Tag: Pittsfield

Fantastic First: Belmont boys finally exploded to inaugural crown

By Mike Whaley

(This is the fourth in a series on the 2025 NHIAA state championship basketball teams.)

It’s no secret that Belmont High School has a long, painful history of playing second fiddle when it comes to its boys basketball program. Well, that was until this past season. The Raiders finally reached the championship summit in March with a 49-43 win over Kearsarge in the Division III title game at Keene State College. It was the school’s first basketball title in four tries (the three previous runners-up were in Class S dating back to the N.H. basketball Dark Ages: 1970, 1950 and 1949).

Coach Tony Martinez can laugh and joke now, but when he took the job three years ago, he knew a substantial task was ahead of him to make Belmont into something it had never been. “For me, coming from my background in Pittsfield,” he said, “I wanted to make it a basketball town. I knew we’d have to start sustaining some winning seasons and ultimately the goal is to bring a championship home. I was really lucky over those first couple of years to get these guys to really buy into it, and we were able to do that this year.”

Over the years, going back to the 1940s, Belmont has had some good teams and great players: Verne Bryant, Ronald Smock, Cliff Greenwood, Chris Lockwood, Nathan Roach, Michael Messier, Sean Newman and Trevor Hunt were just a few of the names to light it up for the Raiders. But team success has been fleeting. “They never really got over the hump to the point where you heard community people saying ‘this is not a basketball town.’” Martinez wanted to change all that.

Although he left his mark in nearby Pittsfield and at Plymouth State, Tony was certainly familiar with Belmont and its basketball history. His mom attended the high school and his uncle was an athlete there in the 1970s.

Two big factors in the Raiders’ eventual success were exactly that – big. When Keegan Martinez and Anakin Underhill came in as freshmen, they already had size and a clue or two about how to use it. They were also very familiar with each other having been teammates since they were in fifth grade. By the time they were seniors, they were the centerpieces on not only the biggest team in the division, but the squad with the strongest defense and most explosive offense. Underhill will take his 6-foot-6 frame to NCAA Division I Sacred Heart University next year as a baseball pitcher, while the 6-5 Martinez will follow in his father’s footsteps and play basketball at Plymouth State University.

When Tony Martinez replaced Jim Cilley in 2022 as the head coach, he knew he had his son and Underhill as experienced sophomores along with a talented senior class. But he still had a lot to learn.

“As a rookie coach, my first year I came in with the mentality, I’m going to teach them how I played,” said Tony, who was a star player at Pittsfield High School and Plymouth State, scoring more than 1,000 points at both schools. “I’m going to change these guys. We’re going to play this style. It wasn’t that I did it on purpose. I was kind of close-minded to what we had for individual skill.”

Tony got some great advice from close friend and Pittsfield coach Jay Darrah. “When I got the job, he said ‘Tony, one of the biggest things you’ve got to understand as a head coach especially with your playing background, is the kids these days aren’t going to see the game the way you did.’”

It took a while for Darrah’s words to sink in. “That first year I kind of coached it, I wanted the team built in my style, rather than looking at them and taking them at what they could offer and putting it together.”

The team didn’t improve or come together. “We had some injuries and typical things that teams face,” he said. “But we weren’t built to face adversity yet. Even me as the coach. I wasn’t built to face adversity yet.”

A big learning curve for Tony was coming in as a new coach who had inherited seven or eight seniors. “They had come off a couple of up and down seasons and I was trying to get them in that winning mindset,” he said. So here was Tony with his new ideas and you had a group of seniors who were winding up their high school careers and thinking about their futures. “When I first took the job, I never understood how a player could think that,” he said. “Now I can see it and understand it. It’s hard to get them to buy in.”

Tony did not have a problem with the seniors as people. He thought they were fantastic. He is still in touch with all of them. “It was hard to put it all together in the time frame we had. One thing I tell that senior class is I wish I had two more seasons with you. If we had two more seasons together, I think that team would have been the one to put the banner up.”

That first year the Raiders started strong, but didn’t end that way. They went 9-9, earned the No. 9 seed in the D-III tournament, losing in the first round at Conant, 56-44.

“Those guys were older,” said Underhill of the seniors. “Me and Keegan were younger. Those guys were in their own separate group. I was friends with most of the guys. It wasn’t super tight like it is now.”

After that first season, Tony sat down and wrote out what the strengths of the team were. “Obviously it was no secret to anybody, we needed to build the team around Keegan and Anakin,” he said. “They were our two bigs. They were our two best players at the time. I knew we had other good returning juniors, players like Michael Collette and Brady Thurber. We had some other sophomores: Wyatt Carroll and Brady Fysh. I knew we could build something solid around those guys. We had a really good freshmen class coming in with Brody Ennis, Owen Viar and Wyatt Bamford. I knew we had a lot of talent, a lot of pieces. It was just going to be up to us to find a way to put it all together. It was rough at first. I refused to call it a rebuilding year, even though it was.”

The Raiders took their lumps early, starting the 2023-24 season with a 3-4 record. “We started hearing those questions. ‘Is this the right lineup?’” Tony recalled. “All the stuff that happens when things aren’t looking great. I knew that we were kind of pointed in the right direction. But we were going to take our hits.”

The turning point came in game number seven at Saint Thomas Aquinas, a 68-35 waxing. “We had some infighting and stuff like that,” Tony said. “We were down in the locker room at the end of the game, and I lost my mind. I basically told the guys how I felt in a colorful way.”

Immediately after he finished his tirade, Tony thought: “Oh boy, I don’t know if I’m going to be here next week.”

There was a senior on the team named Hutch Haskins. Tony said he wasn’t the most talented player, but he gave it his all. “He was probably one of the greatest high school leaders I’ve ever seen in anything he’s done,” Tony said. “I remember it was kind of somber after that. Everybody was processing what I had just said, including myself. I’m walking out of Saint Thomas and I see Hutch standing on the staircase before the bus. He comes up to me and gets right in front of me. ‘Coach, I’ve got your back. We needed to hear that.’ I was immediately like ‘wow.’ That’s amazing. I knew with him (Hutch) he would relay to the guys or any guys who might be on the fence about it. From that point we really began to understand the work that needed to be done and what we had to do with our attitudes and everything to start turning the corner.”

Belmont went on a huge run from there, winning eight of their final 11 games to end the season at 11-7. In the last game of the regular season, they won a huge game at Gilford, 50-34, with a bunch of playoff implications on the line. It was the first time in a half dozen years or so since Belmont had won at Gilford. “It was crazy,” Tony said. “I remember us celebrating like we had won the state championship. That’s when I knew we were taking a step forward to win a game with all those implications before a packed house with all those young players.”

The Raiders earned the No. 7 seed, which meant a first-round playoff game at home. There they beat No. 10 Fall Mountain, 52-36, to advance to the quarterfinals for the first time since 2017. The season ended at eventual champion Saint Thomas, 67-50, a game that was separated by one point at the half. “I remember the Saint Thomas game, specifically,” Underhill said. “They were really good. They’ve been in those situations. We really weren’t that experienced. I wasn’t ready for that level of basketball.”

Still, for Tony, it was a step forward. “I knew after that with everyone we had coming back, we had an opportunity to make this season special if we could put the work in,” Tony said.

