Recorder Staff

It was a memorable sports year in 1986 — the New England Patriots upset the Miami Dolphins to advance to their first Super Bowl and 46-year-old Jack Nicklaus captured his sixth Masters, among the highlights.

In between those two notable national events, the 10-year-old Franklin County Technical School boys’ basketball program won its first outright Tri-County League regular-season championship — the first title in the fledgling program’s young history.

It was so long ago that Eagles first-year head coach Matt Llewelyn hadn’t even been born yet. However, one of the first things the 24-year-old Llewelyn noticed when he walked into the gym on the first day of practice on Nov. 30 was that lone championship banner.

“When I first saw the banner, I said, ‘Wow, that’s got a lot of dust on it,’” said Llewelyn. “I told the guys, ‘We can do one of two things. We can stare at it and admire it, or we can add another one next to it.’”

Consider it done.

Franklin Tech jumped out to a 23-point lead after one quarter and rolled to an 82-48 victory over St. Mary’s Parish School to clinch the outright TCL crown Thursday evening in Turners Falls.

“It was a huge motivation for us, seeing (the banner) every day,” said Llewelyn, who has done nothing short of a fantastic job of rebuilding a squad that lost its top three scorers — and nearly 90 percent of its offense — and went 16-7 a year ago. “If it didn’t happen, it didn’t happen, but we definitely wanted to change it. … We want to change the culture, and this was the best first step we could have taken toward doing that.”

Another major factor in the Eagles’ success was the players’ willingness to change to a new system.

“They buy into what we’re teaching them and it shows,” offered Llewelyn. “That just speaks to how hard they’re working.”

The Eagles (16-4 overall, 15-1 TCL) were virtually unstoppable in the first quarter, pouring in 32 points and taking control against the overmatched Saints (1-19, 1-15). They built the lead to 31 by intermission (52-21) and Llewelyn’s main focus was substituting liberally for the remainder of the contest.

Colin Gould led all scorers with 20 points for the Eagles. Gould, who is a 75-percent free-throw shooter, finished as the regular-season WMass leader in made free throws regardless of division (133).

Jared Bergmann drained a trio of 3-pointers and registered a career-high 19 points, Zach Korpiewski netted a dozen points, Jake Desbien added 8 and CJ Daignault had 6 for the TCL champions.

Jake Butler led the Saints with 15 points, Drew Collins added 14 and Andrew Ilnicki had 11.

• Franklin Tech won’t have much time to celebrate — the second-seeded Eagles host No. 3 seed Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical High School of Bourne tonight at 6:30 in the semifinals of the Massachusetts State Small Schools Vocational Boys’ Tournament.

Top-seeded Nashoba Valley Tech of Westford hosts South Shore Vocational Technical High School of Hanover tonight at 7 in the other semifinal.

The final is scheduled to be played Saturday at the site of the higher seed — Nashoba will host the game at 4 if it advances, and Franklin Tech would host at 6 if it faces South Shore Voke.

Before then, the Eagles will have already learned their seed and first-round opponent in the Western Massachusetts Division IV Tournament. The annual seed meeting will begin at noon at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield.

Girls’ game

Old Colony 36, FC Tech 35 — A three-pointer by Megan Santos with 19 seconds remaining put third-seeded Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical High School of Rochester ahead for good and it held on to edge to second-seeded Franklin County Tech, 36-35, in the Mass. State Small Schools Vocational Girls’ Basketball Tournament semifinals Thursday afternoon in Turners Falls.

Santos was a thorn in the Eagles’ side all game, as she drained four 3-pointers and finished with a game-high 16 points. Teammate Abby Cooper scored all 10 of her points in the first half to help the Cougars battle back from a four-point deficit after one quarter to take a 22-20 halftime lead.

Franklin Tech (12-9) forged ahead after three quarters and led by two before the defenses took over.

Steph Gagne chipped in 9 points for Old Colony.

Brittany Andrews led the Eagles with 15 points, Michelle Leh chipped in with 8 and Brooke Adams contributed 6.

Old Colony travels to top-seeded Upper Cape Cod Tech today in the championship game.

The Eagles will now wait for Saturday’s seed meeting to find out their first-round opponent in the WMass Division IV Tournament.