Category Archives: Town Common

March 5, 2008 · 12:58 am

Tim Holland Has Major League Aspirations

Most of us dream at night.

Tim Holland, pictured here, expanded his dreaming to full-time during his sophomore year at Georgetown High School.

“I started to think then that baseball might take me somewhere,” explained the 6-1/175 pound senior. “It was my best year and I started to get mail from colleges and rumors began about teams being interested in me.”

Royals coach Mark Rowe realized that Tim was a talented player the year before. “He was a starter for me as a freshman at second base. We went to the Division 3 North finals that year with a team that was mostly seniors. He fit right in.”

And even before witnessing Tim’s senior year the 10th year coach stated, “He’s the best baseball player to come through Georgetown since I’ve been coaching. He pretty much does it all. I’ve heard from the White Sox, Cubs, and Indians about him.”

“This year he’ll play shortstop when he’s not pitching,” said Coach Rowe of his 2-time Cape Ann League All-Star. “We’ll go as far as he takes us. We have a nice supporting cast but we need for him to have a big year for us.”

Next year Tim expects to attend Lake City Community Junior College (about 60 miles west of Jacksonville in northern Florida) on a baseball scholarship. The fact that the Timberwolves’ baseball season starts on January 25th, and any cancellations will be for rain and not for that other stuff, would be incentive enough to go there.

In addition to the favorable outdoor, workout weather, it was a couple of area baseball players – Matt Small (Ipswich) and Mike Gallo (Peabody) – who helped steer Tim to Lake City. “I played on teams around here with both of them. They were both very positive about the school. Mike pitches on this year’s team.”

At Lake City Tim will play in front of the folks (major league scouts) he needs to impress. And who could blame the scouts for attending? Last year 15 former Lake City players were in the minors and two (Reggie Abercrombie and Heath Phillips) were in the majors.

“I look to do two years of real competitive baseball and then see where I am,” explained Tim. “I could be in the minors or maybe in a 4-year college.”

Tim’s favorite player is BJ Upton of Tampa Bay. “He can do everything and that’s the kind of player that I think I am. I’ve played the outfield, infield, and pitched. And also, like BJ, I have speed.”

Tim wears #17. “I wanted #5 (Nomar Garciaparra) but that number didn’t exist. Since I joined the Georgetown varsity as the only freshman that meant that I got the last number available – #17. Things went so well the first two years that I decided to stick with it.”

The Holland name probably won’t leave the area sports pages when Tim graduates in June thanks to his sisters. “One of my sisters made the high school soccer varsity as an 8th grader and was the team’s leading scorer this season,” bragged Tim. “My other sister is 12 and tells me that she’s going to be the first girl on the high school varsity baseball team.”

Keep an eye on Tim Holland of Georgetown. He has a dream and he might just have what it takes to make that dream come true.

(Appeared in The Town Common in the issue dated March 12th)

Masco Girls Excel in Regular Season

I interviewed Masco girls’ coach Bob Romeo recently (February 27th) about the terrific 19-1 regular season his team just finished.

(Pictured is Coach Romeo with his assistants: JV coach Becky Iseman, freshman coach Karen Babbitt, assistant coach Leo Burke)

The Chieftains returned three starters from a 20-3 squad that reached the Division 2 North semifinals last year. A look at this season’s stats indicates that each of those returning starters (Annie Burns, Jamie White, and Caroline Stewart) has been significant in the success of the 2007-08 squad. Annie is the assists leader, Jamie the steals leader, and Caroline leads in just about everything else.

Caroline’s per-game double/double (17 points/12 rebounds) has gotten her to the Boston Herald All-Scholastic level twice. Even better for the 6-footer has been the full basketball scholarship she recently accepted to Boston University.

New starters this year are junior Krissi DiBenedetto (7+ points per game) and senior Meredith DeAngelis. “One of the unsung heroes on this year’s team is Meredith,” said Coach Romeo. “She’s just 5-7 but we usually put her on the other team’s biggest kid. She’s our defensive stopper.”

The Masco girls were 13-0 in the Cape Ann League and had to defeat their archrival Pentucket in the process. “Pentucket was the favorite to win the league and we beat them here by two points (55-53) in a whale of a game. We were down by six with a couple minutes left but we came all the way back and iced it with free throws at the end.”

Masco’s only loss was in Game 3 against nonleague Cardinal Spellman in overtime. Coach Romeo contended that the loss did his team a lot of good. “Cardinal Spellman was ranked #1 in Eastern Massachusetts so we knew that they would be tough but that’s what we want in the nonleague part of our schedule. We played great against them but at the end both Caroline and Jamie fouled out. The good that came out of this was that we had to put inexperienced sophomores (Julie Galvin and Carly Kiernan) into the fire and they gained valuable experience. It also was an important lesson to Caroline and Jamie that their value to us in on the court not fouling people.”

The Chieftains rolled off 17 straight wins after the Cardinal Spellman loss and were seeded #1 in Division 2 North.

I asked the 6th-year coach to compare this team to other one’s he’s coached at Masco. “I’ve been told that this may not be the most talented team I’ve ever had but it could be the best. It may well be that these kids are more in synch with each other. They spend a lot of time together away from the court.”

One of the team’s most positive supporters is Jamie’s father (Jo Jo White – Boston Celtics). “The only words we get from him are words of encouragement. I know that during the off-season he’s done a lot of work with Jamie.”

The team will need to win four games to get to the Division 2 championship game in Worcester on March 15th. It could well happen.