Another factor that would come seriously into play going into the ‘24-25 season was the  return of junior Treshawn Ray, a guard with some serious upside. Looking back, Tony regrets how he handled Ray during his first year. “One of the biggest mistakes I made with Tre as a freshman, I tried to change his style of play and make it more conservative,” Tony said. “As a freshman, I thought I was doing him a favor.” Tony recalls calling Ray over and going “‘No, Tre, you’ve got to do this. No, you’ve got to do it this way.’ I think I kind of handcuffed him and made him not comfortable in the way he played.”

Ray is from a split family. In 2023, he moved in with his dad in Boston and played part of his sophomore season at Reason Prep before leaving the team and eventually coming back to Belmont to live with his mom. His intent was to return to the team to play for his junior year. “When I coached him this year, I don’t know how many times I called him over this season: ‘Go do your thing. Go play your game.’”

Tony remembers Ray reaching out to him at the end of last summer, saying he wanted to come back and get back on track. Ray was homeschooled, so that piece had to be ironed out in conjunction with him playing sports for Belmont. It eventually was.

Tony recalls a conference call with Ray and his mom, Keegan, Tony and assistant coach Scott Ennis. “To sum it up, I told Tre exactly what I expected – the dedication, the commitment to the team, the leadership” Tony said. 

Ray was glad to have everything out on the table and glad to build a bond with his coach and his team. He said that conversation allowed him and Tony to “build a bond off the basketball court so that when we get to the basketball court we already have a good feeling about each other. Before the season started, we’d text, we’d talk, we’d keep it short. We really built the connection.”

Before Ray returned, Tony figured the team was one guard away from being a serious contender. “I had a younger guy, but he wasn’t quite ready,” the coach said. “(Tre) was the final piece to the puzzle. We had size, wings and rebounding. I knew we could play defense. We just needed that one extra piece. When he came in, he fit right into that.”

What really caught Tony’s eye was how the Belmont players reacted to Ray’s return. In choosing captains, Tony had a rollover captain, which was Keegan, and then had the team vote for the other two captains. They voted for Underhill and Ray. “His turnaround in maturity from his freshman year to the time coming in here this year, it was night and day,” said Tony. “The guys saw that and voted for him. I think it was a unanimous vote. It showed me and my staff just how valuable a leader he was because the guys believed in him already.” Belmont now had everything in place, on paper, to make its run. The question remained, would they be able to do it?

The Raiders came out ready. In their second game they hosted and beat Gilford (61-45) in a big rivalry game before a packed house. “It was a playoff atmosphere,” Tony said. “For us to win that, that was the first benchmark. That we could win a big game early, that showed me that we had big-game capability.”

The next challenge was the Mike Lee Holiday Basketball Bash in Farmington. There is the potential to play a lot of basketball. “If you’re a good team, you play five games in five days,” Tony said. “I wanted that for this team. We needed to keep building that experience.” 

The Raiders ended up playing a very competitive schedule. Their first four wins were over Raymond, a top-10 playoff team in D-III; a solid D-II squad in Kennett; eventual D-II runners-up Sanborn and a strong D-IV team in Portsmouth Christian. “We were seeing some different defenses and some different things that were kind of exposing us,” Tony said. “For me as a coach, I was seeing what we had to work on.”

In the championship, Belmont faced a very solid Division II playoff team in Coe-Brown, coached by the legendary Dave Smith, who had coached against Tony when he played for Pittsfield HS in the 1990s. “You’re never going to see a more disciplined or better-coached team than a Coe-Brown team with him at the helm,” Tony said. The Raiders played without Underhill who had an arm injury. With a baseball future looming in college, they did not want to risk further injury, so the big guy had to sit. It gave Belmont the chance to play some younger guys in a big game before a packed house. Coe-Brown won in overtime, 66-64.

Tony was ecstatic. “I went into the locker room and for the first time in my coaching/playing career, I wasn’t upset (after a loss),” he said. “I wasn’t sad. I looked at the team. They were really upset. I was really taken with how the team valued a Christmas tournament championship.”

Tony then asked the team a simple question. “Do you want to feel this feeling again? And they are all like ‘No. Not at all.’ … I said I would rather see you feel this way now – all of us feel this now – than on March 1. They all bought into that. That was one of the first steps in us taking that giant step forward.”

The Raiders came back from the holiday break, adding four more wins to their perfect D-III mark to improve to 7-0. Then they lost at Campbell by nine points, 69-60, 10 days after beating the Cougars by 19. “It was our worst game of the season,” Tony said. “We had like 24 turnovers.” Campbell hit Belmont with a zone and it totally stumped them. It was another good lesson learned. “OK, now we know what everyone is going to do against us,” the coach said. “I know as a coach that every coach in Division III was going to be on (coach) Justin (DeBenedetto’s) email that night. ‘Can I have your film?’ I knew we were not going to see man-to-man the rest of the season.” It’s worth noting that Belmont allowed 60 or more points only twice all season – both losses.

Underhill recalls a conversation he had with his dad before the season even began. His dad essentially said it was very hard to go undefeated and if you did there was a big target on your backs. “‘You guys need to lose one game and that will take some pressure off you guys,’” Underhill recalls his dad’s words. “‘And that will help you win the championship.’”

Underhill felt there was merit to those words, although he added, “I didn’t plan for us to lose. I wasn’t afraid of losing because I knew guys had to learn and I had to learn too, and we could do better from that.”

Belmont had little time to lick their wounds as Saint Thomas was due in town two days later. Tony admitted he was nervous. “It’s hard for high school kids to have an emotional loss and have two practices and then go right into another big emotional game against the defending state champs with arguably the best player in the division (Cole McClure).”

Heading into the fourth quarter, the Raiders found themselves down nine points. They came back and won by two, 50-48. “This showed me how much desire these guys had and how much they wanted to win a championship,” Tony said. “They were willing to do what it took to win.”

Belmont finally had complete buy-in from everyone. “Up until that point, I had a few guys that had more significant roles the season before and were playing less,” the coach said. “They weren’t causing a problem, but they were doing ‘Hey coach, what am I doing wrong?’ We got a lot of that. We had to do a lot of open explanations of what we were doing to players. After that Saint Thomas game, I rarely had to talk to players about their roles. They started accepting everything.”

Underhill remembers during the season people coming up to him and mentioning how great the team was doing and not to mess it up. “In my mind, I would say ‘four quarters at a time and we’ll see what happens,’” he said. “We can’t say anything now. We’ll just play our hardest and see what happens.”

The Raiders wrapped up the season with a 17-1 record to earn what was believed to be the first No. 1 seed in program history. Going back to the summer, Belmont had adopted the term “stacking” from assistant coach Scott Ennis. “We wanted to stack our positives,” Tony said. “Learn from our mistakes, stack our positives. Stacking the positives, you keep building towards your goal.”

What Tony took from stacking was to take each game and break it down into pieces. “I used baseball a lot as an analogy because I had a lot of baseball guys on the team,” he said. “One batter. One strike. One inning. We kind of looked at games from the tail end of the season in preparation for the playoffs. OK, each game is four eight-minute games. We’re going to look at each quarter as its own eight-minute game. We’re going to win each eight-minute game. You win each eight-minute game, you win that night. We started getting the guys really mentally prepared that way. Don’t worry about what’s two quarters ahead or what’s behind you. It’s kind of a variation of one (minute, quarter, game) at a time.”

If the games were close, they would break those quarters down to minutes. They used that time element in practice. “When we started practicing, we really went live and put time on the clock and we practiced what we needed to do in those situations. We knew that if we needed to do something in a game, being down or being up, we knew what to do and to understand the game and time and score. We really focused on that as we prepared for Fall Mountain in the playoff run.”

