Gary Larrabee

A big 11 days of golf get under way tomorrow at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y., fittingly, the home of five-time PGA champ Walter Hagen, with the PGA Championship. Should be a terrific weekend, with the strongest field of the year’s four majors and all kinds of story lines:

• Can Tiger win his 15th major after this agonizingly long drought without a major triumph? Let’s hope not.
• Can Phil Mickelson win his sixth after his spctacular victory at the Open Championship at Muirfield? Let’s hope so. Most everyone IS rooting for this fellow, me included.
• Can former Salem CC golf director Kirk Hanefeld make the cut at the age of 57? We hope so. Go Kirk!
• Watch out for Jordan Spieth.

Now to the other special event in golf — the 113thh United States Amateur from The Country Club in Brookline. After meeting and chatting with — and hitting a few practice balls alongside — defending champ Steven Fox during Amateur Media Day last month, you cannont wish anything but the best to this humble, clean cut, young man from University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.

Fox hasn’t done much since his dramatic victory last year at Cherry Hill outside Denver, but he’d enjoyed a marvelous ride as U.S. Amateur champion, competing in the Masters, U.S. Open and Open Championship, though missing the cut in all three. Defend well, Steven.

Local hopes rest with Indian Ridge’s Colin Brennan, the 2012 MGA Richard D. Haskell Player of the Year and soon-to-become professional. This is Colin’s first and last Amateur. May he give it his best shot in the two days of stroke play qualifying at Brookline and Charles River and maybe — just maybe — he’ll pull off a Jim Hallet and make a strong run in match play. His caddy will be Salem CC member and long-time chim Matt O’Keefe, a fine player in his own right.

Congrats, lastly, to ageless wonder Cy Kilgore, 59, who won his record 17th Tedesco club championship, rallying from a three-down deficit after 11 holes in the 18-hole final and won out on the 19th over Chuck DeGrande.

Possibly inspired by the spectacular seasons their basketball buddies experienced, the St. John’s Prep and Danvers baseball teams are proving to be just as successful — so far anyway.

The Prep, in 33-year coach Pat Yanchus’s final season at the helm, is 10-1 and was riding a 10-game win streak entering their game this afternoon at 5-6 Xaverian.

Danvers, meanwhile, was putting its 6-0 record (3-0 in the Small Division) on the line tonight at Danvers Park against fellow Northeastern Conference powerhouse Peabody (10-1, 8-0 in the Large Division.

The Prep currently is No. 1 in The Boston Globe baseball ratings, with Peabody fifth and Danvers, which gave coach Roger Day his 400th career  win last week, sixth. Let’s see what happens today.

Danvers continues to be the Hub of North Shore high school sports, thanks to the spectular early season showings of the DHS and St. John’s baseball teams. They rank among the best in Eastern Mass., just as the schools’ basketball team did during the winter.

Doubly big news regarding the two squads has emerged of late. Danvers coach Roger Day won his 400th game Monday after junior ace Brandon Hyde fired a three-hit shutout at Gloucester on chilly Stage Fort Park Field.

Equally noteworthy was the announcement from 33rd-year coach Pat Yanchus that he would be retiring at the end of the spring from his positions as baseball coach and mathematics teacher.

Day’s milestone moment comes as no surprise. Since covering him as a floppy-haired three-sport standout at Ipswich High too many moons ago, I sensed greatness in the baby-faced Day as a future leader of young men. And here he is enjoying yet another notch on his Massachusetts High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame resume.

Roger has made the Falcons into a state powerhouse during his tenure. Over the last 15 seasons, as The Salem News’s Phil Stacey reported today, Danvers has won one state title (2001), lost another (1999), won 12 of the last 14 Northeastern Conference titles and who knows where the 2013 season will lead to, what with an 8-0 record to date.

Yanchus, meanwhile, as unassuming as any coach I have ever known at any level, has his Eagles sitting strong at 8-1, riding an eight-game win streak after Monday’s 3-1 success over visiting Malden Catholic. His players are shooting for nothing less than a 3rd Division 1 state title before sending Yanchus off into the sunset.

Having grown up with Yanchus in Danvers’ Great Oak School district (Pat actually could walk to the school in two minutes), I have followed his career from Great Oak to St. John’s Prep to Brown University, back to the Prep with admiration and pride. Pat’s been the most exemplary teacher-coach-counsel-husband-father-friend I have ever known outside my own family. Ask Prep athletic director Jim O’Leary of Headmaster Ed Hardiman or anyone who has known Pat for 1 week, 1 month, 1 year or 55 years, as I have.

