County Squads Brought Home State Titles in 2019
It was the year of the state champion in Berkshire County high school athletics.
Area high school teams brought home the hardware in all three seasons in the last calendar year, and the list of individual and team accomplishments at the Western Mass level have kept local student-athletes in the headlines throughout the year.
The year started off with a bang as Berkshire County pulled off a trifecta. The Mount Greylock girls won a state cross country ski championship, the Taconic wrestlers won a D3 state crown and the Hoosac Valley girls basketball team finally got over the hump and finished on top of the heap.
For the Mounties, it was a continuation of a four-year run at the top of the state Nordic ranks and a sign of Berkshire County’s dominance in the sport, where Lenox’s girls and Wahconah’s girls finished third and fifth, respectively, and the Mount Greylock, Lenox and Hoosac Valley boys all placed in the top fifth.
Dominance is a word that best describes the Hurricanes’ run in Western Mass girls basketball. But after winning six sectional titles in seven years, Hoosac Valley finally earned a win in its fifth trip to the state final during that run. And the Hurricanes did so with some drama, as junior Riley Robinson suffered a laceration to her head in the first half, got stitches and returned to help the ‘Canes knock off St. Mary’s of Lynn.
Robinson still was the second best individual story line for the Hurricanes last winter, as three-sport star Alie Mendel overcame cancer to continue her high school athletics career in soccer, basketball and lacrosse for Hoosac Valley.
No team titles for the first time in a long time for Berkshire County’s high school bowlers, but McCann Tech’s Brandon Vallone won an individual state crown in March, posting a high game of 269 at the championships in Auburn.
Taconic’s wrestlers helped christen the trophy case at their new high school with a state championship of their own -- two in fact, as senior Zabion Powell won an individual title at 145 pounds and the team edged Dedham by two points to win the whole shooting match.
That wrestling trophy was just the first state championship picked up by Taconic this year.
In the spring, senior Christian Womble pitched Taconic to a D3 state title with a 12-strikeout performance in the championship game. There was a little bit of drama in this contest as well: One year earlier, Taconic was on the cusp of another state title but Womble was ineligible to play in the final. His hard work on and off the field resulted in redemption and Taconic’s second state crown in three years.
Berkshire County’s other spring state title came in the area’s newest spring sport: Unified Track and Field. The Wahconah squad claimed victory in just its second year of participation. Wahconah’s Unified program has inspired two other area schools, Hoosac Valley and Mount Greylock, to adopt the inclusive sports model, an initiative of Special Olympics that allows student-athletes of all abilities to compete for their school.
The county’s sixth team state title of 2019 came this fall, when the Lenox girls cross country team outkicked rival Mount Greylock to win the crown in Gardner. Sophomore Grace Elliot led the Millionaires with a sixth-place finish as an individual. Just a few weeks earlier, at the county championship race, Elliot was forced to pull out on the course due to an asthma attack; she returned to lead Lenox to victory at Western Mass and the state meet.
Other high school highlights this fall that fell just short of the lofty MIAA state championship plateau included:
♦ Two state titles of a different variety claimed by McCann Tech, which won State Vocational crowns in softball and girls soccer. The former came after the other semi-finalist chose not to play after waiting for the Hornets to finish their long run to the finals of the Western Mass tournament. The latter featured a dramatic penalty kick win in the State Voc semi-finals.
♦ The Berkshire County swimming community rallying around their competitors at Pittsfield High when coach Tim Mazzer passed away in the middle of the season.
♦ Mount Everett’s Gwendolyn Carpenter setting the county’s all-time basketball scoring mark and finishing her standout career with 2,121 points.
♦ The Taconic boys basketball team joining Hoosac Valley’s girls on the final day of the season but coming up short in its second straight state final.
♦ The Wahconah cheerleading team competed at the national championships in Orlando, Fla., and won a state title in March.
♦ Mount Greylock junior Madison Ross following up her stellar performance in the Central/Western Mass championship -- a long jump title and seconds in the triple and high jump -- by placing third in the long jump at the New Balance Nationals.
♦ Pittsfield High’s football team outlasting Lee in the game of the year, a heart-stopping 42-34 decision in the fourth week of the season. The Wildcats fell to 1-3 with the loss but responded to win their next six games and win a Western Mass title.
♦ Lenox’s boys and girls soccer teams winning Western Mass titles on the same day at Springfield Central. For the girls, the championship ended a run of three straight losses in the sectional final.
And lest we think that all this success at the high school level might not be sustainable, the success of the county’s youth sports once again showed just how good tomorrow’s Berkshire teams will be.
The Berkshire Force softball program once again was well-represented at the Babe Ruth World Series in Florida in August. This year, the program sent its 10-and-under and 12-and-under travel squads to the nationals, where the 10U squad one a championship in the Diamond Bracket.
On the baseball diamond, Pittsfield sent three teams to the Babe Ruth New England Regionals. The 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds and 15-year-olds each advanced to the sectional in their age group. The 13s went all the way to the World Series, where they had an epic run of five games decided by a total of seven runs.
The Pittsfield Babe Ruth 13s got to play for a national championship relatively close to home, in Westfield.
The Lanesborough Tigers youth football program made a trek to Canton, Ohio, to play for a world championship. The Tigers did not come home with the crown, but they did capture the hearts of hundreds of area sports fans who saw the team use stifling defense to win a county title and a sectional championship.
Notable team and individual high school sports accomplishments from 2019 include:
Western Mass Champions
Boys basketball -- Taconic
Boys basketball -- Drury
Girls basketball -- Hoosac Valley
Wrestling -- Taconic
Wrestling -- Sean O’Shea, Taconic, 195
Wrestling -- Dylan Burke, Taconic, 182
Wrestling -- Zabion Powell, Taconic, 145
Wrestling -- Mike Lafreniere, Taconic, 132
Wrestling -- Caleb Pollard, Monument Mountain, 113
Wrestling -- Sam Cormier, Monument Mountain, 152
Wrestling -- Zach Lupiani, Mount Everett, 120
Wrestling -- Anthony Lupiani, Mount Everett, 126
Baseball -- Taconic
Girls tennis -- Lee
Girls track and field -- Mount Greylock mile relay
Girls track and field -- Josh Tayi, Taconic, high jump
Football -- Lee
Golf -- Hoosac Valley
Girls cross country -- Lenox
Boys cross country -- Lenox
Girls soccer -- Lenox
Boys soccer -- Lenox
Western Mass Runners-up
Boys basketball -- Taconic
Girl basketball -- Mount Everett
Wrestling -- Zach Mathes, Taconic, 138
Wrestling -- Isiah Hartman-Caesar, 285
Baseball -- Wahconah
Baseball -- Lenox
Softball -- Pittsfield
Softball -- McCann Tech
Girls Lacrosse -- Mount Greylock
Boys tennis -- Lee
Girls track and field -- Mount Greylock
Girls track and field -- Madison Ross, Mount Greylock, triple jump
Girls track and field -- Madison Ross, Mount Greylock, high jump
Girls track and field -- Caroline Hadley, Mount Greylock, discus
Girls track and field -- Maddie Albert, Mount Greylock, 800 meters
Boys soccer -- Mount Greylock
Golf -- Lenox
Golf -- Henry Sniezek, Hoosac Valley
Girls cross country -- Mount Greylock
Girls cross country -- Kelly Harrington, Pittsfield
Girls cross country -- Kate Swann, Mount Greylock
Boys cross country, Ted Yee, Lenox
Volleyball -- Lee
Boys soccer -- Mount Greylock