Wild Ride

Local high schools competed in approximately 6,600 athletic events in the 2009-10 school year.

So that's a staggering number of highs and lows, upsets, records and anything else you can think of.

We had national champs (Andover high jumper Moira Cronin), All-Americans (Central hoopsters Carson Desrosiers and Katie Zenevitch), historic win streaks (Salem boys volleyball) and too many sectional, state and New England titles to count.

Here are 10 things I'll long remember.

The Catch

You could watch an awful lot of high school football ... heck, an awful lot of college football ... heck, an awful lot of pro football ... and not see a catch like Mike Lorenz's against Nashua South.

If he had made it in practice, it would have been remarkable. The fact that it was the winning score with 70 seconds left in the Division 1 title game made it infinitely more special.

Salem's strong-armed signal-caller Matthew Cannone uncorked a 42-yard bomb (52 yards in the air!) and Lorenz made a jaw-dropping over-the-shoulder catch on a ball that somehow eluded a Nashua North defender who was draped over the tight end.

Local high school football now has its Flutie to Phelan.

No, no Noah

Georgetown basketball coach Mike Rowinski was sitting on a gold mine. The school year was about to begin and tiny Georgetown was going to feature one of the top freshmen in the country.

Noah Vonleh, a Haverhill resident who had attended Georgetown Middle School, is once-in-a-lifetime talent. And the 6-foot-5 and growing 14-year-old phenom, who was already being contacted by bigtime college programs, would be working his magic for the Royals.

As Rowinski said shortly before the school year began, "Unless something changed in the last week, he's coming to Georgetown."

Uh, coach, bad news. Bad, bad news. Something changed. Someone must have gotten Noah's ear.

One of the top 30 freshmen in the country, Vonleh ended up at Haverhill High, where he averaged 15.5 points and was named an Eagle-Tribune All-Star.

From agony to ecstasy

His teammates, coaches and family could spin it any way they wanted, but Adam Vetere knew the deal.

Andover had a 10-yard lead and he was the anchor. It was the final race. Mansfield came from behind to win the 4x400 relay.

That would have been bad enough, but that was only a small fraction of it. That win enabled Mansfield to stun the heavily-favored Golden Warriors for the All-State title by a scant 35-34 1/3 margin.

Vetere, one of the top tracksters in the state, was distraught.

Distraught but not beaten.

The next week, back at Reggie Lewis track at New Englands, it was Andover and Mansfield squaring off again. Andover got its revenge and the New England title.

Not a bad consolation prize.

It was heartwarming to see the way the Golden Warriors rallied around Vetere who, to be fair, was attempting a brutal 4x800/4x400 double in a 45-minute span.

An emotional Adam said, "These guys convinced me it just wasn't me. It brings the team together. They knew it was a rough day for me."

"Stuff happens,'' was how his twin brother and relay mate Mark Vetere put it.

That seemed to perfectly sum things up. And when stuff happened, Adam was a true champion and his teammates were like brothers — his brother Mark and his track "brothers" Connor O'Neill and Kerrick Stevens.

Coach didn't know best

Ryan Hartung is a rail thin 6-5, 165 pounds. So it was pretty sound advice that Phillips Academy coach Leon Modeste frequently gave him.

"All year he told me not to crash the boards and get back on defense,'' recalled Hartung with a laugh.

Hartung didn't listen this time. The sophomore from Haverhill crashed the boards and got the tip-in.

For the win.

At the buzzer.

Against Phillips Exeter.

It doesn't get much bigger than that.

It ain't over until it's over

Time-wise, it was 95 percent over. Scorewise, it was 99.99 percent over.

But this was the one out of 10,000.

Salem had seemingly sewn up one of the biggest wins in school history. Leading by nine with a little over a minute remaining, the lightly-regarded 15th-seeded Blue Devils (7-11 in Class L) were putting the finishing touches on a monumental upset over No. 2 Pinkerton (17-1 in Class L).

Sharpshooter AJ Guidi, who was 0 for 5 on 3-pointers, finally connected with 72 seconds left.

And Salem started to shoot itself in the foot. The Blue Devils missed a pair of free throws (they were 0 for 6 from the line in the final 66 seconds). Danielle Kimball, who had been scoreless and shortly before had fired up an airball, got the ball behind the arc. Swish.

