How hard is it to win it all?
The elusive state championship
by Steve Sheppard Independent Sports Editor
They finished with the school's best record ever in basketball (20-4), appeared in four state tournament games, and came one game away from competing for the state final. When they played Sacred Heart, they were one of only four teams remaining from the initial field of nineteen.

By any measure, it was a great run for the Nantucket High School girls' basketball team. It also proved how hard it is to win that elusive state championship. Watch

That we can even mention Nantucket - one of the smallest schools to play athletics in Massachusetts - as a state title contender in any sport is reason enough to cheer. Nonetheless, both basketball teams this year were granted top seeds (the girls' at number two and the boys' number three), and with the youth of both squads, there's good reason to believe each will be back come tournament time next year.

Still, making the tournament and advancing all the way to the end are two entirely different concepts. "It's very difficult," girls' head coach Willis Ferreira said this week. "You need a little luck, you have to play well at the right time; it's a combination of a lot of things."

As former boys' basketball coach Dennis Caron noted during the playoffs: once you reach the tournament, you have to bring your "A" game every night. Ferreira couldn't agree more. "You have to play, and win, up to six games to be a state champ," he said. "It's tough to do, night in and night out."

The playoff set-up is grueling. Simply surviving to the finals of the South Sectional round, a feat first accomplished on Nantucket by this year's boys' soccer team, is a stellar achievement in itself. "It's exciting for soccer and basketball to get as far we did," soccer coach Rich Brannigan said. "The playoff-style format is definitely a challenge."

As a team goes deeper, he noted, players can find themselves against opponents who have vastly different approaches to the game. "What kind of conference did they come out of? What's their style of play?" Brannigan wanted to know. "I told my guys that at this point in the season, every team is a good team; some teams can dig a little deeper. That's why seeding doesn't really matter."

It also helps if you've been there before. Just the experience of playing in the state tournament is immeasurable. By the time the girls got to Stonehill to face Sacred Heart (and it hasn't been mentioned, but weren't the odds stacked by playing a Catholic high school at a Catholic college?) they had already been introduced to the frenzy that only gets incrementally crazier the deeper a team goes. The gym at Stonehill was hyper, to say the least; proof that fan intensity at high school games can be raucous without being out of control.

To Brannigan, the experience gained by Nantucket teams now will pay dividends down the road. "I think Nantucket sports in general are going to see more successes in the post-season," he said. "The kids coming up are observing and learning. Let's say they're CPS students - they've traveled to games; they're learning from those experiences. That sort of thing is passed down. There are the siblings of players who have made it to the state finalists' games: that will turn around to benefit all sports."

We've seen that kind of knowledge handed down before: the Nantucket football tradition is one big reason why the Whalers remain the only NHS team to earn a state title, with 3 Super Bowl victories to their credit.

The coaches say it's different, though, for the sports that have to contend with the tiered bracket system.

"It may be a little harder to do," said Ferreira, who as a player suited up for two Super Bowl teams. "It's just like March Madness right now. Ohio State got lucky the other night and hit a three-pointer and went on to the next game. They probably should have lost that game. Now if they end up winning the national championship . . . ."

It's the old one and done - it either frustrates you, or propels you along the road to victory. Had the girls played a second game against Sacred Heart, the outcome may have been different. "No team ever beat us twice this year," co-captain Anna Burnham noted after that game.

"You need luck," Ferreira reiterated.

"And it's hard." I