Elsewhere:

• Last week’s life-jolting terrorist bombings at the Boston Marathon, if nothing else, reminded us how much we should appreciate today’s communication technologies. How many hundred of thousands, probably millions, of us whether we were in the city of some place else, rushed to our hand-helds as fast as we could, once he heard the news, to contact a loved one? We all did. Without those devices, imagine the heartache we’d have experienced scrambling in other ways to locate those we care about most.
• We can never overstate the importance of the jobs all first responders do, a fact brought home to us in the most deadly of ways last week. Paramedics, firefighters, police officers, doctors and nurses. They can never be paid enough, in my estimation.
• Amazing start for the Red Sox, disappointing playoff start for the Celtics, mysterious inconsistency by the Bruins, big test for the Patriots braintrust Thursday night and Friday with the NFL Draft.
• Fabuklous documentary on the Discovery Channel last night, produced, directed and narrated by Robert Redford, on the 40th anniversary of the Watergate scandal breaking wide open and the superb movie that sprung from within, starring Redfords and Dustin Hoffman; arguably the greatest journalistic achievement in the history of this country. Thank you, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Ben Bradlee and The Washington Post.

It seems every year I write that the Masters cannot get any more dramatic than the one that just concluded, the next one takes my breath away to an ever greater degree than the previous one. Case in point was Adam Scott’s historic victory yesterday after a nerve-tingling two-hole playoff in a downpour with Argentinian Angel Cabrera.

A zillion players in contention the last nine, all with a chance to win, but they all stumble one one way or another, including Tiger (thankfully), and, with the heavy rain, Scott and Cabrera make amazing birdies on the last hole, Cabrera barely misses a chip-in birdie to win on the first extra hole, leaves his putt on the second extra hole for birdie on the lip, and Scott cans a 12-foot birdie putt right after to become the first Australian to win a green jacket.  Couldn’t happen to a nicer person. Here’s a young man with Hollywood looks, gobs of money, a Swiss home, private jet and , well, he even makes his caddie, Steve Williams, likable.

Most remarkably, these two competitors played marvelous golf when all the chips were on the line despite the wettest finales in recent Master memory. It was really coming down from the 72nd hole for both onward, and they played impeccably.

One of the greatest Masters of all time.

More stuff:

Jerry Remy rarely has anything insightful to say these days.

Wishing lifetime chum Pat Yanchus a perfect 33rd and final season as St. John’s Prep baseball coach hopefully with his third state championship. Then wishing him and wife Kathy an enjoyable retirement when he steps down as a member of the Prep Mathematics Department after he leads the Class of 2013 into Commencement.

I’m rather ashamed that the Town of Danvers has failed to properly recognize the most successful program in Danvers High athletic history, the boys basketball team that just won a second straight state championship. Where were Town manager Wayne Marquis, Schools Superintendent Lisa Dana and Board of Selectman Chairman Mike Powers (a former Falcon cager himself) when the entire community should have come together and honored the team in some form or fashion??? Baffling.

Farewell to two of Boston sportswriting’s greatest: The Associated Press’s Dave O’Hara and The Boston Herald’s D. Leo Monahan, who recently passed. I learned a lot just from reading them. And Channel 5’s Bill O’Connell was another.

Is Rob Gronkowski ever going to smarten up???No one made my father laugh harder than the comedic improvisor supreme, Jonathan Winters, who just left this earth as well. Maude Frickett, we’ll miss you.

Won’t be easy for Danvers sophomore senation Vinny Clifford to match or surpass next winter the 74 three-pointers he made for the the state champion Falconsthis season, but he’s got two years to try.

Yes, that was Andover resident and former Salem News reporter Glenn Johnson following his new boss, Secretary of State John Kerry, on the tarmac as they boarded their plane in Baghdad on page 3 of the March 25 Boston Globe. Glenn’s a senior advisor to our former Massachusetts U.S. Senator globetrotting the world to assist in trying to keep the world safe for all of us.

Belated congrats to Peaboidy girls’ basketball coach Jane Heil and Danvers baseball coach Roger Day for being elected to their respective Massachusetts CoachesHhalls of Fame. And best wishes, too, to North Shore hoop legend Sean Connolly aftyer five smashingly successful years as the Prep basketball coach, a tensure that included winning the 2011 Division 1 state championhip.

