BY JERRY LIPTAKIt began with some strong individual efforts in the winter – a trickle of championships earned by Bow, Hopkinton and Concord athletes on the slopes and the mats. It continued in the spring and summer, with various teams hoisting title plaques for their lacrosse, baseball and softball prowess. It concluded with the Hopkinton ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORGoffstown-area athletic successes in 2007 came at many levels, for teams and individuals. This was never more evident than the summer, when nearly every Goffstown youth baseball team, from Little League through Babe Ruth, finished tops in their district, among the best in the state and, in some cases, the region. Those ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORFor Hooksett-area teams and individual athletes, 2007 was a year in which the surprising became the norm, particularly at the high school level. Though squads such as the Central girls tennis team finished tops in Class L and Cawley Middle School collected multiple titles, other perennial contenders bowed out of the ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORSides is stepping away from the sideline ... again. The current Henry W. Moore School soccer coach – and former high school and college women’s basketball coach – will again try to retire from both teaching and coaching after an unsuccessful attempt in 2000. It was then that Julie Cusson, whom Sides ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORLast year, the Seacoast United Premier soccer team didn’t qualify for a major annual national showcase in New Jersey. This time around, with Jess Luscinski on the field, the squad not only made the tournament, it won. Stuart Pepper, who has mentored dozens of all-region and all-American players as Seacoast’s ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORFielding a team of all sophomores and freshmen at the varsity level didn’t stop Class I coaches from acknowledging the talent on this year’s Bedford girls soccer squad. And though only two Lady Bulldogs, Sarah Kelley and Hailey Kunkel, made the team, both as honorable-mention picks, coach Michelle Winning said ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORFor coach George Pinkham, the 2007 Bow boys soccer team was as satisfying a group of players as he could imagine mentoring. Having graduated 13 seniors from a team he considered the best in school history, Pinkham was prepared to rebuild. But the guys playing the game carried Bow to the Class I finals, where they lost a 1-0 ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORHopkinton coach Scott Zipke said he hopes the memory of back-to-back state champions reverberates for years to come. “Those leaving, they left a legacy of excellence and served as an example that we strive for excellence here at Hopkinton,” said Zipke. “You often see trends set where if you have an average ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORPlaying Hampstead in the Tri-County Class M title game, the Cawley Middle School boys were faced with a 4-4 tie following 70 minutes of regulation play, two 10-minute overtime periods and two five-minute sudden death overtimes. But in the final seconds of the 100th minute, seventh-grader Tyler Gahara, who tallied all four of ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORIf the Hopkinton boys soccer team hopes to defend its state crown, coach Scott Zipke said his players must play much more consistently than they did late in the regular season. “I think they’re ready to go, but they know they’ve got a tough road, which they created themselves by not winning some games that ...