It’s been a great winter, with an emotional ending to the season at the University of New Hampshire with the Division I boys basketball finals.

That was a high profile day if you ever saw one. But meanwhile, here are some tids and bits about the winter that refuses to end and heading into what’s now supposed to be spring that maybe you hadn’t heard about:

Vanessa Bosques goes out with high honors

The Daniel Webster College fifth-year basketball senior, despite the fact her team lost in the New England Collegiate Conference finals, Bosques captured her second NECC Player of the Year honor.

Bosques finished the season averaging 21.2 points and seven rebounds a game, and was a testament to hard work and perseverance. Remember, she suffered a horrible knee injury in a pre-season practice her senior season and decided to return to the school for the final year of her eligibility when she could have gone elsewhere.

Bosques was also named as an ECAC New England Division III Second Team All-Star, the only player in the school history to receive ECAC honors. Remember, she is also the leading scorer in school history, for men and women.

She’s been an amazing story and she’ll be greatly missed.

Another city title
for a former Panther great

A year ago we told you about the re-emergence of former Nashua High School and Boston College basketball standout Stephanie Byrd Kane into the roundball world. Kane got back into the coaching circles in, of all places, Nashua Boys Junior Biddy Basketball and won a championship with her team in her first season.

Well, guess what, it happened again, when Byrd Kane’s Sonics won their second straight city title the other night at Amherst Street School, defeating the Jazz.

With all the players from her team that moved up a level after last year, Byrd Kane said she was told by everyone there was no way a repeat was possible, but her team proved everyone wrong.

“These guys all did it,” Byrd Kane said when the celebration began on the court.

DWC quietly seeking
new athletic director

Ohhhh they can do a good job over at Daniel Webster College of keeping a secret when they want to. Assistant athletic director Ken Belbin has been serving as the interim AD since January as the school’s now former full-time AD, Robin Seidman, resigned in December after about a year and a half on the job.

The school has the full-time position listed in its employment section on its website, but issued no statement when Seidman reportedly stepped down.

Thus you have across town a model of stability in JoAnne Merrill, who has been on the job for more than 25 years at Rivier University. Whoever is hired at DWC for the next academic year will be the athletic program’s third head in four years. The exodus began when VP in charge of athletics Phil Rowe left to return to coaching four springs ago.

Despite the instability at the top, the program has enjoyed perhaps its best success ever in the past couple of years, thanks in part to a fabulous group of coaches. That has to be an attraction for any prospective candidate.

Knights to honor teams who called Holman home

This summer, the Silver Knights will celebrate the stadium’s 75th anniversary (it turned 75 this past September, long after the Knights season was over) by honoring each professional team that the stadium housed.

That would begin with the Nashua Dodgers, to the Angels/Pirates, even the Nashua Hawks, and of course the Pride and the American Defenders.

“It’s kind of a cool built-in promotion,” Silver Knights marketing and media VP Jon Goode said.

Goode’s done his research. The Dodgers used to give away actual live baby chicks to fans when a home run was hit; for home runs hit this summer, the Silver Knights staff will throw stuffed baby chicks into the crowd. And that’s just the beginning of their plans.

“For the third year, this is probably the best promotional schedule by far,” Goode said.

No more H.S. baseball title game layoff

It’s gone! That ridiculous week-plus gap between the high school baseball semifinals in all four divisions and the championship Saturday at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium in Manchester. This year, it apparently worked out that the facility was available for the weekend after the semis. Thus the semifinals will be played June 5 with the finals in all four divisions Saturday, June 8. That will definitely impact teams’ pitching plans, for certain.

Let’s hope the snow is gone by then, right?

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