Classy gesture by the folks at St. Louis-based Anheuser Busch to place a full-page ad in Sports illustrated earlier this year marking the passing of Hall of Famer Stan Musial, who played his entire career for the Cardinals; a worthy contemporary of Ted Williams.

Had a marvelous time in Fort Myers/Naples the last week of March, not only playing three terrific golf courses in glorious southwest Florida weather in River Hall, CC Naples and Naples National, but also in soaking in all the Florida Gulf Coast University hysteria as they prepared to play in the NCAA Sweet 16. The school is located in Fort Myers. Also that week read a marvelous column by Dr. John Agnew in the March 29 local paper, The News-Press, about retirement. Google it and read it.

Didn’t take long for former Salem State basketball coach Tom Thibodeau, now in charge of the Chicago Bulls, to move up the ladder of top-notch NBA coaches, at least in the estimation of Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix. A nice local flavor to his top 4: 1. Gregg Popovich, San Antonio; 2. Doc Rivers, Celtics; 3. Rick Carlisle (former Celtic, steered into coaching by Larry Bird); 4. Thibodeau.

Belated sympathies to nationally-ranked golf instructor Jane Frost, now with her own golf academy on the Cape, on the passing of her dad, Ray, at the age of 93. A wonderful father, humanitarian and devoted jogger to the end.

In an emotional evening, a fitting final event capping a remarkable season, the repeat Massachusetts Division 3 champion Danvers High Basketball Falcons were honored Tuesday night at Spinelli’s in Lynnfield.

Head coach John Walsh, his staff and the players who overcame great odds to win a second consecutive state title took their bows before more than one hundred family and friends who attended the Boys Basketball Boosters-sponsored occasion.

Emcee Gary Larrabee spoke for the entire Daanvers community when he saluted the team on its historic accomplishments, touting the group as the most acc0mplished unit in Danvers High sports history and one of only two area schools to win back-to-back state titles in the annals of the state basketball tournament.

Larrabee also read a congratulatory letter from Danny Ainge, President of Basketball Operations for the Boston Celtics.

The team received plaudits from Danvers High Principal Susan Ambrozavitch and Athletic Director John Sullivan, who made special Falcons history of his own a few years back when he coached the football team to the school’s first two Northeastern Conference titles in similar back-to-back fashion.

After freshman coach Eric Dugan and junior varsity coach Mark Garrity recognized their squads, head coach Walsh paid tribute to his players, from the bench players to the starting five and the two key reserves.

The Coaches’ Awards went to Duncan D’Hemecourt and super sub Jake Cawlina. Kieran Beck, the other super sub, was tabbed the Unsung Hero, while sophomore Vinny Clifford, the top three-point shooter on the North Shore (he made 79), received the Most Improved Award.

Dan Connors was named the Top Defensive Player, Nick Bates and Nick McKenna shared the “Best All-Around Award,” and Eric Martin was acclaimed the team MVP.

Clifford and Beck were announced as next year’s captains. They will have a herculean task before them as they seek to lead the Falcons to their No. 1 goal, another state title. But who would have believed what the Falcons achieved this season and last?

New from Gary Larrabee……….

The Boston Globe North basketball writer, Pat Bradley, finally came to his senses in today’s editions. He has the newly-crowned repeat Division 3 state champion Danvers High Falcons ranked first in his Top Ten, and he made the choice before the Falcons thrashed Smith Academy yesterday in the D-3 state title game, 66-50. Guess it’s never too late. Congrats, Pat.

This first-ever recognition for the Falcons comes after they were the No. 1-ranked team in The Globe’s overall boys’ basketball rankings at the end of the regular season, unheard of for a D-3 team to receive such accolades.

And the celebration has just started for the Falcons, who got a police/fire engine escort through Danvers Square after they arrived back on the home front early last evening, followed by a smashing team party at the home of Bill McKenna, proud pop of the team’s top scorer all year and 10-point producer Saturday, Nick McKenna.

From a 1-19 record four years ago, new coach John Walsh and his flock of remarkable high-flying Falcons have turned Danvers High into the most successful boys basketball program currently in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

By beating Smith Academy, 66-50, Saturday at the DCU Center in Worcester, Walsh and company became the first boys team to capture successive Division 3 state titles since fellow Northeastern Conference member Lynn Classical pulled it off in 1993-94.

