Greenfield’s Fred Winseck goes to the basket for two points during his team’s 50-43 loss in the opening round of the 1952 Western Mass. Basketball Tournament against St. John’s of Worcester at the Springfield Field House.
Greenfield’s Fred Winseck goes to the basket for two points during his team’s 50-43 loss in the opening round of the 1952 Western Mass. Basketball Tournament against St. John’s of Worcester at the Springfield Field House. Credit: STAFF FILE PHOTO

(NOTE: This is Part II of a story about the 1951-52 sporting season at Greenfield High School. Check out Part I in Friday’s edition of the Recorder.)

Priscilla Rittall LaLonde and her twin sister Patricia Rittall Lanfair didn’t know it at the time, but their school was just getting started.

After winning the Valley League football title in the fall of 1951, Greenfield High School found itself in good shape entering the winter season. The school’s basketball team was also expected to put together a strong campaign. How strong, that was the question.

“We’d been watching the teams for years,” began LaLonde. “Maybe we had an inkling that they’d do well, but you never know what’s going to happen. After football though, everyone seemed to follow behind them.”

Winter 1951-52

E. Daniel Dyer had the ingredients for a big season on the hardwood. He just needed to put them all together.

The Greenfield basketball coach had a feisty senior captain in the back court, Red Quinn, who was a First-Team All-WMass selection that winter. With Quinn guiding the show, the Greenies rattled off a 9-1 mark in conference play, capturing the program’s first Valley League title in the 40 years of its existence.

The clincher was a 43-40 win over Westfield on Feb. 28, 1952. Center Fred Budarz poured in a team-high 17 points in the victory, with sophomore Ray Tetreault adding 10.

“With the kind of spirit this club has, there’s no telling who they can beat,” Dyer told the Recorder after the win.

After winning the league title, Greenfield was selected to play in the WMass Tournament, where the ride ended after one game with a 50-43 loss to St. John’s of Worcester on March 3 in front of 3,200 fans at the Springfield Field House. Fred Winseck led the way with 22 points, but the Tap Town played shorthanded as Quinn missed the game with a fever. Still, it was the most successful season in modern history for the program, as the club finished 17-3 overall.

“I still remember the excitement of it all,” LaLonde said. “The cheerleaders were a beautiful group of young ladies that got the crowd going. And everyone in the stands was into it. We had certain cheers for different teams and people.”

Spring 1952

As the weather improved and student-athletes moved outdoors, Greenfield’s athletic successes continued.

On the baseball diamond, skipper Stan Benjamin’s club made its way to the WMass Tournament, champions of the Valley League with a 7-3 mark. Winseck was the team’s ace, and he pitched Greenfield to a 4-2 victory over Springfield Classical in the quarterfinal round on June 2, 1952.

Winseck allowed just three hits in a complete-game victory over Classical, and Gordon Barton’s RBI double helped get the offense going as Greenfield trailed 2-1 late in the game before rallying for the victory.

Benjamin, who coached GHS from 1948 to 1964, played five seasons in Major League Baseball for the Philadelphia Phillies and Cleveland Indians, was unable to guide his team any further, however. In the semifinal round, Ludlow rolled past Greenfield, 21-3, on June 5 at Mackenzie Field in Holyoke.

Eleven walks from Greenfield pitching doomed the Greenies, which trailed 21-0 before getting on the board with two runs in the seventh and one in the eighth.

An unprecedented fourth league title was also coming to the Tap Town, as coach Ray Spencer’s boys’ tennis team rode the play of Quinn, now fully healthy, to a perfect 6-0 mark in the Valley League and 12-1 overall.

Greenfield’s lone defeat came to Mount Hermon School, though a huge victory over Classical helped land a league title. Turners Falls finished as the Valley League runners-up, though Greenfield pulled off a 4-2 win over the Powertown when the teams met on May 30.

The historic school year has not been matched in the 68 years since, as Greenfield’s Class of 1952 set a high bar for the classes that followed.

“We had a close-knit class in 1952,” LaLonde said. “Everyone supported each other. It was a different time then. We were lucky.”

No player from the Class of ’52 was on all three championship teams, but Lewis (football/basketball), Donald Godzinski (football/basketball), Charlie Harris (football/basketball), Fred Budarz (football/basketball), Quinn, Cloyed Ross (basketball/tennis), Robert Teahan (football/basketball) and John Musiak (basketball/baseball) were on two each.