By Nick Abramo, Sports Columnist
MARLBOROUGH – In a classic case of doing what people said couldn’t be done, a tight-knit bunch of Marlborough High School girls stunned the Massachusetts soccer world in 1985.
Those Panthers had already been playing superior soccer for a handful of years under coach Doug Freeman. They were a Central Massachusetts powerhouse, but that description didn’t mean much to anyone east of Rte. 495.
“Nobody thought Central Mass. teams belonged,” Freeman, now 71 and living in Florida, recalled in a recent phone interview. “Everybody thought the best teams were in Eastern and Western Mass.”
“As a matter of fact, we didn’t have our own district tournament until 1985,” he continued. “Before that, we were lumped in with the West. But I knew we were good enough to have our own tournament, so I kept fighting for it.”
CMass title sets up state championship bid
accomplishments of the 1985 State Champion Marlborough
High School girls soccer team.
(Photo/Courtesy of Doug Freeman)
What Freeman fought for was not in vain. After losing in the East/West district final in ’84, Marlborough won the CMass title in ’85 to get into the state bracket.
Still, there were doubters all the way until the Panthers’ Lisa Mordo scored the only goal with 23 minutes left in a major 1-0 upset of Needham for a dream-come-true Division I state title on the artificial turf at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Freeman cited one such example of bias against CMass in an interview with the Marlborough Enterprise after MHS beat Ludlow 1-0 in the state semifinals.
“I talked to the Winchester coach earlier in the year and he said to me, ‘You’ll win the Central and go to the state semifinals, but then you’ll have to give me a call and give me a scouting report on the Western Mass. team,’” Freeman told the paper. “That really upset me.”
Needham’s 2-1 state semifinal victory over Winchester dashed Freeman’s hope that the Panthers would play and go on to beat Winchester in the final.
Instead, he got to watch his gritty Panthers knock out Needham, with defenders Phuong Alexander and Traci Vanzini shutting down two powerful Rockets players in Kim and Katie Connolly.
A sprawling save by goaltender Tracy Giroux on a shot from Kim Connolly with less than two minutes to go put the finishing touches on the MHS victory, making the Panthers the toast of the city.
Goalie took unique path to varsity role
Interestingly, Giroux could have made the varsity team two years earlier as a sophomore. But Freeman asked her to stay on JV to learn how to be a goalkeeper.
“I had never played in goal before and I wasn’t sure I wanted that key position and all that pressure,” Giroux said recently. “Plus Tracy Cirillo’s shoes were the ones I was supposed to fill, which was impossible because she was such an unbelievable player.”
“Then they had Lisa Rowe, who would dive and sacrifice her body on every shot,” Giroux continued. “Doug the Bug [as Freeman was known to some of his players] hired Skip Graham as my own private goalie coach to work with me. Coach Freeman had the foresight to know he needed a goalie and didn’t care just about the season he was in. He cared about the girls soccer program.”
Full roster of players contributed to championship wins
Freeman appreciated every single one of his players.
“We had unbelievable student-athletes and one of the big things was, way back then, kids didn’t play on club soccer teams and stayed on the town team,” Freeman said. “They had played together since they were eight and nine-years-old. We had great players at every position and another big thing was we had 10 seniors and 10 juniors.”
One of the ’85 Panthers fullbacks, Francesca Giorgi, was named to the All-New England and All-State teams. She was one of the Panthers’ captains, along with Vanzini, Alexander and Mordo.
Freeman’s Marlborough teams went on to win D-I state championships in 1988 and 1991. Joanna Hird and Kristen Giannattasio were on the ’85 and ’88 teams. Four players, Jen Hird, Jane Cotter, Kim Boyle and Andrea Lachapelle, were on the ’88 and ’91 squads. In addition, Kathey Alexander, Phuong’s sister, was a goalkeeper in ’91.
In ’85, the Panthers felt right at home on WPI’s turf, having played their two previous games there, and with a large contingent of Marlborough fans on hand to see them win it all. That finished an unbeaten 21-0-1 season.
“That was just unbelievable, the whole city of Marlborough coming together for these kids,” Freeman said.
(Photo/Courtesy of Tommy Stafford)
Added Tommy Stafford, who was broadcasting the game on WSRO radio: “The scene was set, a perfect cold Saturday night with a hint of frost in the air. [After the Panthers went ahead], Needham pressed hard and threw everything at Marlborough. Toward the end, I was wishing for the game to end and it could not come fast enough. When the whistle blew for full time, I remember somebody was playing ‘We are the Champions’ very loud and I can never listen to that song again without thinking of that moment. The Panthers made history and it was a night to remember.”
RELATED CONTENT:
1973 Hudson Catholic team opened new chapter in local football history (communityadvocate.com)
Ted Rolfe made memories as a beloved baseball coach (communityadvocate.com)
Hudson’s Tommy Williams lived brilliant hockey life, weathered tragedy (communityadvocate.com)