More impressive, the Falcons became the first Greater Salem boys team to win back-to-back state championships EVER — and only the second Greater Salem squad to win two state titles period. Salem accomplished the feat in 1990 and 1995.  Lastly, the Falcons become the first D-3 quintet to cop two state crowns in a row since Pioneer in 1996-97.

The enormity of what the Falcons have accomplished cannot be overstated. From 1-19 the year before Walsh arrived as a jayvee coach with no varsity experience, they posted a 13-10 record his first year in charge, reaching the program’s first North section semifinal round.

Year 2 made history in all kinds of ways, including a 21-4 mark and the program’s first D-3 state championship, led by 6-8 All-Stater George Merry.

That set the stage for this unprecedented season while defending their D-3 title, motivated they could win without the graduated Merry, the Falcons rolled to a 24-2 record in which they started the season with 18 straight wins. They might have won their two Comcast Invitational games against eventual D-2 state champion Brighton and D-1 power Newton North had not Northeastern Conference Small MVP Eric Martin suffered a hip flexor/strained groin. But thankfully he had plenty of time to heal before the Falcons began their title defense. They proceeded to post six straight wins and bring home another MIAA championship trophy.

The greatest two-year run by any major DHS sports team, one of the two greatest sprees ever by a North Shore boys basketball team.

Read the Sunday papers and Monday’s Salem News for all the details of the victory over Smith. Seniors Nick McKenna, Nick Bates, Dan Connors, Eric Martin excelled once again, along with sophomore Vinny Clifford, now the most accomplished group of starters in the history of Danvers High athletics.

More to come.

I’ve been around Danvers High sports since I was a water boy on my big brother Bob’s Oniontowner football teams in 1960 and 1961. I played on two DHS basketball teams that lost Northeastern Conference titles the last week of the season in heartbreaking showdown road losses by a combined three points.

I covered the Falcons (the nickname changed when Russ Fravel took over the football program in the mid-1960s) for The Salem Evening News during a 25-year span that saw some great teams produced, especially in football and baseball, and one NEC champion in basketball (1975, thank you, Ed Gieras and Coach John McGrath in particular).

Over the last nearly 20 years I’ve watched mostly as a fan and observed first-time state championships won by the hockey and baseball teams and the first two NEC titles ever for the football team.

But nothing — nothing — can match what the DHS basketball program has achieved the last two years. Win or lose Saturday as they try and defend their Division 3 state title against little Smith Academy (they’re called the Falcons, too!!) of Hatfield at Worcester’s DCU Center at 12:30 — and they will win, I assure you — this achievement ranks as the greatest in the history of sport at the school.

To finish 21-4 last year, led by 6-8 all-stater George Merry, with the basketball program’s first state championship, then to open the new season, with Merry now toiling for the WPI hoop team, with 18 straight wins, and now five more wins as they try and defend their state title, it’s been an accomplishment for the ages. A win Saturday will simply be the perfect cherry atop the grandest sundae ever served up by the Danvers High basketball team to its community.

I’ve got a million reasons why the Danvers Falcons will beat the Smith Academy Falcons (Hatfield is located a short distance west of Amherst) Saturday, but here are a mere several:

• A head coach, John Walsh, aided by a complementary coaching staff, that knows how to make all the right moves, witness his successful strategies in the fourth quarter of their last two, down-to-the-wire wins over Wayland and Martha’s Vineyard.
• The leadership and all-around clutch play night after night of floor leader Eric Martin
• The equally stunning clutch play off the bench in the closing minutes from Kieran Beck and Jake Cawlina, never more brilliant than in these last two tourney wins
• The indescribably consistent effort and results from Martin’s fellow starters — Nick McKenna, Nick Bates, Dan Connors and Vinny Clifford.
• McKenna’s dynamic offensive play is critical, though the Falcons lived to play another day even after their best scorer shot 2-for-16 against the Vineyard. I predict he will flourish against Smith and bounce back with a 20-point performance.
• Bates and Connors more than hold their own defensively, particularly on the boards, and can be relied upon to get their 10-12-15 points in a variety of ways.
• Super sophomore Clifford is the team’s best three-point shooter, with McKenna and Bates close behind, but I expect Clifford to carry the day from the arc Saturday.
• The D-Falcons set terrific screens that create open shots and automatic two-pointers inside, usually for Bates and Connors.
• They’re exceptional passers. They have a sixth sense of where the open man will be. They know how to defend man-up, how to pinch in the corners, in essence, how to make the opposing team panic. They are a team’s team.
• The D-Falcons will not take the SA-Falcons lightly. Smith’s basketball tradition runs deep. It won the State D-3 title in 1990 and 19902. ‘Nuff said. The D-Falcons  are one game away from making history beyond their wildest dreams: two straight D-3 titles, the first time that’s been accomplished in 16 years statewide, the first time for a North Shore team since Lynn Classical did it in 1993-94.
• They simply will NOT be denied.

