PEABODY — Moynihan Lumber observed its 30th year of honoring its North Shore Student Athletes of the Year program by bringing back one of the first winners of the scholarship.
Peabody Mayor Ted Bettencourt was given the Post-Graduate Award and served as the featured speaker at the luncheon at Salem Country Club Tuesday.
Arianna Bezanson of Danvers High and Tyler Knox of St. John’s Prep were the two winners of this year’s scholarships.
Bettencourt, from Peabody High, was the 1991-1992 winner along with Lauren Maney of Lynnfield High. Both ended up going to Holy Cross, and they remain good friends, Bettencourt said.
“I remember the pride I felt winning the award,” Bettencourt said. “I also remembered my parents, sisters and brothers. It’s a family thing. The love and support from my family matters.
“This award meant a tremendous amount to my mother,” he said, “that it was for student achievement too.”
Bettencourt congratulated Moynihan Lumber for “keeping a 30-year tradition alive. There is something special about this award.
“I have always been a lover of local sports,” he said. “I keep track of all the scores, and get to as many games as I can.”
“This award means something,” Bettencourt said. “It means something to me, my family, and to the North Shore.”
Moynihan also presented Bob DeFelice with a lifetime achievement award. DeFelice, of Winthrop, retired after a 54-year career as a coach, including 30 as the baseball coach/athletic director at Bentley University. He is in nine halls of fame.
“This has been a great life for me, being involved in athletics,” DeFelice said. He joked that he was sitting at a table of Marblehead people “who didn’t enjoy their lunch very much,” and also said he had to sit next to his big brother Frank, another coaching legend on the North Shore.
Others honored included basketball referee June Murphy and Independent Newspaper Group reporter/editor Cary Shuman, both receiving the Lifetime Commitment/Community Award; Marblehead assistant athletic director Mark Tarmey and Manchester-Essex coach Margaret “Muffin” Driscoll, Lifetime Commitment/Schools Award; and Lynn Cable TV broadcaster John Hoffman, Fan Award.
A special presentation was given posthumously to longtime Peabody High athletic secretary Kathy Strange, who died last winter. Strange was also given the Lifetime Commitment/Schools Award. Former AD Phil Sheridan accepted the award in her memory.
Bezanson, a girls soccer player, won the first of the monthly awards of the school year, last September. Coach Jim Hinchion, who introduced her, said he has known her since she was six years old and could tell that she was a good athlete, and that she was extremely competitive — two traits that only grew as she got older.
The Falcons won the Northeastern Conference all four years she played for them. But beyond accolades, what impressed Hinchion was her leadership abilities.
“She is a leader in every sense of the word,” he said.
During her senior year, Bezanson scored 22 goals and finished with 34 points.
“She carried us on her back to the state quarterfinal,” he said.
Among her highlights this year, she was the team MVP, an all-star in the NEC and Eastern Mass, was on the All-American Team, and is the Gatorade Player of the Year nominee from Massachusetts. She will be attending Colgate in the fall and majoring in biology. She hopes to become a surgeon.
Knox, or “Knoxie,” as coach Manny Costa called him, was a special wrestler. He’s the third St. John’s wrestler to win the yearly Moynihan award — the other two being Ryan Malo and Costa’s own son, Hunter.
This year, en route to a perfect season that took him to the national championship, Knox — a junior who has already committed to Stanford — didn’t even allow a point until the New England quarterfinals. He is currently ranked seventh in the nation in his 120-pound weight category.
Equally impressive, said Costa, was Knox’s 4.39 GPA.
“Already, he’s had three Ivy League schools looking at him, but he got a call from Stanford and went out there,” said Costa. “And he called me and said the place seemed right for him. So, after he’s done here, he’ll be going out to Stanford.”
Knox, Costa said, “respects the sport of wrestling as much as possible. The objective in wrestling is to pin your opponent. I’ve seen him begin matches with a handshake, pin his opponent, and then get up and shake his hand again.”
The awards ceremony has been held every year since 1992 except for 2020, when it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