The Raiders earned a first-round bye, which meant they would host a quarterfinal game against the Fall-Mountain/Raymond winner, which was Fall Mountain. Tony would have preferred to play a first-round game instead of having the week off. “You hear all the time that the week off is difficult,” Tony said. “No matter how good your team is, how talented they are and how prepared (they are). Not having that live action in the middle of that is tough.”

Underhill agreed. “That bye week wasn’t settling well with any of us,” he said. “We really just wanted to play. I remember that week. It was torture.”

Sure enough, Belmont came out flat. It took a little while to shake the cobwebs off, but they eventually did win going away, 72-50. Four players reached double figures, led by Ray and Keegan with 18 and 17 points, respectively, while Thurber (11) and Underhill (10) also chipped in.

That meant the Raiders were making a rare trip to the semifinals against the defending state champs from Saint Thomas at Bow High School. “The guys were generally excited about it,” Tony said. “They were not nervous. We’re going to be OK. We’re going to be fine.”

Until they weren’t. At halftime, Belmont found itself down by nine points. It was tied at 23-all, but the Saints went on a 10-1 surge to end the frame up 33-24 – the same margin they had led by during the regular season after three quarters. Tony recalls the team was gathered in a classroom and Tre, Annakin and Keegan were all there. “They were so positive. ‘We got this. We’re going to be fine.’ We’ve got 16 more minutes. Two eight-minute games.,” the coach said.

Belmont knew they weren’t going to shut down McClure, the two-time D-III Player of the Year. Instead, they focused on limiting STA’s next two top scorers in Anthony Settineri and Finley De Tolla. The two had combined for 33 points in a 74-66 win over Campbell in the quarterfinals while McClure tossed in 32.

“Look, shut them down,” Tony told his team. “Don’t let them get anything easy.” It paid off as the defense held the duo to 15 points between them. McClure had 34, but he had to work for them. One adjustment Belmont made at the half was to double McClure on the inbounds pass after a made basket. The Raiders learned that if McClure was allowed to walk the ball up the floor unchallenged, eight out of 10 times something good happened for Saint Thomas. “So the little trick was to make McClure work for it to get it on the inbounds pass. That was it.”

Tony said: “Just a little change. We were the best defensive team in Division III along with the best offensive team. During the season we gave up under 100 second-chance points with our rebounding capabilities. To me that’s one of my favorite stats. We did not let any other teams get any second-chance looks. For the most part it was one and done.”

Belmont outscored the Saints 21-8 in the third quarter to take the lead for good going into the fourth, 45-41. They had all the momentum after Ray hit a long 3-pointer at the buzzer to end the third. The final score was 69-53. Keegan and Ray led the attack with 23 and 22 points, respectively, and Underhill added 12.

The Raiders were on the threshold of history. They were playing in their first championship game in 55 years looking for the program’s first title. “Now we turned our focus,” Tony said. “Let’s win this thing. Let’s put the cap on it that we want to put on it.”

Their opponent in the final at Keene State was deceptive No. 3 seed Kearsarge, coached by one of the division’s grand masters – Nate Camp. “He puts much effort into watching film and studying games,” Tony said. “His coaching staff is excellent. They put a lot of effort into preparing their team.”

The one thing about Kearsarge is they were not big, which could make you overlook them. “I was underwhelmed with Kearsarge’s size,” Underhill said. “It showed that these guys were beating up on some teams and they’re not really that big. We’re getting into the game and these guys are crafty. They were better than I thought they would be. ‘Wow, this is going to be a dogfight.’”

Keegan felt Kearsarge was very physical. “I remember cutting to the hoop and there would be two guys bumping me off my cuts every time,” he said. “They were just a scrappy team. Theyworked very hard. We just had to match their physicality with getting rebounds and boxing out.”

Tony added this about the Cougars: “They are tough. They don’t give up. They don’t quit. They are crafty in what they do. They hit shots. How did they hit that? They deserved to be there. I can see why.”

Belmont started strong and took a comfortable lead into the locker room at the half, 30-19. “I was thinking we can really blow the lid off this thing,” Tony said. 

But that was not the case. Ray got the lead to 13 (32-19) at the outset of the third. However, Keaarsarge’s full court press gave Belmont some trouble, more so than it should have. The Cougars worked their way back into the game, also getting help from the Raiders’ inability to hit foul shots (2-for-14 in the second half). Eventually they cut the lead to 44-41 with 2:35 to play. Key putbacks by Underhill and Keegan helped Belmont to hold off the Cougars to secure the program’s first state title, 49-43. Keegan ended with 15 points and 17 boards, while Ray had 15 points and five assists. Underhill added 12 points and 10 rebounds. The Raiders enjoyed a 35-22 advantage on the glass. According to Tony that was the difference in the game. They limited Kearsarge to one second-chance bucket. Eli Whipple paced the Cougars with 15 points.

“I had a coach tell me when I was little, two things win basketball games: Rebounding and free throws. Thank god we could rebound,” Tony said.

It was no surprise that Belmont’s Big Three led the team during its playoff run: Keegan and Ray averaged 18.3 points per game during the playoffs, while Underhill tossed in 11.3 ppg. It was a  similar story during the regular season. Keegan was tops at 18.2 ppg, followed by Underhill (14.8) and Ray (11.7). All told, counting the regular season, the holiday and state tournaments, the Raiders went 24-2. Keegan and Underhill were named to the D-III All-State First Team, Ray made the second team, and 6-3 sophomore Brody Ennis was picked to the All-Defensive Team. Tony was named D-III Coach of the Year.

It was the ultimate coaching joy, winning a program’s first-ever title and doing so with your son. “I was lucky to be on the bench with Jay Darrah when he won it with Pittsfield in 2018 (the Panthers’ first title),” Tony said. “I got to see him win one with his son (Cam). And then I win with Keegan. It’s something that I’ll have forever.”

The father/son dynamic is not something that always works when it comes to coach/player, but like the Darrahs, Tony and Keegan made it work. It helped that Tony had coached his son before on AAU teams. Tony also felt it was integral that Keegan had played as a freshman so that when Tony took over during his sophomore year, he was already established as one of the team’s better players. “With Keegan I always knew that he was going to do what he needed to do to be the player that he needed to be,” Tony said. “I never questioned that. Was I sometimes harder on him than other players? Yeah. I don’t care what coach talks to you and tells you differently. You’re always going to be a little harder on your kid. That’s just the way it is. There’s no sugar coating it. Even at times that I didn’t want to be, I’d say something. It’s the way it is. Keegan also knew that.”

There were times early on in his coaching tenure that Tony would tell Keegan beforehand that he was going to be getting on him at practice. “I need guys to see that you’re not going to be handed anything,” Tony said. “I never handed him anything. Keegan, honestly, earned everything he got.”

By the time he was a senior, Keegan had developed his game to the point where he was more physical, which allowed him to do more things. “”I was getting in the post to make moves on guys,” he said. “I was able to body people to get those second-chance points. I feel my 3-point and mid-range shot got a lot better.” As a captain, he became more engaged as a respected leader of the team.