(Appeared in The Town Common in an issue dated March 5th)

Ryan O’Connell Sets Scoring Record at St. John’s Prep

(Danvers) Senior Night at St. John’s Prep was, “awesome,” according to 18-year-old Ryan O’Connell of Ipswich.

Maureen Ryan O'Connell 2-14-08 Who could argue with his assessment after seeing him honored (as a senior) and then get himself into the St. John’s basketball record book as their all-time scorer. Add that the Eagles defeated visiting Malden High 77-73, he put up 31 points, and you can understand what he meant by “awesome.”

Ryan, pictured here with his mother Maureen, may be a 6-3 sharpshooter but St. John’s Coach Dan Letarte was quick to mention that Ryan’s abilities go beyond basketball. “No question that he is a student/athlete. His grade point average is 3.5. He’ll be going to Bowdoin (Brunswick, Maine) in the fall.”

“I chose Bowdoin because I wanted to get into the best academic school I could get into and play basketball at,” explained Ryan after the game.

Before the game, however, the talk at St. John’s on Valentine’s Day evening wasn’t about grades it was about Ryan needing four points to pass Matt Symmes and become the school’s top scorer. Sporting a 25-point average, you knew it wasn’t a matter of if he would get the points needed but when it would happen.

Ryan was stymied by an effective box-and-one defense in the first period but erupted for 27 points in the second and third periods. The record-breaking basket came at the end of a 2-on-1 fast break with sophomore playmaker Brendan Felder. “Brendan told me that he wanted to get the assist on the record-breaking basket and he did.”

Ryan’s first four baskets in this game were two-pointers and then the long-range shots started to fall. He made five of the next six 3’s he tried despite being tightly defended.

Coach Letarte has encouraged Ryan to shoot the long-range shot. “He shoots 52% from out there and he’s not afraid to take that shot at any time in the game. I have confidence in him.”

“I played the post as a freshman on the JV team,” said Ryan. “I realized as a sophomore that I wasn’t tall enough to play that position on the varsity so that’s when I started working on my 3-point shooting and that’s been my specialty.”

The consistent release and rotation on his 3-point shots comes from hours of practice. Ryan is a regular at the Ipswich Y. “I know for a fact that either before practice or after practice he’ll go over to the Ipswich Y and put up 200 three-pointers and work on his ball-handling skills,” said Coach Letarte.

An injury to a starting St. John’s guard put Ryan into the starting lineup in Game #10 of his sophomore year. “It was against BC High the eventual Number 1 seed in the North,” recalled Coach Letarte. “Ryan scored 24 points and became a fixture in the starting lineups thereafter”.

On hand to witness Ryan’s record-setting performance, and pass congratulations his way, were many of his friends from Ipswich including Tiger coach Doug Woodworth.

(Submitted to The Town Common on February 15, 2008)

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November 7, 2007 · 7:28 pm

Thanksgiving Presents Celebration Opportunities

It certainly is the time of great celebration in these parts over the successes of our major sports teams. Have we ever had a better collection of best-of-the-bunch teams to enjoy?

No doubt the happy faces seen in The Town Common (November 7, 2007) at the Red Sox Rolling Rally reflect the sentiments of most of us around here.

The reason I write this article is to alert the area sports faithful that truly tasty times are just ahead. I’m talking about Thanksgiving. No, I’m not talking about the food. I’m talking about the conversational opportunities.

Reflect on your own Thanksgiving-to-be gathering. I’m suspecting that among the collection of folks on hand will be some with non-area sports affiliations. Many of these people are just a word or two away from being riled up by the mere mention of the exploits of the Red Sox/Patriots/Celtics.

During Thanksgiving week, I will be visiting family members recently moved to Yankees/Mets/Giants/Jets territory in southwestern Connecticut. Later I’ll eat my Thanksgiving dinner in Phillies/Eagles/Flyers territory. I believe that Philadelphia/New York fans are the best of dry tinder. It doesn’t take much to light them up.

I got into a conversation at a sportscard show in Wilmington the first weekend of this month that proves my point. Simply by noting a card dealer’s Buffalo Bills loyalty and suggesting that there was still room for him to board the Patriots bandwagon I fired him up. Before long, he was red-faced and informing me that the Patriots were cheaters and Vince Wilfork was the dirtiest player in the NFL for injuring the Bills’ QB. Fortunately (for me), there was a table between us and I could move on before the fire spread.

At the same sportscard show, attended by hundreds, I saw just one Yankee hat. The wearer of that hat got the same looks and reactions that Hillary Clinton got the other night after giving her answer(s?) to permitting illegals in New York to get driver’s licenses.

In your gathering you may have people who aren’t serious fans. They’re the ones who are just as likely to be wearing Boston clothing next time around to make a fashion statement. Do not waste any incendiary material on them. They are usually the types who believe that the problem with sports is that the score is kept and participants get overly aggressive as a result.

You need to be aware that normally the sports hostilities between areas of the country do not stay red-hot. That’s because in this day of parity few teams can dominate a sport for very long. That puts a quick kibosh on the aggravation possibilities a fan from a successful team will have and results in lost opportunities at having fun with family from other parts of the country.

However, and I say this happily, I don’t see the Red Sox/Patriots/Celtics dropping back into also-rans any time soon. If so, then savoring the moments is in order and what better time to get the process started then among family at upcoming Thanksgiving. However, do be wary of family members from away with clinched hands holding sharp eating utensils.