Good morning!
Former GHS star MacKenzie Paulin has decided to shift from college softball at Merrimack in North Andover to focusing on nursing at Endicott College in Beverly. Paulin will enroll at the Cummings School of Nursing & Health Sciences, not far from some of the best hospitals in the world. “Nursing’s my passion, my mother’s an RN, and Endicott’s advanced nursing program is one of the best in the state,” she texted this week.
Paulin was recruited out of GHS by Elaine Schwager, a two-time NEC coach of the year during 18 seasons at Merrimack. “I wanted to compete in Division I and so Merrimack seemed like the perfect fit,” said Paulin.
Alas, her first year away from GHS and Vets Field was a life lesson that sometimes things don’t always work out. Schwager’s career record of 330-445 at Merrimack was capped by a 12-32 season in 2025 and in November she announced her retirement. “She and her staff were gone before we even took the field,” said Paulin.
Merrimack AD Joe Foley named Jill Gagnon to be Schwarger’s successor. A Merrimack alum, Gagnon came from St. Anselm where she was the winningest softball coach in Hawks history.
Paulin got her first collegiate win with a complete game performance against Canisius that earned her conference Rookie of the Week honors. All told, she started in seven of the 12 games she appeared and had a 6.74 ERA in 35.1 IP.
The Warriors (10-16; 12-29) finished 10th in the 13-team Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference softball standings. “The season could have been better and my freshman stats could have been better, but softball is a team sport, always has been, and as a team we struggled.”
Although she’s keeping her options open, she indicated the only place she’d consider returning to the circle would be in a place like Tahiti or Bora Bora. “It was freezing, and that includes our early trip to UNLV in February. I think there was one weekend all season I left my heated gloves in the locker.”
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Madi Liimatainen, a five-year letter winner at Turners Falls High School, played in 42 of 47 games her freshman year at St. Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont. Liimantainen batted .268 and led the Purple Knights in doubles with nine. On the mound she was 3-4 with one save and a 4.15 ERA.
The D-II Purple Knights (8-27; 12-35) finished last in the Northeast Ten, but she’s confident the team will improve dramatically next season when pitcher Kate Parker and catcher Brooke Bishop return from season-ending injuries. “They were our two best players,” she said.
Meanwhile in North Adams, Colrain’s Hannah Gilbert of Franklin County Tech had an outstanding season for the Mass. College of Liberal Arts Trailblazers. On the mound she was 10-9 in 101 innings with a 2.77 ERA, while at the plate she batted .305 and led in doubles (14), extra base hits (22) and RBIs (33). The Trailblazers (6-10; 20-20) were sixth in the nine-team D-III Mass. State Collegiate Athletic Conference.
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The late Ed Dornig, formerly of Greenfield and Orange, would be proud of Alex Newhook’s accomplishments in the NHL playoffs. Through the first two rounds Newhook has seven goals in 14 games, including two in overtime.
Dorning met the Newhook family in the 1980s when he was stationed in Newfoundland and flying Lockheed P-3’s hunting for Russian subs for the U.S. Navy. After he was discharged he remained friends with the family and whenever he visited he brought his daughter Bethany to hang out with young Alex and his sister Abby. “Alex was always toting his stick and duffel bag off to hockey,” Dornig remembered in a 2021 interview.
Interestingly, in 2019 the Colorado Avalanche used their first pick to draft Newhook 16th overall, then traded him to Montreal in 2023 for their first and second round picks in the upcoming draft. Those players turned out to be defenseman Mikhail Gulyayev who hasn’t left Russia and forward Ross Colton who had an assist in Wednesday’s loss to the Vegas Knights.
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Amherst native Ryan Leonard and former UMass defenseman Ryan Ufko, now with Washington and Nashville and the Milwaukee Admirals, are skating for Team USA at the Ice Hockey Federation World Championship in Switzerland. “It’s great to see guys play a full season, 80 plus games, and still want to play for their country,” texted Bernardston’s Doug Weiss, the team’s doctor.
The defending champions have been on the brink, losing to Switzerland and Norway but beating Great Britain and outlasting Germany on Wednesday, 4-3, after Tommy Novak tied it for the U.S. with 47 seconds left and Leonard scored the winning goal in the shootout.
“Hopefully we get to the quarterfinals and win,” said Weiss. That will depend on how the Americans do against Latvia this morning at 6:20 a.m. and Hungary on Monday at 10:20 a.m.
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SQUIBBERS: South Deerfield native Pat Mulvaney lives across from the Bell Centre in Montreal and tells friends he hasn’t been able to sleep since the playoffs started. “Home and away 60,000, people screaming and horns blaring outside the window.” … Preakness winner Napoleon Solo finished with a 97 Equibase speed rating, the lowest since they began keeping the stat in 1991. … Four years ago the Red Sox took Caleb Bolden from Arkansas with the 219th pick of the 2022 draft. One pick later the Yankees took Cam Schlittler out of Northeastern and inked him to a $205,000 signing bonus. At this writing Schlittler is 6-2 with a 1.50 ERA and Bolden is still in Triple-A Portland 1-1. … After an 8-0 loss to LSU in Baton Rouge last week, MAC softball champion Akron (35-25) made school history by winning its first NCAA tournament game, 1-0 against South Alabama, but lost the elimination game to Va. Tech when the Hokies scored six in the seventh to win 7-6, a tough way to go out. … As for New England’s only two teams in the regionals, Big East champ UConn beat McNeese State, 5-1, but lost to Tennessee, 17-3, and Texas A&M, 10-3 and Patriot League champ BU (47-15) beat Marist, 10-2, but lost twice to Ole Miss, 8-6 and 9-4. … The UMass baseball team finished tied for seventh in the MAC, two games out of a playoff spot, giving hope that co-head coaches Brandon Shileikis and Max Weir can make the tournament next season. … Prayers for Colrain’s Kevin Hollister who has sung the national anthem at hundreds of local sports events and is battling a serious illness. … Last we looked, Alex Bregman was batting .249 with four home runs and 16 RBIs in 197 at-bats. … A N.Y. Post headline referred to the presumed Vrabel-Russini romance as “Smushmouth Football.”… Locals who watched the Cushing Academy boys basketball team thump NMH, 74-32, at Mount Hermon on Jan. 14 got a look at Theophilus “Theo” Edema, a 6-11, 240-pound big man who committed to St. John’s this week to the delight of coach Rick Pitino. … During the NHL playoffs ESPN analysts P. K. Subban and Mark Messier have shown a marked difference between Montreal and Big Apple wardrobe attire. … A gambling tout for the New York Post who goes by Stitches had this to say about the Preakness: “Hey Stitch: Don’t know if you caught this, but Napoleon Solo was 10-1 when they went into the gate. Paid off 7-1. Someone hammered before the start.” … The Patriots have five straight 1 p.m. kick offs after their Thursday night season opener at Seattle on Sept. 9, and don’t have another one until Dec. 27 against the Jets, unless you count Germany against the Lions on Nov. 15. … Other overseas games will be played in Australia, Germany, France, Mexico, Brazil and London. “When we gonna have a game in Beijing?” asked WFAN’s Joe Benigno. “How about Tehran once they get the Hormooz straightened out?” … Pause a moment Monday morning to reflect on President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s proclamation of a new national holiday, Memorial Day, a day “to reverently honor those who have fallen in war, and rededicate ourselves through prayer to the cause of peace, to the end that the day may come when we shall never have another war—never another Unknown Soldier.”