A few notes about Smith Academy:

• Smith Academy is the name of the public high school in Hatfield, founded in 1872 thanks to a donation of $75,000 by Sophia Smith.
• Hatfield has a population of less than 3500. The school’s total enrollment is approximately 300.
• Hatfield is one of the last non-regionalized public schools in western Massachusetts.
• The Smith Academy basketball team advanced to face Danvers by beating central Mass. champion Littleton, 72-56, Tuesday at the DCU Center. Littleton led, 37-30, early in the third quarter before Smith took over.
• Expect Smith to use the same 2-3 zone that provided a big plus in its second half rally against Littleton. Smith’s top scorers Tuesday were junior Keith Natale (20, one 3-pointer), senior Matt Sulda (15, three 3s) and Derek McMahon (18, three 3s).

Great, legendary teams know how to win even when they appear to be on the verge of falling off the cliff, i.e. losing.

The Danvers Falcons, a team for the ages, were the perfect example after they grinded out a pulsating 50-47 victory over Martha’s Vineyard Tuesday in the Division 3 state basketball championship semifinals in TD Garden.

So many factors surfaced as the game progessed to suggest the Falcons’ march to a second straight D-3 title was going to end against the Cape Codders. But when the game was on the line, a slew of players made  huge plays in the final minutes, giving the Falcons the opportunity to defend their title in the ultimate matchup, Saturday at Worcester’s DCU Center against Smith Academy of Hatfield.

With the Falcons enduring one of their worst shooting games of the season from the field (4-for-12 in threes) and the foul line (12-for-23), and with their top scorer, Nick McKenna, suffering his worst shooting game as a Falcon (2-for-16), it seemed like their historic two-year run was coming to an end.

But from a point where they trailed, 43-41, with 2:50 remaining, they showed how champions respond to the worst imaginable situation. In the next 2:23 the Falcons ran off seven unanswered points, keyed by their vaunted trap defense that caused two critical MV turnovers, giving them a 48-43 lead with 27 seconds left.

The Falcons, 23-2, made four straight foul shots for the first time all game (two each by Nick Bates and Dan Connors). Supersub Kieran Beck (move over, supersub Jake Cawlina), meanwhile, duplicating his  game-saving steal in the final minute against Wayland Saturday, grabbed a vital offensive rebound that led to a humongously clutch foul line jump shot by Eric Martin for a 47-43 lead with 44 seconds remaining.

And McKenna, whose offense has carried the Falcons ever since he came back from a seven-game layoff because of mono, made three game-clinching free throws in the last 27 seconds to seal the victory, though MV had a chance to tie in the last second before its desperation 25-footer fell far short of the rim.

After all those blowout victories during the regular season, the Falcons has unquestionably learned how to win the close ones, as is evidenced by the down-to-the-wire win over Wayland and now this heart attack-inducing thriller over Martha’s Vineyard.

I doubt the Falcons, with five consecutive tourney victories, could have played worse offensively. They can thank their defense and improved second half rebounding, as well as MV’s tendency to blow layups and shoot inconsistently from every angle, close-in and long range, for assisting in their survival.

Fact is, when the game was on the line, the Falcons delivered in the biggst way possible against a taller squad that was more effective three-point shooting (MV made six) and simply better than its press clippings and regular season record indicated.  MV came in on a four-game roll, keyed by an impressive 77-71 win over Wareham Saturday, and was most capable of knocking off the kings.

But Danvers clearly had a will that MV did not have and put it on display over the last three minutes.

The chant the rest of the week in every part of Danverstown should be “One More Time!!!” Saturday at Worcester is the last obstacle for the Fabulous Falcons to make history a thousand different ways. Coach John Walsh and staff will do their job. I guarantee that starters McKenna, Bates, Martin, Connors and Vinny Clifford, plus supersubs Beck and Cawlina, as well as the rest of the reserves, will be ready like never before.

They learned lessons galore from their courageous triumph in Boston. They will apply those lessons in  victorious fashion at the DCU Center. The magic will continue for one more 32-minute game.