Salem missed two more freebies and Allie Ucich made a pair with 40 seconds left. Ucich then made a steal which led to a Guidi 3-point play. Pinkerton led and soon after a stunned crowd left the Hackler Gym barely believing what it had just witnessed.

Tough break for Sullivan

J.D. Drew, meet Tyler Sullivan.

Some athletes can't perform when injured. Some, like Sullivan, can.

In a winner-take all showdown between unbeatens Lowell and Methuen for the Merrimack Valley Conference cross country title, Sullivan tripped and fell early in the race, causing a rare restart.

It turns out that Sullivan broke his wrist, but he wasn't sitting this one out. Usually the No. 4 runner for the powerful Rangers, he was the team's No. 2 runner on the day and led the Blue and White to the big win over Lowell, which was ranked second in Division 1 in the State Coaches Poll.

Sullivan slashed nearly a minute off his personal best on the Rangers' home course while teammate Jared Reddy smashed the course record and Methuen won 23-32.

"He (Sullivan) is a big-race runner and, if something bad is going to happen, you want it to be to him," said Methuen coach Bill James.

"He's a tough kid."

Red-hot Golden Warrior

Our region has produced it's fair share of sharpshooters, but in my 35 years following local basketball I've never seen a player — boy or girl — with a prettier shot than Andover's Nicole Boudreau.

She picked the perfect time to get on one of her patented rolls. It was the Greater Lawrence Christmas Tourney finals against defending state champion Central Catholic and the great Katie Zenevitch.

She was 9 of 12 from 3-point land including three in a 73-second span in the third quarter.

"I think everyone knows that when she's that hot, just give it to her," point guard Natalie Gomez-Martinez said. "You can't not give it to her."

Despite her 39 points, that might not even have been her top shooting exhibition, or even her top effort against Central. She was 9 of 11 from deep against the Raiders the year before.

Mathieu ends the nightmare

Simply put, 2009 was a nightmare for the Pinkerton boys basketball team. The high hopes went down the tubes in an embarrassing and lopsided tourney loss in what was supposed to be an Astro blowout.

There was a school investigation over an alleged ugly confrontation between the coach and a star player.

That was the backdrop heading into 2009-10. It appeared it would be another disappointing winter in Derry.

Zach Mathieu, though, made sure that wasn't the case. He'd always been good, but the 6-7 senior certainly wasn't dominant — until about midway through the year when he caught fire and never looked back.

The postseason was the Mathieu Show and the finale was the stuff of legends as he pumped in 37 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and blocked four shots in a double OT win over Winnacunnet. Mathieu broke three tourney records, including the 34-point finale by Bishop Guertin immortal Skip Barry in 1984, in carrying the Astros to their third title in 52 years.

Lawrence bounces back

To put it charitably, there have been some mighty lean years, in some case decades, for many Lawrence High sports teams.

But with a new high school and a new attitude, the Lancers are making a statement on the local athletic fields.

All-conference performers Michael Calzetta, Yunior Vasquez, Jose Sandoval, Tito Lluberes, Harvey Blanco and Dionys Quezada led the Division 1 North runner-up baseball team to easily its best tourney run of the modern tourney era (1981-on) and tied for the best in at least 49 years (equalling the 1979 team).

Seniors Kim Pham, Shanice Fountain, Giselle Munoz and Melanie Lilly led the girls indoor track team to its first win "in at least eight years,'' according to coach Anthony Ellis.

Speedsters Francis Nova and Francesco Cuesta led the boys spring track team to the MVC Small title, its first championship since 1982.

Ashley Ozuna's goal lifted the field hockey team past Central Catholic, snapping an 0-90-6 streak dating back to 2002.

The football team had lost 41 straight league games before leaving the MVC in 1993.

The Lancers returned this year and won three games, including a shocker over 11th-ranked Chelmsford when Nick Elwell hit Calzetta on a TD pass with 28 seconds left.

Central's arms race

You want to find the area's next great track weight man? Go to a Central Catholic freshman baseball game.

Three ex-baseball players were among the state's top throwers.

Whether it was boredom, injuries or lack of talent, Francis Schaufenbil (javelin), Zack Lattrell (discus) and Zac Borrelli (discus, shot put) eventually left the diamond for record-breaking track careers under the tutelage of Raider throws coach Joe Welch.

• • •

E-mail Michael Muldoon at mmuldoon@eagletribune.com.

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