting Thursday, with the Central/West Division 1 meet taking place at Westfield State, running through Saturday with athletes from Nashoba and Leominster High competing.

The Central/West Division 2 meet will take place at Lunenburg High School Thursday through Saturday, with the host Blue Knights well represented. Athletes from Oakmont Regional and Ayer Shirley will also be competing.

Place-winners at those meets will head to the All State meet.

In wrestling, fifth-seeded Monty Tech (1-4-2) will tangle with No. 4 Shepherd Hill in Dudley in a Central Division 2 quarterfinal.

LEOMINSTER — Former Leominster High football standout Noah Gray, now a tight end with the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, will host a one-day football clinic at Doyle Field on June 25, from 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Check-in will begin at 8:30 a.m.

Along with Gray, former Blue Devils that have gone on to Division 1 colleges — Neil O’Connor and Jarrell Addo — and local high school coaches will share their expertise and give instruction to athletes in grades six through 12.

The cost is $65 per camper, with a $25 fee for each additional family member. Campers are encouraged to pre-register at noah-gray-football-clinic.ticketleap.com.

All proceeds from the clinic go to help area high school football programs.

 

The state vocational football Super Bowls have been a hit since their inception in 2004.

Northeast athletic director and head football coach Don Heres would like to enhance the experience.

At Tuesday’s MIAA Football Committee meeting, Heres put forth a proposal to expand the vocational football playoff to three weeks and increasing the amount of qualifying schools from four to eight. Under the plan, the vocational schools would start their playoffs in week 10 and continue on to the championship games which would be contested on the Thursday or Friday following Thankgiving.

Heres was quick to point that any vocational school who was still alive in the MIAA football playoffs would not be eligible to compete in both. After a short discussion, the motion was put to a vote and it was passed 14-0-1.

The other vote came when Milton football coach Steve Dembowski requested that in order to qualify for the playoffs starting in 2021, they would have to win a minimum of three games.

“If you haven’t won at least three games out of seven or eight, you don’t belong in the playoffs,” Dembowski said. “No one wants to see teams going 1-6 or 0-7 in the playoffs like the way it was (under the last playoff system).”

Shrewsbury athletic director Jay Costa felt the odds of that happening would be diminished with the new statewide postseason system going into effect in September. Dembowski’s motion passed by a 7-6-2 vote, meaning it would be put into the format for further discussion by the TMC at a later date.

The hot button topic of Super Bowls at Gillette Stadium was briefly discussed. Costa questioned the rationale of making schools play 12-minute quarters during the season, but only 10 in the Super Bowl (in order to get all the games played at Gillette). Dennis-Yarmouth principal Paul Funk wondered why was the MIAA insistent on using Federation Rules if they don’t provide flexibility, unlike the NCAA rules which were used in the past.

Vice chairman Jim O’Leary brought up the topic of venues. He asked whether it was prudent to make two Western schools (Springfield Central and West Springfield) compete at Gillette if they were in the Div. 1 final. O’Leary pointed out that the TMC was looking to regionalize events in other sports.

“This is a unique situation,” said football coach chairman Jim Pignataro, who is retiring following the school season. “Most schools love the experience of going to Gillette.”

O’Leary, who heads the Tournament Management Committee, reported that 59 appeals were heard based on the criteria established and 44 of them were granted. O’Leary went on to add that all fall alignments should be finalized by the end of June.

GRAFTON — Usually at this stage of the postseason, when you lose, you’re done for the season. That’s it, pack ‘em up, thanks for coming.

Yet with the way everything is set up now, with the re-envisioned Central Mass. tourney preceding a state tournament where if you qualified for it, you’re in regardless of your finish in the sectional, no one can express shock when longtime Leominster boys’ lacrosse coach Colin Davis told his charges, “We’re not done yet,” after the No. 3 Blue Devils fell to No. 2 Grafton, 13-0, Sunday afternoon.

“This is a learning experience for us; we’ve never been to this level before,” said Davis, whose team won only its second playoff game in 16 years of varsity lacrosse earlier this week. “Grafton’s been here eight out of the last 10 years; they are a phenomenal team, they are well-coached, they played better than us at every position today, and it’s a learning experience because we’re pretty young. We’re asking a lot of a lot of sophomores and juniors.

“One of the lessons we teach is you play hard no matter what’s on the scoreboard, and I think our kids did that today; they fought until the end. Grafton was simply the better team. But like I’ve said, this is the best team I’ve ever coached. I’m so proud of them, and today doesn’t feel too good, but we’re going to States and we’ll give it everything we’ve got.”

Despite the blow out defeat which saw the Gators (10-2), which now advance to Tuesday’s final against Algonquin Regional in Littleton on Tuesday, trigger running time with 11 minutes to go in the game, Leominster (9-4) hung tough for most of the first half. Through the first eight minutes, LHS held Grafton to a single goal, Roman Gilliatt’s leaping shot only 58 seconds into the game.

