The winter sports season has officially arrived.
Franklin Tech’s Eagle Holiday Classic will get underway tonight, while the Frontier and Pioneer boys basketball teams also open their seasons.
Last year saw 10 Recorder area basketball teams qualify for the postseason, and on paper, it looks like there are plenty of strong teams throughout the area that can make deep tournament runs.
While full season previews are coming later, here are five things I’ll be keeping my eye on heading into the hoop season.
The Hampshire League South was one of the toughest leagues in Western Mass. last year and it’s shaping up to be a gauntlet once again this winter.
Pioneer won the league last season and went on to capture the Western Mass. Class D tournament and reach the MIAA Div. 5 quarterfinals. It was Hopkins Academy, another league opponent, that the Panthers beat in the Class D finals.
Drury and Greenfield played each other in the Western Mass. Class C championship game and Mahar and Frontier both qualified for the MIAA Div. 4 tournament while Lenox won a game in the Div. 5 state tournament.
Not too shabby of a season for the league. Expect similar results this time around.
The Panthers bring back nearly their entire lineup from a season ago, led by Brayden Thayer, Kurt Redeker and Josh Wood. Same for Greenfield, which returns Jon Breor, Caleb Murray and Caleb Thomas.
Mahar must replace a six-player senior class, but the Sens have plenty of returning talent — and it’s never easy to get a win against a Chad Softic-coached team. Frontier is returning experienced players, Drury loses leading scorer Louis Guillotte but that program always seems to reload, while Hopkins may struggle following the departure of Teddy Cyr to Deerfield Academy.
It looks like it’ll be another competitive league from top to bottom this year, one where any team can win on any given night.
The Franklin Tech girls basketball team had a season to remember last winter.
The Eagles finished the season 21-3, won the state vocational championship for the second year in a row and made it to the MIAA Div. 5 Round of 16.
Franklin Tech must replace starting point guard Kendra Campbell, but the club is bringing back starters Kait Trudeau, Lea Chapman, Hannah Gilbert and Cordelia Guerin. Their season kicks off at the Eagle Holiday Classic against St. Mary’s.
Pioneer, which is also bringing back the majority of its roster, will be in contention with Tech for the Franklin League South, but on paper, the experienced, veteran Eagles are the favorites to repeat heading into the season.
If you can’t already tell, there were a lot of young, inexperienced but talented teams in the Recorder area last winter that saw success on the court.
With many teams bringing back key cogs, and all a year older, the expectation would be to build off the season they had last year.
Mahar and Frontier made the Div. 4 boys tournament, Pioneer, Greenfield and Athol made the Div. 5 boys tournament, Mahar and Frontier reached the Div. 4 girls tournament while Franklin Tech, Turners and Pioneer reached the Div. 5 girls tournament.
That makes 10 teams that qualified for the state tournament in the area. The Thunder aren’t fielding a girls varsity team but there’s still a chance the Recorder area can match that number of tournament teams this winter.
The Green Wave are expecting a big year on the court this winter, with good reason.
As mentioned before, nearly the entire Greenfield roster is back and a year older. The Green Wave are coming off an impressive season where they reached the Class C title game and the Round of 16 of the Div. 5 state tournament.
Now, with alignments changing on a yearly basis, Greenfield will have an extra challenge as it aims to bring a state title banner to Nichols Gymnasium — competing in a division higher.
The Green Wave moved up from Div. 5 to Div. 4 this year and will be facing a new test if they’re able to qualify for the state tournament. Mahar and Frontier are already in Div. 4, but neither were able to escape the prelims a season ago.
It’ll bring a new challenge for Greenfield, one I’m sure coach Angelo Thomas & Co. will embrace.
It’s been a while since the Recorder area had a 1,000 point scorer.
Greenfield’s Katie Haselton and Turners Falls’ Anthony Peterson were the last to do so, reaching the mark during the 2019-2020 season just before the pandemic set in.
That pandemic year in 2021, which shortened the season to eight games, crippled many players’ chances of hitting the mark, as they lost half a season of opportunities.
The upcoming junior class is the first that will have had two full high school seasons to try to accumulate points, and there are a handful of players well on their way to hitting the 1,000-mark.
Pioneer’s Brayden Thayer is the closest heading into his junior season, sitting at 649 points. Fellow Panther Kurt Redeker scored 305 points last year as a sophomore to come in at 343 points with two years to go.
Breor and Murray, both juniors, will be looking to join their coach, Angelo Thomas, on the 1,000 point list at Greenfield. Breor is at 501 points while Murray sits at 370 points.
It’ll likely be during their senior years that Redeker, Breor and Murray are in striking distance of the 1,000 points. Thayer has a chance to do it this year if he can repeat or build on his sophomore year, one in which he scored 354 points.
On the girls’ side, there isn’t a player quite knocking on the doorstep of the 1,000 point club. Greenfield’s Amber Bergeron led the area with 359 points as a junior, but spent her sophomore season at Northfield Mount Hermon. Her freshman year was the abbreviated COVID season, hurting her chances of hitting the 1,000 points.