Billy the Kid and the Boys from Antrim

-

Mighty Warriors from Antrim, 1967-68 (front, from left): Dennis Huntington, Richard Brzozowski, Gary Cole and Bruce Davies. Standing (from left): Coach Chick Hamel, Fred Doleac, Jeff Barsanti, John Doleac, Robin Rockwell, Dave Jones and Bill Davies. Missing from photo: Steve Brzozowski and Bruce Chesson.

When Antrim High School joined Peterborough High School to form Conval Regional High School in 1970, it’s not surprising that two winning basketball traditions helped to immediately put the Cougars on the map. While Peterborough was the team of the decade in the 1930s and produced champions in the late 1920s and early 1940s, Antrim High was among the cream of the crop throughout the 1960s.

From 1962 to its final season of 1970, Antrim was a perennial participant in the Class S (D4) state tournament and among the best in the state near the end of the decade. But the season everyone in Antrim will long remember is 1967-68 when the Warriors were on the edge of reaching the pinnacle of high school basketball dreams.


Under the leadership of Coach Chick Hamel, Antrim High quickly emerged as one of the best in Class S. Leading the way was senior sharp-shooter Bill Davies, who was surrounded by a strong supporting cast that included the likes of Fred Doleac, Gary Cole, Jeff Barsanti and Robin Rockwell. (Pictured are Rockwell at left, and Bruce Davies.)


While Antrim had given plenty of evidence to the rest of the state that they weren’t to be taken lightly, any doubts were erased in a late February home game against undefeated Thayer High of Winchester. The Tigers came to town with a 16-0 mark while Antrim stood strong at 13-3. In a pulsating contest played before 600 fans crammed into the high school gym, the Warriors found themselves trailing by six with less than two minutes to play. After Coach Hamel called a timeout to strategize one final push, however, the game turned dramatically.


A combination of great defense, strong rebounding, and clutch shooting set the Thayer squad on its heels. A Rockwell steal led to a Doleac basket to cut it to four, Bill Davies hit one from outside to bring Antrim to within two, and Jeff Barsanti’s steal resulted in a Steve Brzozowski tip-in to tie the game and send the fans into a frenzy. Great defense in the final 30 seconds gave the ball back to the Warriors, and Bill Davies drove to the hoop and scored the winning basket as the horn sounded, 79-77.


The Peterborough Transcript noted…


 “Post game reaction was that Antrim had just seen its finest basketball game ever.”


But it was only the beginning of the fun.


In the Class S state tournament in early March 1968, the Warriors rolled over Alton in the first round, 79-68, and then knocked off Epping in the quarter-finals, 77-43. Antrim thus advanced to where no other team in school history had gone—the state final four, against rival Hollis, which had beaten the Warriors twice during the regular season. The Cavaliers carried a 21-game winning streak into the showdown and had the lead heading into the final period when Bill Davies (pictured) rallied Antrim by scoring 14 of his game-high 32 points. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough as Hollis held on for a 61-52 victory.


“Our shooting was way off,” said Coach Hamel afterwards, but “no regrets. Hollis is a fine club and should take the title.” In fact, Hollis went on to win the Class S championship that year over Lin-Wood.


The Davies family tree

“Davies thrilled the crowds in the UNH field house,” said the Transcript, setting a new Class S tournament record for most points in three games—104. The previous record was 99 points but accomplished in four games. In just his junior and senior years at Antrim, Bill scored 1,193 points, and once scored 59 points in a single game!


The Davies name in Antrim and Conval High basketball history runs deep. Bill’s younger brother Bruce played for the Warriors until the school’s final season of 1969-70, and brothers John (“J.D.”) and Ted would go on to excel on the court at Conval in the mid-1970s.


Bill now resides in Maine where son Bob is a highly successful head coach at Thornton Academy in Saco. Bill’s grandson, Will Davies (pictured) is a standout for the team and considered one of the best guards in the state of Maine. 



#whatatradition

#historymatters

#believeinfamily

#rollcougs


Popular posts from this blog

Hail to the Chief

-
Image
Antrim High's Ed Coughlan, December 1965...more than a force on the court. P erhaps it’s a rural New Hampshire thing, but the nine towns that send students to Conval High—the Contoocook River bending its way around several of them—have long been interconnected. Each town is unique in its own way, and yet there is this sense that when you cross the town line from, say, New Boston to Francestown, you have entered Cougar Country as much as you’ve entered one of its nine towns. Last year’s boys’ basketball starting five, for example, represented five different towns. And when you explore our region’s hoop history, those interconnections keep popping up. In 1964, for example, when Antrim High was alive and well, little would Conval fans realize that Antrim’s long-time basketball coach, Chick Hamel, would one day become CV’s first assistant principal. (See “Paving the Way” ). And one of Chick’s star players in 1964 would one day become a legend in Hancock for many years. “You don’t have
Read more

50th Anniversary: When Conval Slayed a Giant

-
Image
Key to a shocking 1974 quarter-final win over Lebanon was Ray Abbott's (25) work on Raider big man Doug Murphy (21). Photo: Ernie Hebert, Keene Sentinel O ur Conval Hoop Heritage has had more than its share of highs and lows come tournament time, but in the history of the Regional, few tournament games will ever match the 50th anniversary drama of the 1974 Class I (D2) quarter-finals against Lebanon.   The 1973-’74 Cougars, coming off a 12-8 season in which the returning players felt “never gelled,” was loaded with speedy, athletic, good shooting veterans: Ray Abbott, John “JD” Davies, John Cuddihee, Ed Lennon, Paul Krulis, Joe Reilly, Mike Crowe and Marshall White . But small—very small. Among the starters, senior Ray Abbott was the tallest of the bunch at 6’2” and sharp-shooter John Davies was next at an even six feet. Newcomers to the team were Ted Davies, Mark Sizemore, Peter Jennson and Doug Smith . The task ahead against a brutal Class I schedule seemed formidable, but Coa
Read more

Paving the Way

-
Image
Fifty-three years ago, Conval High opened its doors for the first time, with two Antrim boys (Neal Wiggin and Chick Hamel) leading the way and the lead editorial in the Peterborough Transcript trumpeting the news. I t may seem strange that a high school basketball history blog should start with this: the story of the first day in Conval High's history, August 27, 1970. But in that first year alone, the local newspaper was alarmed that there was a drug problem, a few students in an anti-Vietnam War era refused to stand for the national anthem, and hundreds of orphaned seventh and eighth graders squeezed into the new high school when their school burned down on Christmas morning. Stress and strain were everywhere. But then, there was basketball! Amidst the chaos came a rallying cry for a student body and the community. In 1970, there was no hockey or wrestling or gymnastics to compete for attention. Only skiing (more a participant-oriented sport) and popular and excellent cheerleadin
Read more