Marblehead Athletics had quite the year. From undefeated seasons to state championships, and everything in between, the Magicians proved to the state – across multiple sports – that they’re a tough opponent.
“It was a super successful year. We had a lot of really good showings from a lot of our students and teams,” Marblehead Athletic Director Greg Ceglarski said. “We had a couple of undefeated seasons, our football and lacrosse teams made it to the Final Four, we had an All-American, and a few Players of the Year.”
When asked if there was anything different compared to recent years, Ceglarski pointed to getting over coronavirus restrictions.
“I think this was the first, really, regular season back after covid. We didn’t have restrictions last year, but we were still cautious. This year, we didn’t have any questions and we knew it was back to normal athletics,” Ceglarski said.
Ceglarski praised his senior class and its achievements.
“Looking at our seniors only, we had 30 (Northeastern) All-Conference players and 20 All-Stars,” Ceglarski said.
With the seniors leading the way, the Magicians welcomed some new state championships to campus.
“We had great leadership groups. It felt a little bit different from years’ past. The kids did a really good job,” Ceglarski said. “We had eight individual state champions, our girls swim team won the Division 2 state championship, [and] the girls relay in track, as well, won a state championship.”
When asked if any teams surprised him, he singled out the boys basketball and tennis teams.
“Boys basketball: they were a little bit of a mystery coming in,” Ceglarski said. “We had kids step up that developed well from last year to this year.”
“Boys tennis had a very good season. We had a foreign exchange student (Jost Eggerbrecht) come in who impressed us in addition to our No. 1 in Mika Garber. We knew Mika was good, but Jost was an unknown since we never saw him play before,” Ceglarski said.
Marblehead had teams make it far into tournaments – upset wins, included. From courts, to fields, and beyond, Marblehead caused trouble. Ceglarski believes deep postseason runs help underclassmen.
“A lot of our sports, we’ve been fairly dominant in our division. We’ve been lucky to have that much success in the NEC alone,” Ceglarski said. “Then we see how we do against other teams that compete in other well-tested leagues. When we get to those teams, whether we’re not prepared or not ready, having the success we had this year will show our kids that we can hang with the top leagues in the state. Even our baseball team upset Hopkinton. Having underclassmen see the discipline and determination from our teams to keep pushing in the tournament will do wonders for us in the future.”
When asked if any memories stuck out to him this year, he was quick to his points.
“Getting the call from our swim coach (Susan Guertin) saying they took home the state title was a great feeling and cool moment,” Ceglarski said. “I was at the boys basketball game at Pope Francis where Miles O’Neill scored the game-winning basket with less than a second in the game. That was really cool and something I’ll remember for a long time.”