Varsity News: Toughest All-Scholastic decisions and predicting next year’s stars

It was October 2013 and I had to start a new Twitter handle.

My old one, @faribaultsports, wasn’t much use covering high school sports in Massachusetts. So I secured @BrendanKurie and clicked on my first follow. No, it wasn’t Tom, it was @BostonHeraldHS. Even from the Land of 10,000 Lakes, it was apparent this was a must-follow account.

About six months later I met Danny Ventura, the Boston Herald’s high school reporter and editor extraordinaire, at a small table set up behind the backstop at Braintree High. It was a 2014 Division 1 South sectional final, and future major leaguer Jared Shuster was on the mound as a freshman for New Bedford.

Danny and I chatted between tracking pitches. I was still a newbie on the beat, learning leagues and nicknames, while Danny was institutional knowledge incarnate. He was kind, informative, and gracious, traits that have been universal in the memorials I’ve read since he died last week at 66 after a private battle with cancer.

I never worked for Danny — he’s helped shape incalculable careers over the years — or with him, and many in our orbit were much closer to him than I, but our paths crossed many times, including a fantasy baseball league we shared, and my respect for the care, attention, and dedication he had for his craft only grew.

The outpouring of love from the Massachusetts high school sports community was testament to his impact on generations of athletes, coaches, families, and more. Rest in peace, Danny.

The door has closed on the 2025-26 season with the release of our spring All-Scholastic selections. Find them all here:

After each season we honor the best athletes and coaches, sorting through stats, awards, notes, recommendations, and observations to determine the most deserving recipients among student-athletes from Eastern Mass. leagues.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it’s never an easy process, one filled with close calls and tough decisions, and no shortage of Monday Morning Quarterbacks ready to tell you which choices they disagree with.

We’ll get to the toughest calls, our favorite answers to the student questionnaire, and our predictions for 2026-27, but first, a few highlights.

Which school had the most spring Athletes of the Year?

Cohasset, with three: Gus Greene (boys’ lacrosse), Molly Campbell (girls’ lacrosse), and Nicholas Askjaer (boys’ track).

Which school had the most Athlete of the Year selections for 2025-26?

Westford, with five. Abby Hennessy (cross-country, indoor track, outdoor track), Maddie Smith (girls’ golf), and Aiden Gouldson (boys’ swimming).

Bishop Feehan, Concord-Carlisle, Medfield, and Tewksbury each had four of the 106 picks, with Central Catholic, Cohasset, Newton South, Oliver Ames, and Reading each sporting three. Concord-Carlisle and Westford were the only schools with at least one honoree in all three seasons.

Which school had the most spring Coaches of the Year?

It was a six-way tie between Apponequet, Georgetown, King Philip, Seekonk, Walpole, and Weston with two apiece.

Which school had the most Coaches of the Year for 2025-26?

It was a tie between Canton and Weston with four each. The Bulldogs were represented by Anna Amico (girls’ outdoor track), Mike Barucci (boys’ golf), Brian Gotsell (girls’ cross-country), and Brian Shuman (boys’ hockey), while Weston had George Conlin (boys’ tennis), Jim McLaughlin (boys’ swimming), Danielle Mitchell (girls’ indoor track), and John Monz (boys’ outdoor track).

Duxbury, Seekonk, and St. John’s Prep each had three Coaches of the Year. Canton was the only school with at least one coaching pick every season.

Hardest All-Scholastic decisions

Nate Weitzer: Dracut had an incredible boys’ lacrosse season and lost in the Division 3 state final. Picking coach Paul Ganley over Scituate coach Mark Puzzangara, who won back-to-back titles, was a close call. Choosing between Dracut’s all-time leading scorer Owen French and Merrimack Valley Conference II Player of the Year Charlie Wilkie for All-Scholastic also was.

Brendan Kurie: Picking the girls’ golf All-Scholastics is tough, because many played their regular season in the fall, so we rely quite a bit on the spring sectional and state championships. This year’s toughest decision came down to two Duxbury golfers: Hailey Flynn and Emily Stadelmann. In this case, Stadelmann had a slightly better postseason, carding under 90 at both meets and finishing in the Top 20 in the state. But Flynn’s regular-season contributions, her status as a senior captain, and her four years of success gave her the nod.

Favorite answers

AJ Traub: I appreciated the All-Scholastic form from Canton volleyball player Erin Bigham, a 2,000-assist setter who earned Division 2 Athlete of the Year in 2024 and another All-Scholastic selection last fall. For one of her hobbies, she listed volleyball. Who knew? . . . Acton-Boxborough boys’ volleyball star Caleb Handel included snuggling his two cats among his.

Weitzer: Concord Academy boys’ lacrosse senior middie Bernard Mattox is a volunteer counselor at the Felix Neck Mass Audubon Nature Camp in Edgartown, where he educated Martha’s Vineyard students about caring for the environment and animal habitats on their island.

Ultimate prize

Off to Tufts in the fall on the pre-med track (as a biology major), recent Covenant Christian grad Simeon Yen was the Massachusetts Bay Independent League MVP in ultimate (Frisbee), headlining the league’s All-Star list. In an 8-1 season, the Beverly resident racked up 62 assists and 12 goals, raising his career total to 200-plus helpers and 35 goals.

