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St. Mary’s athletic director Jeff Newhall and the Spartans have had an incredible run of success lately.
By STEVE KRAUSE
LYNN — St. Mary’s has two chances this weekend to win at least one state championship for the 10th straight year.
The boys basketball team plays Maynard Saturday (5:45) at the Blake Arena on the campus of Springfield College for the Division 4 state title. The next day, same time, at the TD Garden, the boys hockey team goes for the Division 1 championship against Framingham.
The Boston professional sports teams may have their “decade of dominance,” but St. Mary’s run of championships is every bit as prodigious.
This run began in 2001, when the boys basketball team won the first of its back-to-back Division 4 titles. A year later, both the boys and girls teams won.
The Spartans took three years off, but came back in 2005 with a three-score: golf, girls hockey and football, when the Spartans won the Division 6 Super Bowl.
The following year, the golfers won again. Then, after taking 2007 off, the championships really began piling up. The girls hockey team began its three-year Division 1 dynasty in 2008, and a year later, the softball team won the first of its back-to-back Division 3 crowns.
In 2011, it was the girls basketball team’s turn, followed, in 2012, by boys basketball. The girls hockey team regained its Division 1 title in 2013, followed, in 2014, by another girls basketball championship. The baseball team joined the parade in 2015, and last year, boys basketball kept the streak going.
In addition, the football team has twice made Super Bowls in that span, the boys soccer team made the state final in 2015, and the boys hockey team made last year’s Division 1 state final.
“It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world” if this year’s hockey team can join that victory parade, says athletic director Jeff Newhall.
“The best thing about this,” said Newhall, “is that it hasn’t been dominated by one sport. It’s been across the board.
“To make two finals in the same season, and to win a championship, is a tremendous accomplishment. To do it a second year in a row, when everyone circles you on their calendar as the team to beat … you have to give the kids and coaches all the credit. You have to bring your ‘A’ game to the tournament or you’re going to get beat.”
The boys basketball team found that out Wednesday night when it ran into a red-hot Cathedral team — a team it defeated en route to last year’s state title. The Panthers took a 21-point first-half lead before the Spartans roared back to get the win and earn their second straight trip to the final.
“Everybody has to be all-in,” said Newhall, who has coached the girls team to two state titles and led them to the sectional semifinal this season.
What helps kids buy in, Newhall said, is the school’s reputation for excellence in athletics.
“It’s definitely quality and not quantity,” he said. “We’re not suiting up a bundle of guys. But the kids who play are excellent student-athletes.
“We also have a stable coaching staff,” he said. “It’s not just the Xs and Os, although obviously we want to win. But you need people who are willing to work extra hours for whatever the kids may need, both inside and outside the school. That’s how you build relationships with the kids, so that hopefully, when they face adversity, which they probably will, they can be of help.”
Newhall also said that the school has built a culture or winning, “where excellence is really expected to a certain degree. It’s not all about winning and losing, but it has a great deal to do with that. What you want is for people to say ‘there’s a program that does it right.’”
The philosophy has paid dividends. This winter, the boys and girls from both basketball and hockey advanced at least a round in the tournament. At one point in the postseason, St. Mary’s was the only school in the state with four teams still alive in the tournament, until the girls basketball and hockey teams were knocked out on the same night.
“If you’re not all in, committed to doing this 12 months of the year, then (coaching here) is probably not for you,” he said. “If we’re going to ask the kids to buy into it for 12 months out of the year, the coaches have to do it too.”
