The State Tournaments are underway and that means plenty of excitement for the Town of Winthrop with three of our high school teams beginning their quests for sectional and state championships.
First, we want to commend all of our student-athletes and their three coaches, Dale Dunbar (boys hockey), Anthony Martucci (girls hockey), and Ignacio Oyola (girls basketball), for their teams’ excellent performances and for truly representing our high school and our town with sportsmanship. The tradition of all three programs is grand. The WHS hockey program produced one of the greatest seasons in state history in 1976 when he went undefeated and took home the Division 1 crown. And who can ever forget our Big Three of Joe Giaquinto, John Tiano, and Chucky Sullivan leading our hockey, football, and baseball teams to extraordinary success in the early 1980s.
Anthony Martucci — in record time — has transformed the Winthrop girls hockey program into a Division 1 powerhouse and a perennial contender for the state title. We know the name “Martucci” is associated with different sports — Anthony’s brother, Gus, was a Northeastern Conference All-Star on the 1981 Super Bowl championship team — and not to mention that Anthony’s wife, Tracey Gigliello Martucci, is one of Winthrop’s greatest-ever soccer players — but Winthrop girls hockey is certainly on the statewide map thanks to Anthony’s superb leadership.
For girls basketball, Winthrop Ron Spinney was a true pioneer in the sport and was winning titles and sending players on to colleges — such as the great Maureen McManus, who starred at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania (home to former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes) and of course, Lisa Monteleone Ferrara, who was unstoppable in basketball and softball, not to mention her legendary performance in the annual Powder Puff football game. And now Ignacio Oyola has led his program to three consecutive Northeastern Conference South titles and a possible showdown with St. Mary’s High School in the sectional semifinals next week. Having four excellent leaders in the senior class — Niki Tsiotos, Poli Tsiotos, Kristen Siscamanis, and Maura Lanza — will certainly help the Lady Vikings as they attempt to advance to the Boston Garden for the Eastern Mass. finals.
We know the town — especially our council president, Peter Gill, whose granddaughter, Gretchen Howard, is the star goaltender for the Lady Bulldawgs team — will be supporting our teams and wishing our athletes well in the time of the year affectionately known as March Madness.
We wish all of our student-athletes the best of luck in the days ahead. Whatever the outcome, we would remind both our student-athletes and our readers of a quote from General Douglas MacArthur that our late publisher, Andrew P. Quigley, often was fond of using when writing of the value of athletic participation by our youth to their future lifetime endeavors: “On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that in later years and on other fields will bear the fruits of victory.”