The Devils played outstanding defense in that span, forcing Grafton to call time out early as LHS foiled their plans with its slide and rotation.

“Marcus Delgreco, Gray Dallaire, Pete Spylios, Cam Vitone, Ryan Aiesi, James Julian, and Devon Smith, I mean, the first seven or eight minutes, they really kept us in the game with the rotations, and we’re only down 1-0, and that’s the type of momentum you hope that can carry you,” Davis added.

Yet once Jack Duplessis (game-high five goals) slung the ball in off a re-start with just under three minutes to go in the opening stanza, it set off a scoring avalanche of sorts that had LHS trailing, 4-0 after 12 minutes, and 8-0 after 24.

“We didn’t play well enough in front of Devon (Smith, LHS’ goalie), and I feel badly about that because he’s had a phenomenal season. We couldn’t possess the ball, and that was the difference,” Davis said.

Following Grafton’s Connor Leonard winning the clasp after Duplessis’ first, he lumbered in with his long strides and passed left to Colin Thornton, who fired the third goal only seven seconds after the second.

Sixty-seven ticks later, Jack Hart made it 4-0 after the officials ruled that an unconnected square pass — one to the side — was a shot, and that Grafton was closest to the ball. In lacrosse, a shot that goes out of bounds is claimed by the team with the closest player to it, while a missed connection that goes out of play is normally ruled a turnover.

Duplessis, Cam Michaud, Matthew Bittel, and Gilliatt scored for Grafton in the second quarter.

Thornton made it 9-0, and Duplessis scored twice in the final 3:09 of the third to come dangerously close to registering the running time rule, which was invoked on his goal 53 seconds into the final quarter.

MARLBORO — Sometimes it takes a couple innings to get started, to get the timing down against an unfamiliar pitcher.

Yet once the top-seeded Leominster baseball team got going against Westboro at Marlboro High School Friday, the floodgates slowly opened and a torrent of runs followed.

The Blue Devils earned their 13th straight win and advanced to Tuesday’s Central Mass. Athletic Director’s Tournament final thanks in part to timely hitting and freshman pitcher Angel Baez coming in and locking it down, as LHS downed the Rangers, 7-0.

The win lifts Leominster to 14-1, and will meet either Shrewsbury for the crown at Marlboro at 7 p.m.

Longtime LHS coach Rich Barnaby was absolutely thrilled with the win, which started with a run in the third, two in the fourth, and then a four-spot in the fifth to give the Devils a berth in the final of the Central Mass. tourney.

“We did a good job manufacturing runs today,” Barnaby said. “We got going on a hit-and-run, we took third base on that, and Ryan Fava — who always seems like he’s in that situation, with a runner on third and one out — he knows how to get those free RBIs. We moved guys over in the fourth, Tony Salvatelli gets a great hit. Tyler Smith lays down a great bunt, and we were able to open it up.

“What we were able to do is execute in pressure situations, and we got the runs in. (Westboro) had runners on all day, but they couldn’t get the big hit to get the runners in.”

Westboro (11-5) pitcher Arthur McMahon had sent the top seed down in order in each of the first two innings, but that changed in the third.

Eamon Durkan led off with a hit to the opposite field, before Nico Martinez grounded to third. On the play, though, Durkan noticed no one covering the third base bag and hustled over to the base. Three pitches later, Fava grounded to short, bringing Durkan in.

That was plenty, in fact, for Brendan Arsenault as he earned his fifth win of the 2021 season with five-plus innings of scoreless work. He fanned two and scattered five hits, and got out of one jam in the second inning.

He threw 80 pitches before Barnaby lifted him with no outs in the top of the sixth and two runners on base after walking Nick Choate.

“He’s a competitor,” Barnaby said. “He knows his defense is behind him, and he doesn’t give free bases. And then we put the freshman in at the end; he’s going to be a dominant force in this league for years to come.

“I told him that this was a big spot, and everyone’s going to know who you are after this for the next four years. This is your coming out party.”

Baez struck out his first hitter on his sixth pitch before he walked Carter Bentley to load the bases. But the freshman buckled down and struck out the next two hitters to fan the side and to leave the bases jammed.

He then went 1-2-3 in the top of the seventh to end the game.

“He proved with bases loaded and allowed no runs that that’s a sign of what’s to come with Angel,” Barnaby added. “He’s unbelievable. I’m giddy, knowing I have him for three more years. He started against Shrewsbury, one of the top teams in Central Mass., and got the win. He kept a good Shrewsbury team off the board, and he has that special something that our young pitchers have.

“The future of the pitching staff looks really bright.”

Leominster added two runs in the home half of the fourth.