Because the dynamic of the team changed with the return of Ray and the emergence of sophomore Brody Ennis, some of the older players saw their playing time diminish. Tony tipped his hat to Carroll, Colette and Fysh. “I was so proud of them as players and young men for accepting their roles,” Tony said. “Because not many guys can take a step backwards and be OK with it. All those guys took steps back minutes-wise because their roles changed. … For them to be positive and to accept the things that they accepted and play the way they played, we don’t win a championship without those three players.” The proof is, indeed, in the pudding.

Whaley can be reached at whaleym25@gmail.com

Newmarket tops Pittsfield in Coaches vs. Cancer game

By: KJ Cardinal

NEWMARKET, NH – Host Newmarket jumped out to a 23-10 lead after the first quarter of play and never looked back as the Mules defeated Pittsfield, 61-40, on Friday night in a Coaches vs. Cancer match-up.

Jaron LaBranche led Newmarket with 19 points, while Matt Napoletano chipped in with 14. The Panthers were paced by Brayden Pelletier’s 19 points and 11 from Braden Elliot.

With the win, the Mules improve to 10-3 on the season, while Pittsfield falls to 2-11

Coaches vs. Cancer is a partnership between the American Cancer Society and the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC). Coaches vs. Cancer unites coaches, fans and members of the basketball community in supporting the American Cancer Society’s work to improve the lives of people with cancer. 

To bring awareness to the cause, Newmarket donned pink jerseys, used a pink and white ball inscribed with the breast cancer ribbon and the officials used pink whistles.

Click here to learn more on Coaches vs. Cancer or donate to the fight against cancer.

Check out the full photo gallery by KJ Cardinal… 

Pittsfield Boys at Newmarket (01.31.25) - KJ CARDINAL
Pittsfield Boys at Newmarket (01.31.25) – KJ CARDINAL
79 photos

Championship Conductor: Bagonzi engineered a “will to win” at Woodsville

By: Mike Whaley

(This is the second in a series on the 2022 and 2024 inductees into the New Hampshire Basketball Coaches Organization Hall of Fame. The stories will run periodically over the next two months.)

The legacy of John Bagonzi remains alive and well, not only in his hometown of Woodsville, but wherever life has taken his ex-players who benefitted from the lessons he imparted as a coach and educator.

John died in 2014 at age 83. He coached multiple sports at Woodsville High School, building the Engineers into a small-school baseball and basketball power. During a 10-year span from 1967 to 1977, his teams appeared in 14 championship games and won 11 titles in three sports. Overall he coached Engineer teams to 13 state titles: seven in baseball (1959, 1964, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1976, 1977), five in basketball (1969, 1971, 1973, 1976, 1977) and one in cross country (1972). It is a rarity to have a coach guide teams to state titles in two different sports, but three is really quite unheard of. In a coaching career that spanned 20 seasons from 1958 to 1978, Bagonzi’s basketball teams won 361 games and his baseball team chalked up 261 victories. He retired from teaching biology in 1991 after 33 years. He also served as the school’s physical education director and athletic director.

John Bagonzi coached Woodsville High School teams to 13 state championships in three sports. [Courtesy photo]

A nationally celebrated baseball pitching clinician/instructor himself (he wrote several books on the subject), two of his players went on to be drafted by major league baseball teams: Steve Blood (Minnesota Twins) and Jim MacDonald (Houston Astros).

John was one of seven coaches honored last November in Concord with induction into the New Hampshire Basketball Coaches Organization’s Hall of Fame. Former player Scott Burrill (1976 grad) spoke on the family’s behalf.

John was renowned for his intense, bigger than life sideline persona. He was always on his feet, working the officials and barking at his players. He was a master motivator, pushing the Engineers to the limit of their abilities and sometimes beyond. One of his players, Scott Burrill, remembers reading a quote from John in a Berlin newspaper that concisely sums up what he was all about as a coach: “Life is simple. It’s a matter of setting goals and getting there.”

John grew up in Woodsville, starred on the baseball and basketball teams in the late 1940s with his good friend Bob Smith, the two forming a formidable pitching duo. After high school they parted company. John headed to the University of New Hampshire to play baseball and basketball, while Smith embarked on a professional baseball career that lasted 15 seasons of which part of five were spent in the major leagues with the Red Sox, Cardinals, Pirates and Tigers.

John signed a bonus contract with the Red Sox in 1953 after his UNH days, but before he could throw a pitch he enlisted in the United States Army as a commissioned officer. He served as a company commander, military trial counsel, and athletic and recreation officer. He also pitched for two years in the strong Fort Jackson Regimental Baseball League. It was during that time that he met his wife, Dreamer Jewel Deese of South Carolina

After his time in the service, John returned to the Red Sox to pitch in 1956. He tossed eight games between stints with the Corning (N.Y.) and Lafayette (Ind.) squads before an arm injury ended his professional career. That certainly changed John’s trajectory. Had he not had the injury, it’s possible he would have had some sort of pitching career, perhaps followed by professional coaching given his baseball savvy, especially in pitching. Pro baseball’s loss was Woodsville’s gain.

John Bagonzi talks to his Woodsville players during the Class M basketball tournament at the University of New Hampshire, [Courtesy photo]

By this time he had completed his master’s degree at Indiana University and began to pursue his Ph.D. John returned with Dreamer to Woodsville to teach biology, coach and raise a family. They had three children, including two sons – John III and Robert – who played for their dad. In addition to teaching and coaching, John also served as the town’s youth recreation director, which allowed him to have his hand on the pulse of the town’s youth athletes and future high school stars.

Steve Blood (1971 grad) was well aware of John growing up. His dad, Arnold Blood, had gone to school with John and played sports with him. “I heard a lot about him from my dad as a positive influence,” Blood said.

John formed a youth basketball league that was coached by the high school players. That was when those young boys, according to Blood, got their first whiff of Woodsville basketball, running the same drills that John had taught the high school players.

Frank Leafe (1970 grad) recalled “we knew from being around him with the youth programs what he was expecting.” Leafe said that once players got to seventh and eighth grade, they were playing for a coach who “kind of shadowed what John was teaching at the high school.”

What John was teaching was a style that was certainly fun for the players – uptempo with a lot of pressing in both the half and full courts.

John Bagonzi, right, instructs his Woodsville players on the proper way to hold a basketball. [Courtesy photo]

In addition, John opened up the gym on Saturdays from 1 to 4 p.m. for pickup games. According to Leafe, John felt that was a great way to learn basketball. “How to use the skills that you were being taught,” Leafe said. “We always had enough people for 5-on-5 pick-up games. You don’t see a lot of kids doing that much anymore.”

John Burrill (1977 grad) also remembered a small summer high school league with area towns Littleton, Lebanon, and Hartford, Vermont. John was all about giving kids opportunities to play and get better.

You also learned early on that John wasn’t going to put up with any shenanigans. Leafe as a freshman recalls leaving junior varsity practice and his classmate Billy Coon, who was on the varsity, came up from the locker room two minutes after four. “John jumped on him and asked him why he was late?” Leaf recalled. “Then he sent him home. We knew, OK, when he says to be here, you be here. We expected it. It wasn’t a shock to any of us.”

Unless you were an exceptional player, you were like Leafe. You played JV as a freshman and sophomore, sat the varsity bench, and then you had your time to shine as a junior and a senior. “But you were at all the practices learning the system and playing the system in practices and then playing as a JV player,” he said. “As a junior is when you would usually move up to a varsity role as either a starter or someone off the bench.”

