I’m going to continue ignore the annoying, “You hate Lawrence and love Central” rants.
I will state that I went to the Lawrence-CC and the Lawrence-Haverhill games in the last week.
If Lawrence had beaten the Raiders, they would have gotten the “small school championship” coverage they merited.
Can’t be everywhere, sorry.
I will say that you are all alike. When I went to Central-Lowell on Friday night, one of the CC parents only half-jokingly, asked why I didn’t cover CC-Andover on Thursday.
Sheesh!!!! Covered ‘em Monday, Weds and Friday, and it’s still not enough?
So I will ignore all the cracks and stop trying to please all of you.
Rip away. Tommy T. from Tacoma was right. I was acting too sensitive. From now on, your shots do not matter.
Congrats to CC. Yes the league is a little down, not it’s usual and the Raiders returned a bundle. But the kids needed three straight wins, and won three straight games against the league’s best … Lawrence, Andover and Lowell.
Hitting was supposed to be the strength of this team, but Marc Pelletier’s crew got four straight mound masterpieces.
Matt Novak vs. Chelmsford … 9.1 ip, 2er, 4h, 3bb, 6K
Brendan Walsh vs. Lawrence … 7 ip, 3er, 4h, 7 bb, 6K
Zack Latrell vs. Andover … 8 ip, 0er, 4h, 6bb, 4k
Zak Adamopoulos vs. Lowell … 7 ip, 3er, 5h, 1bb, 6k
Central only scored 10 runs total in the three wins, 11 in four games, but it was enough for a title.
Will it be enough come D1 North tourney time? I think the smirk on Lincoln-Sudbury coach Kirk Fredericks face as he walked out of Alumni Field last night might answer that question.
If not, the annual showdown this week with St. John’s will.
Moving on to Lawrence and its huge comeback over Dracut, which I’m supposed to have known was coming so I could rearrange my life to make sure that I saw it and reported on it.
Great to see the backbone of that team, its junior class, growing into all that potential heaped on them as freshmen.
I’m singling out the three guys who played on varsity as freshmen and also happen to be impact players in the resurgent football program.
Mike Calzetta has strapped that school’s athletic program on his shoulders at times, and the kid is only a junior.
Yes, it depresses me that he didn’t stick with hoops, because I think Paul Neal desperately needed a big athlete like him, but the kid is just driven. If he doesn’t win the MVC small MVP when the coaches meet Sunday morning, there should be an investigation.
That said, my No. 2 in the voting would be his shortstop Harvey Blanco, who saved the day yesterday with a monster diving stop.
(Side note here: Both of these guys are in HLD, the school Sondra Longo teaches in at LHS, and she raves about these two kids as students and human beings).
Harvey might be pound for pound the best athlete in the region. I know no athlete who’ll fight harder to win more. Where he generates the home run power in that little fireplug body, I don’t know. But he’s just a stud.
And third, there is the Lancers “straw that stirs the drink,” centerfielder Devin Montanez. The kid had all kinds of expectations on him as a frosh, when he tore it up. He’s lived up to the hype. He runs everything down in center, he wreaks havoc on the bases, and he fights.
All too often in Lawrence over the decades, “potential” has turned to disappointment. That might be a generalization, but it’s happened.
Big ups to Brendan Neilon, Neal and Mike Yameen, not to forget Rob Niceforo as well in rassling and Tony Hajjar in volleyball, for keeping these kids on track for the greatness they’ve earned.
Congrats to the Georgetown Royals for locking down the CAL small title.
This is a team that lost its heart-and-soul in four-year mound starter and 100-hit man Timmy Holland.
The Royals returned virtually no pitching then lost the best athlete in the school, Joe Esposito, to injury after seven games.
Enter a new cornerstone, frosh Ryan Browner, who has gone 6-0 with a 2.67 ERA and 33 strikeouts in just over 39 innings.
There have been contributions from all over the diamond as the Royals are hitting about .350 as a team, but Browner has been the glue.
And now he’s got three more years.
We’ll talk more about the CAC champ Whittier Tech Wildcats, most likely in Monday’s Eagle-Tribune, but in case you missed it, Joe Boland’s crew ran the table and went undefeated in the league. Could the Cats loom as a sleeper come tourney time?
And one other note. Props go out to one of my favorite non-Eagle-Tribune area athletes of alltime, Ronnie Wallace and the Tewksbury Redmen.
At 2-6, Tewks could have packed it in. The football team struggled, the hoop team really struggled and the baseball ship was listing badly.
Somehow, the UMass bound Wallace held things together with a thoroughly young team and never let his teammates quit.
Suddenly Tewks is 7-7 and pointed toward the D2 tourney. I wouldn’t want to be that highly-seeded team that draws Wallace and the Redmen in the opener.
Great job, Waldo and all the Redmen.
Tell me you’re not fired up for this week and then the upcoming state tourney.
Don’t forget the Lawrence Invitational opens Thursday with North Andover and Masco playing for the Cape Ann League title.
Memo to the LHS staff: Make sure you call in all the tourney results. Without Central in the field, the Eagle-Tribune is bound to again ignore you guys like I have the last 15 years.
But again, the folks around the LHS baseball program are used to the callous and outright apathetic coverage of the Memorial Day classic by now.
(Editor’s note: For those of you not close to the situation, the last two paragraphs have been written in sheer sarcasm, just to mock the whiners who continue to pound the “Hector hates Lawrence” stone.)
