With the MIAA State Ski Championship slated for Tuesday 7 at Wachusett Mountain in Princeton, the Mohawk Trail Regional High School alpine team has plenty of reasons to feel good about a fine winter on the slopes.
The final standings for the PVIAC season were released, with the Mohawk girls capturing the South Division championship on the strength of four racers cracking the top 10 for the winter. Eighth-grader Ashley Lacross was the South champion with a total of 57 points, holding off Frontier Regional School’s Corriann Delaney, the runner-up with 55 points. The duo won all seven PVIAC races between them, with Lacross winning four and Delaney capturing three wins.
Lacross paced a Mohawk team that was quite deep, with teammate Erin Laffond bouncing back from an injury-plagued freshman season to nab sixth place overall on the season with 24 points. Fellow Warriors Taylor Loomis and Tyler Rice tied for seventh on the year with 20 points.
Frontier’s Alina Smiaroski tied for 10th on the season with Southwick High School’s Margaret Drohan (15 points each).
Mohawk was the top team in every race this season en route to the South title, and the Warriors finished with 63 points total — well clear of runner-up Amherst Regional High School’s 56 points. Mohawk lost just twice to North Division teams all season. Frontier nabbed fourth as a team, totaling 42 points.
“We are so proud of and so sad to see our two senior captains leaving,” said Mohawk coach Brandon Boucias of Rice and Christina Lively. “Tyler barely made States last year (alternate) and this year, through hard work and determination, finished tied for seventh in the South.”
Mohawk’s Lizzie Herzig qualifed for the state meet, while teammate Jackie Wells is an alternate.
“This team has been a blast to coach,” Boucias lauded.
In the final standings for the boys’ team, Mohawk took fourth in the North Division with 28 points. Longmeadow High School took the title with 49 points, followed by Northampton High School (38 points) and Westfield High School (33).
Mohawk put two racers in the top 10 for the season, as Dan White nabbed seventh place and Bennett Boucias followed in eighth position overall. White scored 26 points with a season-best fifth place finish while Boucias accumulated 19 points behind a pair of sixth-place performances.
GML Registrations
Registrations for the Greenfield Minor League will take place on three dates in March at the Greenfield Police Station.
Registrations will take place on Saturday from 10 a.m. until noon, March 10 from 5:30 to 8 p.m. and March 11 from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m.
The league is also introducing 50/70 baseball this season.
GGSL Registrations
Registration for the Greenfield Girls Softball League is set for Saturday, March 11, and March 18 at the Greenfield Elks Club on 2 Church Street).
Registration will be open from 9 to 11 a.m., and the league is open to all girls in Franklin County age 5 to 16. For more information, contact GSSL President Richard Mascavage at (413) 863-4246.
UMass lax falls again
Dan Muller and Buddy Carr scored two goals each but the UMass men’s lacrosse team dropped to 0-4 on the season with a 17-8 loss to No. 9 Albany at John Fallon Field in Albany on Wednesday afternoon.
D.J. Smith recorded 14 saves in the UMass net, while Sean Sconone came on in relief and made one save in the loss.
Valley repeats as MASCAC Player of the Year
Westfield State senior guard Jill Valley of Orange was named the 2016-17 Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference women’s basketball player of the year on Wednesday. It was the second year in a row that Valley took home the conference’s top honor, repeating from the 2015-16 campaign.
Valley led the conference in points per game (22.5), steals per game (4.6), and free-throw percentage (81) this season.
The Mahar Regional School alum had an outstanding season that has been well-documented, including back-to-back 52- and 39-point games. She was named MVP of last week’s MASCAC tournament.
Valley leads the nation in steals and is currently seventh in scoring. She has broken or established at least nine school records this season, including the record-setting 52-point outburst on Feb. 18, which is also the highest total in NCAA Division III women’s basketball this season.
For her career, Valley has totaled 1,451 points, good for fourth on the Owls’ all-time scoring list, and is the program’s all-time leading free-throw shooter at better than 83 percent.
She led the Owls, the highest-scoring team in the country, to the 2017 MASCAC regular-season and tournament titles, a 19-8 overall record, an 11-1 mark in the MASCAC and a bid to the NCAA Division III Championship tournament, where Westfield will face No. 15 Montclair State (25-2) in the opening round on Friday.
FCHA goalkeeper Camden Skiffington’s first name was incorrectly reported in Wednesday’s issue of The Recorder. Skiffington recorded 14 saves in Sunday’s Greater Springfield League Squirt East championship win over Holy Name while adding 12 saves in a Saturday victory against Westfield.