After years of going without a conference affiliation, all but a handful of the athletic teams of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High school finally found a home this week when the Eastern Athletic Conference voted unanimously to accept the Vineyard into its ranks.
The principals and athletic directors of the Eastern Athletic Conference voted without dissent on Wednesday to accept the Vineyard as the newest member of the four-school athletic conference. The vote took place at the conference’s regular meeting held at Somerset High School.
It was a triumphant return to form for the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School football team in 2008.
After a run of successful but ultimately frustrating seasons, the Island team dominated its Mayflower League Large opponents and went undefeated in the conference, earning a berth in the Division 3A Eastern Massachusetts playoffs for the first time in five years.
Just as high school athletics season kicks off comes the potentially good news that the Eastern Athletic Conference — a sports league made up of predominantly parochial schools from the south shore — has invited the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School to join its ranks.
Several Vineyard sports teams have been without a conference since the principals of the South Coast Conference unexpectedly voted in December of 2006 not to allow the regional high school to remain in the league.
The Vineyard football team may be on the field for two and a half hours of game time tomorrow, but it takes days, weeks and a year of effort by another team to get them there. The Martha’s Vineyard Touchdown Club, a nonprofit organization, works to get those players onto the field for each of the 10 or more games they play each season. At least 100 students benefit directly from the club, including 72 football players and 28 cheerleaders.
The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School football team got off to a solid start of the season Friday with a convincing, no-nonsense 14-0 win over familiar rival Old Rochester on a rainy night in Mattapoisett.
The Vineyarders ran the option play to perfection all night, and senior Mike McCarthy scored both touchdowns on short runs in the first half to put the game away. A steady rain fell throughout the game making for soggy field conditions, but the Vineyarders’ defense was still able to clamp down and shut down the Bulldogs’ attack.
It is a chilly November evening; the sun has just dipped below the horizon and Mike McCarthy, quarterback for the Vineyarders football team, stands in back of the high school answering a reporter’s questions about this weekend’s Island Cup game.
Nearby a group of cheerleaders is spray-painting signs and posters with words of encouragement for the team. Some of the signs will be used to decorate the bedrooms of the starters and seniors on the football team; others may be brought over to Nantucket this weekend to cheer on the Vineyarders during the game.
In a game as thrilling as it was heartbreaking, the Carver Crusaders defeated the Vineyarders football team 23-21 on Friday night after scoring a game-tying touchdown and converting a two-point attempt with seconds left on the clock.
The Vineyarders (1-1) had late game heroics of their own, scoring with 1:38 on the clock when Mike McCarthy hit Nick Gross in the end zone for an 11-yard touchdown pass to take a 21-15 lead. But the Crusaders stormed right back and tied the game on a 35-yard touchdown run by Brandon Holbrook.
The annual Island Cup game between the Vineyard and Nantucket football teams has long been a high-stakes affair, played to the bitter end for the right to dominate the world — or at least bragging rights between the two Island rivals.
And until six years ago the Whalers won the game on a regular basis. From 1993 to 1998 Nantucket won five out of six, and four in a row over the Vineyard.
In a game that was decided by the end of the first half, the Vineyard football team dominated Bishop Connolly 43-0 in their home opener on Friday to gain an early share of the division lead in the Mayflower League large.
For coach Donald Herman the rout was the perfect antidote to the bitter pill of last week’s 23-21 loss to Carver, a game in which the Vineyarders took a lead with less than two minutes to play, only to give it back in the closing seconds on a Carver touchdown and two-point conversion.
The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School football team advances to the state Superbowl after an easy 42-14 win Tuesday against Monument High School from South Boston in the division 3A playoffs. The game was played at Taunton High School, with a large crowd of Vineyard fans in attendance.
The Vineyard will play Amesbury in the Superbowl this Saturday at Bentley University in Waltham.
