A title for a legend

It was hard to come up with an analogy for what was happening on the floor of the TD Banknorth Garden when the Division 4 girls title was decided. As far as sports go, maybe you could compare it to John Elway winning his first Super Bowl trophy in his 15th season in the NFL.

Still, that didn’t seem nearly as dramatic. Maybe you had to leave the sports scene altogether. Perhaps to Hollywood. That’s probably the best way to describe it. It was like Sean Connery winning the Academy Award for "The Untouchables", or Martin Scorscese finally winning Best Director for "The Departed". In both cases, it was a long time coming.

So it was that Cohasset girls' basketball coach John LeVangie won his first state title in his 42nd year of coaching. The television cameras flocked to him at center court as he held the trophy.

Not that there needed to be any more drama. Cohasset and Manchester-Essex provided more than enough through 32 minutes of basketball, which ended with both squads knotted at 33. The Skippers would take over in overtime though, to come away with a 44-36 win.

It was a back-and-forth game the whole way. Coming down the stretch, Meredith Kelly (12 points) went 4 for 4 from the foul line in the fourth quarter, and almost won it at the buzzer with a drive to the hoop that fell just short. Sammi Lehr led the Skippers with 13 points, while Lizzy Ball had 15 for Manchester Essex.

For LeVangie, it was sweet redemption. Before taking the Cohasset job, he had only coached boys' ball, and he was very successful. Starting off at Hull and Cohasset, LeVangie spent all of the 1980s at BC High. It was while coaching the Eagles that he came closest to winning the title.

“This is my first time grabbing a state championship,” said LeVangie. “We went to the finals twice in the old Boston Garden. We lost to Patrick Ewing in 1981, and we lost again in 1983.”

By the time the decade was over, he had been named the Boston Globe Coach of the Year. He would spend the '90s at Westwood High.

“He was like a mentor to me,” said Cohasset athletic director Ron Ford, who coached the Skippers’ boys basketball team in the 90s. “Back when I was coaching, I lost my first tournament game to him when he was at Westwood.”

Ford would be promoted to AD, and when it came time to start a family, he left coaching behind. One of his first challenges would be to figure out a way to revive the girls’ basketball program. When LeVangie’s name came up, he could not act fast enough.

“Are you kidding me?” said Ford. “The guy’s a Hall of Fame coach.”

LeVangie admits now that he was a little unsure.

“I coached softball for 20 years,” said LeVangie. “So it wasn’t like I had never coached girls. Still, I wasn’t sure how it would be for basketball.”

It didn’t take long before LeVangie knew he was on the right track.

“I had coached some of their fathers, so that helped,” said LeVangie. “You have to sell it, you have to have good people in the youth program, and you have to have kids who want to play. The community really played a big role and supported us, especially during this run. The whole town came out for us. Would’ve been a good time to stay back and rob a bank, I guess.” LeVangie added with a laugh.”

It was interesting to see the reaction of long-time high school hoops observers when they saw the Cohasset bench. LeVangie assembled, shall we say, a veteran coaching staff, bringing Dick Milner and Basil Cronin onboard. Milner has followed LeVangie every step of the way for over 30 years, while Cronin also had over 30-years experience, having served as the head coach at Sharon High. Matt Lewis brings youth and rounds out the assistant coaching staff, all of whom LeVangie considers instrumental.

Still reflecting on what had just taken place, LeVangie continued to let his guard down.

“I thought maybe the time for me to win a state championship had gone by,” said LeVangie. “I guess something rubbed off on these kids after 40 years of coaching.”

The Skippers return a strong team next year as well, as there are no seniors on the roster. Could it be two in a row for Cohassest?

“Oh jeez, I hadn’t thought of that,” said LeVangie, who broke right back into coachspeak. “I’m just going to go home and worry about our opponent for the first game next year.”

Been there, done that

Archbishop Williams was a little more subdued than the other victorious teams after defeating Pentucket in the Division 3 state semifinal Tuesday. There was Christine Duffy’s postgame leap into Valerie Driscoll’s arms, then the Bishops just walked off the court and headed to the locker room.

“That was nerve-wracking,” said star guard Casey Capello. “We didn’t play our best game, and it went by so fast. We could’ve lost that game.”

Coach Jim Bancroft thought perhaps his team was being a little too hard on itself.

“I think they expect that they’re going to blow out every team,” said Bancroft. “Pentucket’s a good team. That was a hard-earned win we got tonight.”

The Bishops weren’t the only team punching a return ticket to the state finals. Catholic Memorial will be going back to the Division 2 boys championship, looking to avenge last year's title loss to Tantasqua (which is likewise back this year).

Brendan Monteiro, who hit a buzzer-beater at the Garden last year as the Knights downed Belmont, worked his magic in the South finals, burying a 15-footer with 1.1 seconds left to propel CM to a thrilling 81-79 win over Dartmouth last Saturday. The Knights followed that up with a win over Reading Monday.

No repeats

Two other defending champs managed to make it back to the Garden before seeing their seasons end. The Lincoln-Sudbury girls defeated a tough Masconomet squad in the Division 2 North semifinals, then defeated Reading in the final, before losing to Wellesley Tuesday night. It was an impressive run considering the Warriors lost three starters from last year’s squad.

“It’s tough to top what we did last season,” said head coach Liza Feldman. “We cruised through the last part of the season into the tournament last year. We had a bull’s eye on our back this year. We had to figure things out, but I think in the end we managed to reach expectations.”

The same could be said for BC High. After a pair of hard-fought wins over Newton North and Brockton, the Eagles came up short against Central Catholic Monday night. The Eagles trailed Brockton by 14 in the first half before rallying for a dramatic win. Monday night, it was BC High with the double-digit lead, before the Raiders got hot and dominated the fourth quarter for the win.

It appears a tough league schedule, as well as being tested by its nonleague foes, has the Raiders ready for a shot at the state title this Saturday.