Monitor Sports Newsletter: Voice of the Pride

THE VOICE OF THE PRIDE

Merrimack Valley High School sophomore Nick Gelinas estimates he's already announced 100 games for Pride athletic events. He announces the starting lineups over the public address system for football, soccer and lacrosse games and does the play-by-play for all boys' and girls' basketball games.

"My favorite part is definitely the adrenaline and getting to see all the different sporting events and learning about these different sports," Gelinas said. “What I really like is I get to go to pretty much every game that our school has, and a lot of kids don’t do that. I get to keep up to date on how everyone’s doing."

Gelinas has also been a valuable asset for athletic director Kenny Edwards as another ambassador for the school's athletics.

"He’s doing all this while maintaining great grades, great reputation around school," Edwards said. "He’s pretty impressive."

Read more about Gelinas here.

BOW NAMES NEW BOYS' HOOPS COACH

Eric Saucier, who was the head coach for Conant High School boys' basketball for 16 years, announced he was stepping down from his position to accept the same role at Bow High School.

Saucier will replace Scott Drapeau who coached the Falcons for the last three seasons and led the team to a 13-7 season in 2023-24, including an appearance in the Division II quarterfinals.

“My health is a factor,” Saucier told the Keene Sentinel. “This job at Bow allows me to coach and take care of my health. It was not that I wanted to leave Conant. … This was an incredibly difficult decision. … To coach 10 minutes from my house was a big factor.”

In his time at Conant, Saucier led the Orioles to seven state championship game appearances and five championships.

Read more about Saucier's decision here.

Pitching and defense guide John Stark's 8-0 start

John Stark head coach Dennis Pelletier is still waiting for his offense to come around consistently, but the Generals improved to 8-0 after a 2-0 win over Bow on Wednesday on the backs of their pitching and defense.

Junior Chase Philibotte shut out the Falcons across six innings, allowing five hits, three walks and striking out nine. Senior Anthony Paolicelli closed out the win striking out the side in the top of the seventh.

"Those guys are damn good," Pelletier said of his pitchers. "Our pitching’s been spot on because that’s the part we worked on the most, being inside a lot. But our hitters did face our pitchers. Our pitchers are facing live hitting, even in February when we were doing our group workouts. And I think that’s really helped us get ready right now."

Read more on John Stark's hot start to the season here.

Merrimack Valley's offense doesn't relent

It wasn't exactly a banner afternoon for pitching or defense at Pembroke Academy on Thursday, but Merrimack Valley generated enough offense to squeak by PA with a 14-9 win. The Pride are now 6-1 on the season after finishing just 4-12 last year.

“The kids have more confidence,” MV head coach Sean Wheeler said. “When we played last year, everybody was always looking for somebody to step up and make the play, get the hit, and this year, we have guys stepping up and making the plays. Going through last year I think was a great learning experience for a lot of these guys, and they’re hungry.”

Read more on MV's win here.

Merrimack Valley girls' lacrosse steamrolled Kingswood, 14-3, on Monday to improve to 5-1 on the season. After finishing eighth in Division II last spring, head coach Kylee Yam's pleased with what she's seen from her group this season.

“We have a lot of experienced girls,” said Yam following the Kingswood win. “We have a lot more girls that play outside too. They play club, and they’ve been on this team for three years. We have a really strong junior class. They know the plays we’ve been working on for three years. They know our team defense, so that kind of helps to tie us all together."