How sweet it is.
After today’s Round of 32 matchups in the Recorder’s Greatest Teams Tournament, we’ve whittled the field to the Sweet 16 — keeping pace with the NCAA Tournament in the process. (Check Monday’s newspaper for the first batch of Round of 32 games). As noted, it’s getting harder and harder to decide these games. Most of the remaining teams in our field are deserving, meaning difficult choices have to be made.
That’s indeed the case for today’s contests. We’re tackling the Tom Suchanek and Joe Chadwick Regions, with a variety of schools and programs represented. Wednesday’s Recorder will keep the momentum rolling with Sweet 16 games, followed by Elite 8 and Final 4 the next two days.
• No. 1 Pioneer boys basketball (1996) def. No. 9 Greenfield football (1995)
• No. 4 Frontier girls basketball (1988) def. No. 5 Athol baseball (2003)
• No. 3 Turners Falls softball (2004) def. No. 11 Mohawk girls track (1981)
• No. 2 Greenfield field hockey (1989) def. No. 7 Frontier volleyball (2005)
The Pioneer train kept on rolling, keeping the top-seeded team in this field alive with a win over the 1995 Greenfield football team.
Consider this about the 1996 Panthers: The team’s starting five had three 1,000-point scorers (Seth Kratz 1,046, Garrett Tillotson 1,131, Kris Kachelmeyer 1,265) to pair with eventual 2,000-point scorer Adam Harrington (2,347) — then just a sophomore. That’s a lot of offense. Add in reliable point guard Kota Denton as well as two seniors off the bench in Brad Walker and John Leary and you had (arguably) the most dominant team of all time. We’ll find out how true that is moving forward.
Pioneer’s win is sadly the end of the line for the ’95 Greenfield football team, one of the most fun and memorable Green Wave squads over the past few decades. Quarterback Peter Bergeron’s 1,851 yards that fall stood as the area record for 17 years until Turners’ Ryan Wilder topped it in 2012. While Bergeron was the unquestioned star of the squad that eventually fell to powerhouse Holyoke in the WMass Division 1 Super Bowl, his offensive line of Matt Jarvis, Andy Harto, Jon Coffin, Tim Batchelder and Dan Nietsche provided plenty of support up front. Add in fullback Jon Malloy and that set the table for Bergeron’s historic season.
• Elsewhere, Juliane Danielski made sure coach Vi Goodnow’s 1988 Frontier girls basketball team had at least one more round left in our field.
Danielski lifted Frontier into the Sweet 16 thanks to a victory over the fifth-seeded 2003 Athol baseball team. Danielski is the leading scorer in the history of the Frontier girls’ program, going for 1,238 points before her career was all said and done. That ’88 team was Goodnow’s best chance at winning a state title. They fell to Cohasset, 51-41, some 31 years ago this month.
Goodnow, who unsurprisingly has a region of this bracket named after her, amassed 1,224 coaching wins in her career — the second-most in the county behind Mohawk’s Joe Chadwick, and third most in the state.
The 2003 Athol baseball team bows out despite being one of just a small number of state champions from the area, and only the second-ever in the sport of baseball at the time. Coach Nate Burnett’s club peaked at the right time, and pitcher Jake Rigopoulos guided them through the postseason.
• In other Round of 32 action, the 2004 Turners Falls softball team became the second from the Powertown dynasty to get into the Sweet 16 with a win over the upset-minded 1981 Mohawk girls track team, seeded 11th in the Suchanek Region.
• Turners will play the 1989 Greenfield field hockey team for a spot in the Elite 8, after the Green Wave defeated another team from a dynasty — the 2005 Frontier volleyball squad. The Red Hawks were a perfect 25-0 finish to that season, capturing the first volleyball state championship in school history. The program has since racked up eight more.
• No. 1 Frontier volleyball (2010) def. No. 8 Turners Falls football (1998)
• No. 4 Mahar boys basketball (2012) def. No. 5 Greenfield baseball (1976)
• No. 6 Greenfield boys basketball (1994) def. No. 3 Frontier football (1987)
• No. 2 Frontier boys basketball (1987) def. No. 7 Pioneer softball (2005)
Speaking of the Frontier volleyball program, the dominant 2010 version, the top-seeded team in our Joe Chadwick Region, is into the Sweet 16 thanks to a win over the 1998 Turners Falls football team. That 2010 team was as dominant as any team in Franklin County history, as coach Sean MacDonald’s club didn’t drop a single set in the postseason (and only three the entire season in total) en route to the state crown.
The Intercounty League champion ’98 Turners football team got off to a hot start, winning the first nine games of the season in what had the makings of a historic year. Rival Greenfield finally broke that streak on Turkey Day, and the losing streak went to two games due to a 41-0 loss to Northbridge in the Super Bowl.
• Frontier will play the 2012 Mahar boys basketball team in the Sweet 16, as the Senators edged the 1976 Greenfield baseball team in what was maybe the closest second-round game of the entire bracket.
That’s because that ’76 Green Wave team boasted one of the best players to come out of the area in Doug Welenc. Drafted by the Houston Astros in the 24th round just a few days before playing in a state final, Welenc threw a no-hitter with 16 strikeouts to beat Wahconah (2-0) in the WMass Division 2 title game. He then tossed a complete-game, five-hitter with 18 strikeouts in a 2-0 state semifinal win over New Bedford, before Greenfield fell to Grafton, 4-2, in the state final with Welenc unavailable to pitch. That run will never be replicated, as Welenc helped Greenfield to its first Valley League title in 17 years and the program’s first-ever WMass title in the sport of baseball.
Mahar’s defensive effort eventually won out in this one. The Senators, under defensive guru Chad Softic, allowed an average of 36 points between wins in the WMass title game (over South Hadley), state semifinal (over Saint Bernard’s) and state final (over Brighton). While it was difficult to have Greenfield fall in our bracket, results ultimately matter to a degree, and Mahar’s state championship spoke volumes.
• Elsewhere, the upset in the Chadwick Region comes thanks to the 1994 Greenfield boys basketball team. Angelo Thomas and his crew, seeded sixth, are into the Sweet 16 with a win over the third-seeded 1987 Frontier football team. Both teams lost their final games — Frontier in the WMass Super Bowl and Greenfield in the Division 2 state title game — and both were arguably the best teams in their respective programs’ histories.
Six of the top nine players on the Greenfield rotation played college basketball, with Thomas still the school’s all-time leading scorer with 1,684 points. Three of the top players were eventually at Division 1 colleges, with Thomas (Maine), Ross Burns (UMass) and Alphah East (Quinnipiac) all getting reps at the next level.
Still, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better football team in Frontier’s history than the 1987 club that fell one point shy of a perfect season and Super Bowl title in a 7-6 defeat to Hoosac Valley.
• Rounding out our Round of 32 games, the 1987 Frontier boys basketball team did get through with a win over the 2005 Pioneer softball team, seeded seventh in the bracket.
That sets up a can’t-miss Sweet 16 game between the ’94 Greenfield team and the ‘87 Frontier team in an all-hardwood affair. I wouldn’t want to be the person who has to decide between those two teams.
Mark Chmura’s 1,449 career points were good enough for second on the all-time Frontier list behind Jim Segala (1,525), and Chmura’s hulking 6-foot-7 stature led the way for a Frontier team blessed with considerable size for any program, much less a Division 3 side. Matt Chmura (6-6), Mike Smith (6-3) and Scott Noska (6-4) helped create matchup issues for just about any team Frontier saw along the way during its undefeated state championship season.
Pioneer and ace Megan Black showed well, helping her state championship-winning side reach the Round of 32 in our bracket.