The school’s salutatorian, Yen was also on the varsity soccer team, and plays the violin and piano.

The MBIL is the only prep or MIAA league in Eastern Mass. to select an ultimate All-Star team — BU Academy: Jo Sharpless, Nathan Wang. Brimmer and May: Andrew Flint, Brady Palladino. British International: Theo Godwin. Cambridge School of Weston: Rayan Jounaidi. Commonwealth: Felix Hentschel. Chapel Hill-Chauncy Hall: Olivier Bolzan. Covenant: Mikey Graves, Tristan Vieira. Gann Academy: Edan Elliott. Waring: Eli Goodman-Lorber, Jason Spencer.

Predictions for 2026-27

Trevor Hass: The girls’ basketball Super Team next year (assuming all stay): Sysy Emmanuel (St. Mary’s), Alaysia Drummonds (Foxborough), Abby Broderick (Medfield), Maliah Pierre (Whitman-Hanson), and Kayla Dunlap (Natick).

The girls’ lacrosse Athletes of the Year next year (assuming all stay)? Division 1: Battle between Scarlett Mirak (Concord-Carlisle) and Kiley Carmichael (Westford); Division 2: Lily Rodgers (Reading); Division 3: Lexi Davos (Norwell); Division 4: Quinn Anderson (Sandwich).

Henry Dinh-Price: Kiley Carmichael of Westford will be a girls’ lacrosse Athlete of the Year.

Traub: Only five Massachusetts wrestlers have won four All-State titles. Four won New Englands three times.

Franklin’s Johnny Woodall has two undefeated seasons entering his junior season. It’s a similar situation to Shawsheen’s Sid Tildsley, who won both All-States and New Englands as a freshman and sophomore, with only one regular-season loss. But he dropped a match at New Englands and settled for third place as a junior, earning his third title as a senior to go with four All-State titles. Can Woodall avoid that fate and go 3 for 3 in both?

Eyes also will be on Central Catholic wrestling after posting a points record in the Division 1 state championship. The Raiders return the rising sophomore duo of All-State champs and New England finalists Lucas Copper and Sam Winship. Brian Waller-Reitano and star quarterback and All-State champ Caden Smith will be seniors, and there’s a lot more depth in the lineup.

Kat Cornetta: Carli Moran of Beverly will be next year’s gymnastics Athlete of the Year. She single-handedly qualified the Panthers for sectionals this year and finished on the podium at the state individual meet for the second consecutive year. In the club gymnastics world, she is the state champion at Level 10 — one grade below Olympic level. An incredible student, she has overtaken Heather Gomes as Beverly’s best-ever gymnast.

Traub: In volleyball, cousins Kyra Ward and Ridty Tauch look to elevate Chelmsford further than Merrimack Valley squads have gone in years. On the girls’ side, no MVC team has defeated a single-digit seed since the statewide format started, but Ward had the Lions a point away from hosting a quarterfinal last season.

There’s more to see in the MVC in the fall, too, with Division 1’s leader in kills, Julie Hall, returning for Central Catholic, and Andover expected to get the most exciting freshman since Sasha Selivan: Kiki Wright.

Kurie: I don’t get out to as many games as most of these reporters, but one player who stood out wasFranklin freshman Ethan Edmunds, a catcher/first baseman who wields a mighty bat and led the Hockomock League with 28 RBIs. Different positions, but he reminds me of watching Henry DiGiorgio hit for Zach Brown’s team as a freshman in 2021. DiGiorgio is now a starting shortstop for Northeastern, and I expect to see Edmund earning All-Scholastic, if not Athlete of the Year honors, by next spring.

Danny Ventura, Boston Herald’s high school sports reporting legend, dies at 66

Ventura, who retired from the Herald last year, battled urethral cancer.

Trivia: Last week we asked how many Massachusetts baseball players have been drafted in the first round out of high school and reached the majors. Answer: One, Natick’s Joe Coleman, who was selected third in 1965 by the Washington Senators and went on to pitch 15 seasons in the majors.

Billerica’s Tom Glavine and West Roxbury’s Manny Delcarmen were second-round picks. Phillips Andover’s Thomas White might have joined Coleman this season if not for injury. Tyler Beede was drafted in the first round out of Lawrence Academy in 2011, but opted to attend Vanderbilt before going in the first round in 2014.

See ya in August: Varsity News is going on hiatus for a month as we recharge for the 2026-27 school year. We’ll return in mid-August to get you prepped for the opening of the fall season.

In the interim, we’re planning a little makeover. We started this newsletter last fall and after a strong first nine months, we’re ready to reevaluate. What are you looking for in a weekly newsletter? What do you, as a high school sports fan, envision in this space?

Thus far we’ve focused on being comprehensive, providing as many Eastern Mass. highlights as we can cram in, but maybe you want deeper dives? More focus? Fewer names and stats and more storytelling? Or maybe you love it just the way it is.

Let me know at [email protected]!