John’s practices were long and covered a lot of ground. Leafe recalls they started at 4 p.m. and he would get home by 7:30. He said the first hour was fundamentals like passing, boxing out, catching, dribbling and rebounding. Then there was competitive shooting from spots all over the floor. The teams would be broken up into smaller teams of 2 or three for this drill. “There had to be over 30 spots on the halfcourt that you shot from with your left and right hand under the basket,” Leafe said. Then they’d work on rebounding and fastbreak drills. At the end they worked on their halfcourt and full-court presses. Practice ended with every player taking 100 foul shots.

Woodsville won its fifth and final Class M state basketball championship under John Bagonzi, back right, in 1977. Also pictured in the back are John Burrill (fourth from left) and Jim MacDonald (third form left). [Courtesy photo]

Blood recalls pretty much the same thing, noting that with the half- and full-court presses, “we went through every one of them every practice.”

Woodsville’s presses were its bread and butter. It’s what sets them apart from everyone else. “We pressed the entire game,” said Blood, who played on five state championship teams (three in baseball, two in basketball). “Everybody, the first, second and third teams, all pressed. Everybody knew their positions. Our favorite full-court (press) was called the 1-2-1-1 with a guy on the ball out of bounds, two wings, an interceptor spot (near the halfcourt area) and a long man. Everybody had a role to play in the full-court press no matter where the ball was.”

Leafe said the Engineers became such a fine-tuned machine that eventually they could press off missed shots. “We all knew everyone’s position,” he said. “We knew where we had to be. If I was on the guy with the ball, sometimes that’s not my position on the press. Somebody else knew they had to cover my position. We just cut off the passing lanes. It looked like helter skelter, I would tell people. But it was well-tuned. There was pressure right away and very rarely were they getting to half court.”

“That was pretty much every night,” Leafe said. “He believed in perfection. No matter how well you were doing, you could always do it better. It was fundamental basketball. That’s what it was. It wasn’t anything fancy.”

But it was something that he could get players to buy into. The style and intensity was a winning combination. The parents bought in as well. The Bagonzi way was gospel in Woodsville. “I know if you came home and complained about anything that was going on, you didn’t get a warm shoulder, “Leafe said. “They all understood that what John was teaching wasn’t just basketball. It was life skills.”

Woodsville coach John Bagonzi, center, celebrates the 1969 Class M state championship in Durham. [Littleton Courier photo]

He was willing to listen too. Scott Burrill brought up during practice that he felt they weren’t trapping as intensely as they should. John looked at Scott, put his index finger thoughtfully into his front teeth and agreed: “Yeah, OK.”

Leafe said the second team was nearly as good as the first squad, which made for intense practices. “It was a great environment practicing against five guys that could beat any team you’re playing. You had to be there. You didn’t want to miss practice. There were guys right behind you who could fill in and take over. You might lose your spot. Our practices were 10 times harder than all our games.”

As Leafe remembered, everyone could run, handle the ball, pass it, shoot it, dribble it, catch it. ‘That’s the basics of what we did,” he said. “We very rarely got into much of a halfcourt offense. Because of the rebounds, we were gone. We were up the floor. Back then that was pretty much ahead of the times for what high school basketball was supposed to be like. It was fun for us. It was fun for the spectators. The gym used to get so packed.”

While it was an enjoyable experience for the Engineers and their fans, it was less so for the opposition, especially on Woodsville’s small home court. “Back then the varsity played at 7 and if you weren’t there for the JV game, you didn’t get a seat,” Leaf recalled.

The prime seating was the right corner of the gym near the stairway that led down to the locker room. If you sat there you could hear John talking to the team, mainly because John’s delivery was loud and fiery. “Even though we might have been winning by 50 points, he was down there and he was intense,” Leafe said. “There was something you always could have done better.”

Former Pembroke Academy coach Ed Cloe was inducted in the same Hall of Fame class with John. He recalls when he got his coaching start at Colebrook Academy in the late 1960s, his team was down 35 points or so at Woodsville. In the locker room at halftime, Cloe and his team listened for a bit in awe as John’s booming eloquence in the adjoining locker room told his team what he expected from them in the second half. When John had finished, Cloe turned to his team and offered concisely: “That goes double for me.”

John Bagonzi, left, is pictured later in life with former Woodsville stat baseball and basketball player, Steve Blood, and Blood’s grandson, Kason. [Photo courtesy of Steve Blood]

When Cloe was hired by Pembroke in 1970, where he began a successful 34-yard career that included four state titles, he was told by the principal that he had called John Bagonzi for a recommendation.

If someone felt Woodsville was running up the score, John wasn’t having it. Scott Burrill said his coach told them “We’re never going to make excuses for the effort we put into this. If we beat you by 40, we’re not apologizing.”

Woodsville’s chief rival, especially during the late 1960s and early ‘70s, was Littleton, a bigger school, which played in Class I (D-II) compared to the Engineers in Class M (D-III). Littleton’s teams were huge with great guards. Their forecourt featured future major league pitcher Rich Gale, who at 6-foot-7 earned a basketball scholarship to UNH along with 6-7 teammate Dennis Sargent. A third player, Lou Ziter, also played at UNH.

While Woodsville was dominating Class M, Littleton was the toast of Class I, winning back-to-back titles in 1970 and 1971. Still, the Engineers had their bigger neighbor’s number. “We played them six times in my three years and we beat them five out of six,” Blood said. “Even though they were in a higher class and were much bigger than we were. They couldn’t run with us. They had a hard time getting through our press.”

That was something where John was at the forefront, scheduling bigger schools to beef up the schedule. Also, at the time, if you beat a larger school, you were rewarded with more points, which helped you in the standings.

Woodsville won its first basketball championship in 1969, capping an undefeated season with a commanding 97-41 victory over Pittsfield in the championship at UNH. To this day the 97 points remains the most scored by a New Hampshire team in a state final and their margin of victory (56) is also still a state-wide record.

A video of that championship game surfaced after John died, found stuffed in the back of a desk drawer at his house. It highlighted the game with no commentary, including some of the post-game celebration. “I never realized it,” Leafe said. “But at the end of the game, we picked him up and carried him to the basket to cut down the net.”

Along with the many big championship moments, there was some heartache, none more painful than the 1970 semis at UNH when unheralded Farmington shocked the unbeaten Engineers, 90-81. The Tigers beat Woodsville at its own game with their own uptempo style that included full-court pressure and navigating the Engineers press with the dribble.

Woodsville came back in 1971 to rule the roost once more, whipping Hollis in the final, 71-41, and then beat the Cavaliers again in ‘73, 61-53. John’s basketball run was capped with back-to-back titles in 1976 and 1977. “We never went into a game with the idea ‘we hope to win,’” said John Burrill. “It was always ‘we’re going to win.’ When we lost, it was like a shock to us. That will to win from coach Bagonzi, he stressed it so much.”

Another thing that John did was do a lot of scouting. The Burrill brothers remember during the 1974-75 season travelling with John to the southern part of the state to scout defending champion Hinsdale and its big star, Larry Scott, who was Class M’s preeminent scorer. While the location of the game has dissolved from memory, what the Burrills clearly recall is that when they got to the game, it was sold out and they could not get in. “It was a long drive for us to get there,” John Burrill (1977 grad) said. “Bagonzi was not about to turn around and go home without getting some information.”

Both brothers remember there was a snowbank outside lined up with windows facing into the gymnasium. “We piled up some more snow and we stood on the snowbank and looked through the windows and scouted the game through the windows,” John Burrill said.