McMahon issued a lead-off walk to Sean Dutton before Evan McCarthy singled hard through the right side, narrowly missing Dutton to put runners at first and second. Nick Garcia’s grounder to short advanced the runners before Arsenault helped his own cause with a grounder to third to deliver Dutton with the second run of the game.

McCarthy then scored on a Savatelli single to left, giving Leominster a 3-0 advantage.

LHS then batted around and plated four runs on four hits in the fifth.

Martinez found himself plunked before Fava beat out a throw from the shortstop. Tyler Smith then bunted, catching the Rangers not ready, to load the bases.

With the infield drawn in, Dutton’s grounder to second wasn’t online, and Martinez slid in safely to put Leominster ahead, 4-0. McCarthy then hit a flare to the outfield, delivering Fava.

Two hitters later, Arsenault singled in two runs to round out the scoring.

LEOMINSTER — With the way visiting sixth-seeded Tantasqua Regional came out in its Central Mass. Athletic Director’s Tournament game against No. 3 Leominster Thursday evening, it looked like playing against Shepherd Hill Regional in the heat on Wednesday didn’t faze the Warriors one iota.

Groundballs went toward the visitors. Time of possession went to Tantasqua.

But in the second half, the Blue Devils came up roses, while the Warriors wilted.

Leominster won its first-ever home playoff game and second-ever postseason tilt since the program started in 2005, downing Tantasqua, 13-7, at Historic Doyle Field.

The win lifts LHS to 9-3, and now the Blue Devils must await the winner of Friday night’s other quarterfinal between Wachusett Regional and Grafton. If the Mountaineers win, Wachusett comes to Priest Street. If the Gators win, LHS heads to Route 140.

That semifinal will be played at a date and time to be determined.

Tantasqua fell to 7-4.

Leominster coach Colin Davis, after having a bottle of water dumped on him, was all smiles as he spoke about the adjustments his second-half team made headed into the final 24 minutes.

“We saw this coming: we’re a second-half team,” Davis said. “I know (Tantasqua) played (Wednesday); I’m sure they are tired, and it was hot. We practiced in it, but to play a game in that heat is totally different. But at halftime, I told them this game won’t come down to shots, it won’t come down to turnovers, it’s not defense. It’s groundballs.

“They had so much more possession in the first half, but I told them they’ll get tired in the second half. We shouldn’t be; we weren’t getting after it like we usually do. But this team, every time they’ve been down at the half, they’ve come back. These kids are so tough, so resilient. Tantasqua was a bigger team than us, they were throwing us around in the first quarter, in the first half, but they get up every time they get knocked down.”

After Tantasqua held the groundball battle, 11-3, after 12 minutes, Leominster cut it to 37-28, with 18 of them coming in the second half.

Sam Babeau, who scored Leominster’s opener in the second quarter, took Ryan Aiesi’s pass off Marcus Delgreco’s groundball and dumped it high over Tantasqua freshman goalie Samuel Panek (eight saves in three quarters) to get the comeback truly underway, before Michael Halstead cut the deficit to a goal, 5-4, thanks to a rocket of a shot after Halstead came off the dodge.

Less than 20 ticks later, Tantasqua re-established the two-goal margin, with Cam Varney racing in from the sideline, taking Liam Hubacz’s pass all alone and firing it in.

But the next sequence firmly sent momentum, luck, and three wishes toward the Blue Devil bench as Conner Greene, on a deflected shot that caromed high into the setting sun, corralled the ball and zipped it in on the right-hand side of Panek to pull Leominster to within one for the second time in mere minutes.

“At 6-4, we had two choices: fight, or run,” Davis said. “These kids, all season long, have chosen fight.”

Gio Arman then tied it up with 3:45 remaining in the third, sending the Blue Devil bench into hysterics.

Then, with 1:08 remaining and on a re-start from behind the cage, Arman found a streaking Nathan Taylor, who flew to take the pass and deposit it in to give the Blue Devils a deserved 7-6 lead.

Arman added a second goal to make it 8-6 off another re-start, this time from the tunnel corner. Tantasqua slashed and tried to deny Arman a clear look, but as he tumbled to the Doyle turf after taking one final, punishing hit, Arman let it fly.

The onion bag belched with 14 ticks remaining in the third.

“Huge goal,” Davis praised. “A one-goal lead in lacrosse is nothing, but when you start to press it to two and three, now teams can’t make fluky plays. They have to make consecutive good plays to get back in the game.”

Aiesi scored twice in the fourth, with Halstead and Brassard (two fourth-quarter goals, hat trick overall) making it 13-6.

Spike Austin, who opened the scoring for Tantasqua, closed it out with 4:16 left.

The Warriors jumped on top, 3-0, thanks to its groundball play. Tantasqua grabbed two quick groundballs in the attacking half, before Aidan Way found Austin for the opener. The senior slinged it in at 10 o’clock, and Tantasqua held a 1-nil lead after 56 seconds.