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High School Notebook: NHIAA’s Collins excited for spring

By Tom King - Staff Writer | Mar 18, 2021

North and South spring sports teams will soon be taking the field in Nashua for the first time in two years. (Telegrah file photo by TOM KING)

Don’t look now, but the local high school spring sports season practices will begin in just 10 days on Monday, March 29.

And for New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association Executive Director Jeff Collins, it will be a special day.

“It will be sweet to see them out there,” Collins told nashuatelegraph.com on Wednesday. “I’ve always enjoyed it as a principal. You’re in your office and all of a sudden you hear bats, the ping of bats outside, kids running past your window and around the track. There is a good feeling about being outside.”

Remember, one year ago the spring sports season was delayed and then by later in April ultimately cancelled due to the pandemic. Thus there were no baseball, softball, tennis, lacrosse, or outdoor track seasons.

But with a two-week break after the winter sports season ended last Sunday, a shorter preseason of tryouts and practices will begin March 29 with games set to begin on Monday, April 12.

And, while fall and winter seasons were somewhat shortened, the spring looks to be a full season statewide – but of course individual districts/schools will make that ultimate scheduling decision.

“I think we’re all in figure out, implement, and go mode,” Collins said. “When you do take a step back and think about it, I would applaud the (Executive) Council, they understand perhaps there’s a little bit of time needed in between seasons, but keeping the first date to play the exact same time as the first date to play is the same as it always was.

“We’re not cutting the season short, because this is the season that lost the most last year.”

Collins said he’s sure there will be a lot of people looking forward to the outdoor season, and with vaccinations “moving forward at a good clip, the rates being what they are, I think there’s a lot of positive energy about the spring.

“We’re not out of the woods yet. But getting out there, seeing baseball kids, softball kids, track kids, and the lacrosses and the tennis out there – the boys volleyball will be inside – but there’s a lot of people looking forward to it.”

OFFICIALS IN DEMAND

Collins acknowledged that there’s been a shortage of officials around the state.

“I think certainly there are a number of officials that opted out this year,” Collins said. “And we certainly support that.

“We hope we get to a place where many are vaccinated and things get back to some sense of normalcy, we’ll welcome those officials back with open arms, because we need them.”

Collins said “across the board we’ve been short-staffed” as far as officials are concerned.

“If we we don’t have officials there, we don’t have games,” Collins said. “Certainly we’ll run into it in the spring. There are some for safety reasons and underlying health conditions, what have you, elected not to officiate this year and we 100 percent support their decision to do so. But I think there’s going to be some times, weekends, what have you, with games going on that are going to be difficult to cover. But we’ll certainly do that.”

Collins said that games can always be changed, flip-flopped, etc. if there’s a problem, and that athletic directors are used to juggling things with officials, etc.

“The real highlight of this year has been there’s a lot of people across the state from officials, to coaches, to school personnel, to everybody who cares about giving these kids an opportunity to get out there,” Collins said, “and doing whatever they need to make it happen.”

SNEAK PEEK

If you’re looking at what some teams will be doing those first few days of spring, on that Monday, April 12, Nashua North is slated to host Merrimack in baseball at 4:30 p.m. – possibly at Holman Stadium – while the two schools will play softball in Merrimack at 4 p.m. Nashua South boys lacrosse will host Exeter at 4:30 p.m. at Stellos Stadium.

Bishop Guertin softball will host Londonderry while baseball with be at Londonderry. And there will be tennis starting with the area schools that day as well.

BG’s ALL-STAR STAFF

One of the things that helped the Guertin boys basketball team’s title success this winter was the fact Cards head coach John Fisher surrounded himself with a highly regarded coaching staff.

“It was just incredible contribution this year from them,” Fisher said. “We are a team and these guys spent hundreds of hours planning with me.”

And they had success in their own right. Will Horne coached an undefeated junior varsity team, while Tim Lunn coached an unbeaten freshman team.

Plus, Fisher had trusted mainstays Chris Cameron and Dylan Mullin. Cameron, of course, is more known as the highly successful BG boys lacrosse coach, while Lunn has coached the Nashua Legion team to a state crown. Mullin has been a fixture and Horne, Fisher said, “is a head coach in a JV position.”

“It’s not bad having two teachers, Lunn and Mullin, who are also baseball coaches,” Fisher said, “as well as the state’s best lacrosse coach.”

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