Scott Burrill recalled that Bagonzi would get the usual information on what each team did on offense and defense, something that could be quickly gleaned by the end of the first quarter. What Bagonzi was really looking for was tendencies. He picked up one significant one watching Scott: he always pulled up for a jump shot off his left-hand dribble.

Woodsville was hosting Hinsdale several weeks later. The week before the game, John Burrill recalls intense practices getting ready for Scott and the Pacers’ other big scorer, Mike Fecto. Bagonzi placed masking tape all over the floor where they needed to trap Scott. “In practice, he was drilling into us how good a shooter Larry Scott was. If you don’t get on him, he’s going to shoot. He doesn’t need much time. He doesn’t need much space. You’ve got to crowd him and hopefully try to trap him most of the time.”

The Engineers did a good job of jamming up Scott and shutting down Hinsdale for three quarters. “We relaxed a little bit in the fourth quarter and they kind of came back and the score didn’t quite look as bad as it was,” John Burrill said. “But to be honest, it was a shellacking. It really was.”

Of course, Bagonzi being Bagonzi, he was not happy with that fourth-quarter effort. Again, it was not about running up the score. “He was about you playing your best for the whole game, not just part of it” John Burrill said. “In high school, you can have a 20-point lead and it can go away really quickly. If you don’t keep the pedal to the metal, you can just let the other team (back) in. We never wanted that. We’d get you down and we wanted to keep you down. That’s what it was about.”

What John instilled in his players was a will to win. When the town renamed the community center after John, in his speech he said he asked his players to do the impossible, which was to be in two places at the same time on the court. John Burrill recalled back in the day trapping on one side of the court and the ball was suddenly reversed and passed to the other side. Bagonzi would bellow: “You’ve got to get over there.” In his mind, Burrill was thinking that was impossible. He wasn’t faster than a pass. “He asked the impossible. That’s what got you beyond your skill level, beyond what you normally would be able to do. You were able to do more and even surprise yourself.”

Scott Burrill gave the acceptance speech at the 2024 NHBCO Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on Nov. 2, 2024 in Concord, N.H. [Photo courtesy: KJ Cardinal]

Scott Burrill remembers getting ready for the tournament on Plymouth State’s larger court and Bagonzi “told you, you literally have to gain a step. For our press to work, you’ve got to gain a step.”

The John Bagonzi the outside world saw and what Woodsville knew were two vastly different men. Some of it likely was not helped by the time he showed his displeasure with the officiating by throwing a chair across the floor during a game in Windsor, Vermont. “I know a lot of people from the outside looking in didn’t really know him,” said John Burrill. “He had a reputation, you know. Some people thought he was harsh, too authoritative, perhaps arrogant. That was not him. Not really. He really cared about you, but in a way that was built on respect. He did demand respect.”

That respect extended to game officials as well – for the players. When you were on the floor or field, you played hard and kept your mouth shut. If there was any arguing with officials to be done, John would do it. “None of us would dare say anything,” recalled Leafe. “If we said anything or (made) some kind of disgusted motion because of a call or foul, you were out of the game. … He took care of that part. You were there to worry about what you’ve got to do on the floor.”

From John Burrill’s perspective, “What John taught was to never give up and to give it your best. His whole focus in basketball, particularly, was the will to win. He wanted to instill that in each and everyone one of us – that will to win. … You may not be as skilled as someone else. If you desire to win, you will do the necessary things within the context of the game to come out on top. We rarely went through a practice without him saying those words – the will to win. It was just constant. It wasn’t just during the time I was there. His whole coaching career was that way.”

Burrill pauses for a second and then adds: “He kind of took a bunch of hillbillies, a bunch of farmers, a bunch of northern hicks and molded them into champions; just because of his demand for excellence. Many of the players would walk through brick walls for him. I’m one of those. I thought his intensity, his tenacity were the most positive things about him.”

John Burrill recalls one example of Bagonzi willing him to do something to help the team win. It was during a game at Gilford. The Engineers weren’t playing well, so Bagonzi sent Burrill into the game. “Before I went in, he’s standing next to me, yelling ‘Make something happen.’” Burrill went in and as one of the guys up front on the press, he stole the in-bounds pass and laid it up for two points. “There was nothing spectacular,” Burrill said. “He asked me to do something, I’m going to do it. That’s kind of what we did. He said to do something. We tried our best to do it.”

That will to win rubbed off on others. MacDonald recalls as a senior in 1976-77 coming back from a Christmas tournament in which the Engineers had lost handily. Bagonzi asked him what he thought. MacDonald responded emphatically “‘John, we’re going to win the state championship.’ There was silence. It was the only time John has been at a loss for words.” But MacDonald was right. That “will to win” propelled the Engineers to the state title for the fifth time since 1969, and the last one under John.

He demanded a lot from his players. But there was a tough-love decency that drew his players to him. They embraced his challenging demeanor and coaching style, understanding that he had their best interests at heart. Years later they can attest to that. The Burrills grew up just north of Woodsville in Monroe. They had several school options in addition to Woodsville. John Burrill was all set to go across the border into Vermont to Saint Johnsbury Academy because they offered football. “I had a brother who went there and played football,” he said. “I was going to Saint Johnsbury because I loved football.” It was pretty much a done deal.

But then Burrill went to his eighth-grade sports banquet in which the guest speaker was John Bagonzi. That speech changed John Burrill’s trajectory. “I can’t tell you any specific thing that he said, but at the end of the speech I went home so worried,” he said. Burrill was clearly troubled with something at home that prompted his mom to ask what was the matter. “‘I’m struggling because I want to play football,” he said. “I’ve got to play for this guy, coach Bagonzi.’ I gave up football to play for coach Bagonzi. It was such an inspiring speech. It moved me. For a young guy in eighth grade, I made probably the best decision in my life.”

Leafe went on to coach and teach physical education at Woodsville High School for 25 years. “He molded me,” said Leafe of Bagonzi. “He had a great influence on what I did the rest of my life getting into coaching and working with kids. A lot of people who saw me coach thought I was pretty much like John.” Leafe is still coaching. For the past three years he has helped out as a volunteer assistant coach with the Woodsville alpine ski and girls basketball squads. As a head coach at Woodsville, he coached boys and girls soccer and girls basketball. He guided the Engineer girls to back-to-back soccer state championships in 1993 and 1994. When he won that initial title, one of the first people to call him up to congratulate him was John Bagonzi. “John molded me and he molded a lot of kids in this community,” Leafe said.

John Bagonzi was a Woodsville institution as an athlete and later as a coach, teacher and community leader. The town saw fit in 2008 to rename its community center after him – the Dr. John Bagonzi Community Building. For all his intensity and tenacity as a coach, John truly cared about his hometown and especially about its youth.

Scott Burrill mentioned that neither John nor Dreamer came from much. Together they assisted John’s mom with the running of Bagonzi’s Restaurant, and then ran it themselves for 27 years. Although, truth be told, it was Dreamer’s baby as John, of course, was tied up with his educational and athletic pursuits. “They were very, very social people,” Scott said. “John would do absolutely anything for the community.”

Burrill told a story that perhaps more than anything reveals how much the Bagonzis cared about their community — something done without a second thought and certainly without any fanfare. “At the closing of the restaurant each night, police officers would drop by and pick up some food and take it to some people in need,” Burrill said. “That was a nightly occurrence. It kind of speaks volumes about the people that they were.”

NOTES: If Bagonzi was a hall of fame basketball coach, then he had to be one for baseball as well. He was a master at developing pitchers. He essentially used pitching and small ball to make the Engineers into a perennial baseball power. Steve Blood had a four-year record of 52-1, pitching Woodsville to three straight state titles. Speaking of small ball, Blood recalls winning the 1969 Class M championship, 3-2, on a double suicide squeeze play. With runners on third and second, the batter got the bunt down to score the runner from third. The second runner never slowed up, scoring the winning run all the way from second base. Blood spent five years in Minnesota’s minor league system with a career mark of 30-23. … In 1964 it was another instance of Woodsville using small ball to win a state title – this one over Charlestown, 3-2. The winning run was scored on a squeeze bunt in extra innings. Hits were hard to come by in that game for the Engineers, who managed just two off Charlestown’s imposing junior ace, a strapping lad whose name still resonates across the state – Carlton Fisk. … Jim MacDonald pitched the Engineers to back-to-back M titles in 1976 and 1977 before embarking on a seven-year pro odyssey with the Houston Astros (68-67 record). … Bagonzi’s most successful pupil was Chad Paronto, the son of Dana Paronto, one of his 1970s’ stars. Chad pitched seven years in the majors with four teams.

Mike Whaley can be reached at whaleym25@gmail.com.

 

Support the Gabriel Douglas Anthony 21 Foundation

The Gabriel Douglas Anthony 21 Foundation is hosting a fundraiser at Diomede’s Restaurant in Chichester on Sunday January 26th from 3:00 – 7:00 pm.

Enjoy a great italian meal and Diomede’s will donate a percentage of all proceeds that day to the GDA 21 Foundation.

The GDA21 foundation is committed to distributing over 1500 LED Roadside Flares to seniors at 11 high schools in memory of Gabe Anthony who was tragically lost on Dec. 15, 2003. Gabe’s automobile had broke down along Route 93 South in Sanbornton when he was hit by a car driven by a woman who was later charged with driving under the influence. He died at the scene.

Learn more about the Gabriel Douglas Anthony 21 Foundation: www.gda21foundation.org.

Diomede’s Restaurant
346 Suncook Valley Rd (Rte. 28)
Chichester, NH 034258
Call: 603-435-4072 for reservations

Doty leads Hinsdale past Pittsfield

By: Logan Paronto

HINSDALE, NH – Hinsdale tallied 29 of their 36 points in the second and third quarters in Tuesday night’s 36-29 win against visiting Pittsfield.

Freshman Gemma Doty scored 20+ in her fourth straight game, leading all scorers with 26.

Addison Clarke and Alivia Lavigne each scored nine for Pittsfield.

Hinsdale improves to 3-1, while Pittsfield drops to 0-4.

Check out the full photo gallery by Jess Marie…

Pittsfield Girls at Hinsdale (12.17.2024) - JESS MARIE
Pittsfield Girls at Hinsdale (12.17.2024) – JESS MARIE
81 photos

Remembering Gabe: GDA21 Foundation pays tribute to Pittsfield man’s selfless legacy

By Mike Whaley

Although Gabe Anthony died much too soon at age 24, his extraordinary humanity is fittingly living on through the Gabriel Douglas Anthony 21 Foundation.

Started by Gabe’s dad, Rick Anthony, the Foundation’s mission is to supply safety equipment to all New Hampshire high school aged drivers. A year ago this past Sunday (December 15, 2023), Gabe’s automobile broke down along Route 93 South in Sanbornton and he was hit by a car driven by a woman who was later charged with driving under the influence. He died at the scene.

Gabe’s death cut a painful swath through the small town of Pittsfield where he grew up playing soccer and basketball. His dad recalls those early months trying to navigate grief and finally finding some solace by chance. Rick is a 1982 Pittsfield High School graduate and has been a physical education teacher in his hometown since 1995. He has an advisory class of 11 students that meets every school day for a 25-minute block, which gives Rick a chance to check in on them. “I’ve had the same group since seventh grade,” Rick said. “It was last March and we were talking. They were all new drivers and they were talking about how their cars had broken down.” One kid’s car caught on fire. Another had a fan belt break.

Rick remembers asking if any of them had roadside flares. They had no idea what he was talking about. “You understand why I’m saying this?” he asked. They certainly did. They just didn’t know what the flares were.

Rick Anthony (left) pictured with son Gabe. The two reffed soccer games together. [Courtesy photo]

That spurred Rick into action. That afternoon he went online and found packs of three flare LED lights for $20. He bought a set for each of his advisory students. “As I was doing that, the idea for the Foundation came about. We should be doing this for everybody. Every kid this age is driving a very used car; very few have reliable cars. It’s not a matter if they break down, it’s when they break down.”

Rick started putting GDA21 together with the help of his wife, Erica, and his daughter, Sage. “They loved the idea. I just went with it.”

By June Rick had the website (gda21foundation.org) up and running – 21 was Gabe’s high school soccer and basketball uniform number. As soon as it went live, people put it on Facebook and it exploded. Over the first two weeks they raised $20,000. Since then they’ve been able to keep it going through various fundraisers, including New Hampshire Muscle Cars and the Pittsfield Balloon Rally. “We’re keeping it out there bit by bit,” Rick said. “It’s struck a chord with people.” The foundation has currently raised around $60,000.

“The idea is to go to as many schools as we can to give these lights to seniors,” Rick said. “We would do a presentation (of the lights), tell Gabe’s story and talk about how to be safe.” To add meaning and credibility to what the Foundation is doing, Rick is trying to involve local police and fire departments.

The presentation for each student includes a three-pack of LED roadside flares that can be placed behind a disabled auto. They flash as warning lights in addition to the car’s hazards.

The Tri-City Driving School in Rochester reached out to Rick. He did his first presentation there in October. “We’ll continue to fundraise and we’ll continue to get out there,” he said. Rick figures the Foundation has enough funds to do eight or nine schools. They ordered 1,000 lights through a Texas company that gave them a pretty good discount. The plan going forward is to visit eight schools in January and February: Pittsfield, Prospect Mountain, Coe-Brown, Belmont, Sunapee, Plymouth, Colebrook and Groveton.

Rick Antony spoke about the GDA21 Foundation at a recent Pittsfield game at Farmington High School. [📸 KJ Cardinal]

The goal is to hit every school in New Hampshire over time. Rick said that 100 percent of the monies raised go to the lights. “We don’t use it for anything else; not for my travel. The money goes right to the lights,” he said.

Rick said his advisory group put together a video for the website displaying how the lights work. Using a dark road in Pittsfield, the video shows a car coming around a corner onto a disabled car in three situations: without its flashers on, with its flashers on, and then with its flashers on and the flashing LED lights. “The difference was amazing,” Rick said. “One of our mottos for the foundation is ‘To be seen can save your life.’”

In recounting what happened to Gabe, Rick said “He was trying to fix his car. The hood was up, the flashers on and he did everything right. That’s not me just saying it. That’s the police report saying that he did everything right. The car just plowed into him because she never saw him.”

It was an emotional end of the week for the Anthonys who were in court on Thursday (Dec. 5) for the first time for the vehicular manslaughter case against the woman who drove into Gabe with her car. The next day (Dec. 6), Rick went to Farmington for doubleheader basketball games against Pittsfield. In between the two games, Rick spoke about the Foundation and had the Pittsfield teams present roadside flares to all varsity members of the Farmington squads. Farmington folks also donated an unspecified amount to the Foundation, including the entire proceeds from the 50/50 raffle.

Rick was a little surprised how special a moment it turned out to be. When he played basketball at Pittsfield in the early 1980s, Farmington was their biggest and sometimes bitterest rival. “That’s the last thing you would think that I would be speaking over at Farmington in their gym,” he said. “That was awesome. Farmington was great. I’m very appreciative of the people over there. That was fun.”

It’s the kind of event that likely would have resonated with Gabe. “He had a passion for sports. He was passionate about soccer,” Rick said. “He liked basketball, but soccer was definitely his favorite.”

Pittsfield players presented Farmington players with LED flares at a recent basketball game. [📸 KJ Cardinal]

Rick said Gabe was born into soccer. When he was young, Rick was the varsity soccer coach at Pittsfield HS, a position he held for 15 years. “He kind of grew up with my soccer players,” Rick said, “being in the house for the team dinners. He liked the freedom of that a little bit more, just being outside.”

Gabe came of age playing youth sports in Pittsfield on different travel teams coached by Rick and Jay Darrah, the Pittsfield athletic director and boys basketball coach. One of Gabe’s teammates was Darrah’s son, Cam, who is a year younger. “They played together and were friends forever,” Rick said.

When Gabe got to high school, he played both soccer and basketball. “He wasn’t a scorer,” Rick said of his son in basketball. “He didn’t have to be. You had Cam and some other kids on the team who could do that. His job was to play defense and rebound. Set picks. And he did that very well. He was a really good role player. He was the kind of kid who didn’t get the accolades. He did the little things that coaches and other people notice that know the game.”

Gabe played four years on the varsity basketball team for Jay Darrah. “He was selfless with a great work ethic,” the coach said. “He did what was best for the team. He embodied that philosophy on the court or the field. He would dive for loose balls or win a 50-50 ball on the soccer field. It was the little things that don’t show up in the scorebook that he was great at. He was an exceptional teammate. He just loved being on a team.”

Darrah added: “He was very loyal. Anyone who had the pleasure of meeting him, instantly recognized his authenticity and genuine nature. He was just a likeable kid.”

Last winter, Pittsfield honored Gabe’s memory by framing his number 21 basketball jersey and placing it on the gymnasium wall behind the Pittsfield team bench. “I think that’s significant, just so we know he will always be there,” Darrah said. “The team will always be able to live off his legacy – the selflessness he provided as a player, as a person and as a soccer official.”

Rick Anthony officiated last night’s Prospect Mountain girls game. [📸 KJ Cardinal]

Gabe became a soccer official when he was 12. That evolved into a part-time vocation at which he excelled and took very seriously. “He became well-liked because he had that field awareness as a player, but also had that easy personality where coaches could talk to him,” Darrah said.

Rick recalls Gabe getting into soccer officiating. His son drew him into it. “He had to take the course,” Rick recalled. “I figured if I was driving him to games, I might as well get paid for the game too. So I did the course with him and we started doing games together.”

Gabe went to college at the University of Oregon, because his goal was to go to a big school with big-time sports. When he was accepted, Gabe flew out with his dad to visit the campus. As Rick recalled, 15 minutes into their visit, Gabe turned to him and said: “This is where I’m going.” Rick responded, “‘I’m going with you.’ It was a beautiful campus; just an amazing area.” While attending Oregon, Gabe joined the soccer board and officiated games. When he returned to New Hampshire in 2022, he jumped on the board here and by age 24 he had already done two high school state finals.

Gabe left Oregon a few credits shy of graduating. Student loans were piling up so he decided to return home to find a job and finish school online. He worked full-time with a mortgage company, while taking online classes and refereeing soccer. He had a winter passion for snowboarding, which led to him working part time on weekends at Waterville Valley Resort so he could have a pass to use the mountain when he had some free time. In fact, he was returning from a day of snowboarding with friends at Waterville Valley when he was hit.

“He was adventurous,” his dad said. “He was very likeable and very loyal to people who were loyal to him. He was brave in the fact that he loved to try new things. Even as a little guy he would walk into a tryout for youth soccer or AAU basketball. He wouldn’t hesitate to jump right in and be with people. He was good with that. He was good at meeting new people. He was friendly. He was a good kid.”

Although the pain of Gabe’s death is still very much present with the Anthonys, this way of honoring him just feels appropriate. “The idea for the family is that if one family doesn’t have to go through what we’re going through and have been through, his death is not in vain,” Rick said. “That’s the idea. If these lights save one person, it’s done its job in Gabe’s memory.”

(For more information on the Foundation go to https://gda21foundation.org)

Mike Whaley can be reached at whaleym25@gmail.com

PCA cruises past Pittsfield in season opener

PITTSFIELD, NH – Portsmouth Christian Academy held host Pittsfield to just 11 points over the final three quarters to cruise to a 73-23 victory on Tuesday night.

The Eagles were led by 16 points from Jackson Malone and 14 from Zealand Marquis as 10 different players scored for PCA. The Panthers were led by Brayden Pelletier’s 8 points.

PCA opens the season with a win, while Pittsfield falls to 0-2.

Check out photos of the full gallery by Michael Griffin…

PCA Boys at Pittsfield (12-10-24) - Michael Griffin
PCA Boys at Pittsfield (12-10-24) – Michael Griffin
49 photos

Donate: Gabriel Douglas Anthony 21 Foundation

FARMINGTON, NH – In between games of the Pittsfield-Farmington doubleheader on Friday night, the Gabriel Douglas Anthony 21 Foundation was recognized and made a presentation.

Gabe Anthony, a former Panther soccer and basketball player, was tragically killed back on Dec. 15, 2023 when he was struck by another vehicle while tending to his broken down car on Route 93 South in Sanbornton. Gabe was 24 years old.

Rick Anthony, Gabe’s father and former Pittsfield High School AD and Athletic Hall of Fame member, talked about the GDA21 Foundation’s mission. He had the Pittsfield varsity teams present LED roadside flares to all members of the Farmington varsity teams.

Over the course of this year, Rick plans to go to nine New Hampshire high schools and present LED roadside flares to their senior classes to help keep young drivers safe when their vehicles breakdown.

Our hearts go out to the entire Anthony family and applaud their mission. The GDA21 Foundation is accepting donations online through their website: www.gda21foundation.org.

Gabriel Douglas Anthony 21 Foundation (12.6.24) - KJ CARDINAL
Gabriel Douglas Anthony 21 Foundation (12.6.24) – KJ CARDINAL
6 photos

Tigers tame Panthers behind three double-digit scorers

By: KJ Cardinal

FARMINGTON, NH – A trio of double-digit scorers propelled Farmington to a 76-17 victory over visiting Pittsfield in the season opener for both squads Friday night in The Jungle.

Senior Noah Elwell (16 points), junior Preston Berko (15) and sophomore Brayden Johnson (14) all netted double figures for the Tigers, while the Panthers were led by eight points from senior Brayden Pelletier.

The Tigers jumped out to a 20-8 lead of the Panthers and then reeled off a 25-0 second quarter to blow the game open. FHS had 10 of 11 players score in the victory.

Next up, Farmington hosts Epping on Tuesday, while Pittsfield welcomes Portsmouth Christian Academy on Tuesday as well.

Check out the full photo gallery of the action by KJ Cardinal…

Pittsfield Boys at Farmington (12.6.24) - KJ CARDINAL
Pittsfield Boys at Farmington (12.6.24) – KJ CARDINAL
87 photos