Eagles in flight: Gilford High School's 'unbelievable' fall sports season

GILFORD — To say that Gilford High School’s athletic programs have had a banner year would be an understatement. 

The combined record of the field hockey, boys and girls varsity soccer and football teams this year was 66-2 and, with a student body of fewer than 500 students, the Golden Eagles took home three state titles and a runner-up trophy.

Completing an undefeated season, the Gilford High School Field Hockey team won the Division III state championship title Oct. 29 in a 2-0 win over Bishop Brady. The following Friday, the girls soccer team also hoisted the trophy in a 3-1 win over St. Thomas Aquinas. Then, that Sunday, an undefeated Gilford  boys soccer also took home the title in a 4-0 rout over Mascoma Valley. An underdog boys cross country team were runners-up, with senior Patrick Gandini winning the state Meet of Champions in a photo-finish and placing fourth at the New England Championship.

The combined Gilford-Belmont Eagles football team was undefeated before their narrow loss to Souhegan in the semifinals Saturday. For a team that just a year ago had its first winning record since becoming a combined program  that has floundered at the bottom of Division II standings for most of recent memory, the accomplishments of the year are still monumental, and they helped carry a wave of pride and inter-team support to what is often thought of as a “soccer school.”

“This has been an unbelievable fall,” said Gilford Athletic Director Rick Acquilano, “but it’s also no accident.”

“We have student-athletes who are so dedicated to their craft, especially off the field, and coaches who are true educators,” Acquilano continued. “During the season you build teams, and in the offseason you build players. This year we had programs that were able to do both.” 

The seniors leading this year’s teams were in their first year of high school when the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020. They are the only class of current students at GHS who lost a season of high school sports to lockdown — which might have turned out to be their strength. 

“Our community ran out of the pandemic with a renewed appreciation for the opportunities in front of us,” said Acquilano, who also coaches Gilford’s boys basketball team. They were on the doorstep of a state championship when everything was called off. “Athletic programs have so much to do with the culture and community of your school, and in 2020 we got a taste of losing that.”

For many students, athletics became a release and a life preserver during the hardest times of the pandemic. Some have even said it was the only thing at school they remained excited about. Their appreciation shows. Coaches from every team underscored the dedication and vigor of their players more than their talent — although there was plenty of that, too.

Taking home a title means something different to each program: it culminates a different journey, remedies a different past mistake.

For the field hockey team, clinching a perfect season was sweet victory for an eight-player contingent of seniors who, as coach David Rogacki described, faced “numerous bumps in the road” throughout their career at GHS.

“This was a bit of a revenge tour for them, a chance to really be able to use their talents without having to take any detours,” Rogacki said. 

The resiliency of the team, though, went down the roster. The squad was able to seamlessly replace two starters out with injuries mid-season, and that adaptability met with their stamina to make them the team to beat in the division all fall. 

“We play a different type of field hockey than other teams,” Rogacki said. “We just keep an incredibly fast pace, so that, even late in the game, our opponents think ‘they’re still coming at us.’”

Season-long dominance was shared by boys varsity soccer. Though coach Dave Pinkham is no stranger to talented teams — in his 46 seasons as boys soccer coach he has taken home 16 titles and 10 runner-up spots — this year is a standout.

Beyond their undefeated record, the team outscored their opponents 102-5 and delivered 15 shutouts. No team scored more than once against them in a single game and they allowed not a single goal in the entire playoff tournament, finishing the season with seven consecutive shutouts.

That dominance came from a deep, talented bench, a balanced score sheet and a constantly improving defensive line. 

“In recent years for this team, scoring was the limitation, but this year we had many, many kids who could score,” Pinkham said. Four athletes racked up double-digit scoring totals this year, and five had double-digit assists. 

“It was the type of season a coach can only dream about,” Pinkham said. “We didn’t have any weaknesses.”

There was a poetry to girls varsity soccer’s post-season triumphs. 

They lost 7-3 to St. Thomas Aquinas in the first game of the year. But it didn’t get them down. They went undefeated after that, allowing just five goals against them the rest of the season. When they faced St. Thomas Aquinas again in the finals on the Laconia High School turf, they came back from a 1-0 deficit to win.

“That final might be my single most favorite game I’ve ever watched here,” Acquilano said. 

The unity of this team, said coach Rob Meyers, made them resilient.

“Once the games start, they’re really one team, one unit,” he said. “And they play for each other every single game.”

That gel was apparent in their quarterfinal match-up against Derryfield, a team who eliminated the Eagles in the same round last season. After an immediate equalizer by Derryfield early on, Gilford won the game, 5-1. That was the moment Meyers knew his team could go all the way.

“They didn’t get down, not for a second,” he said.

Though Gilford is often known as a “soccer school,” the girls team has lived somewhat in the shadow of the boys in recent decades, Acquilano said, as longtime-dominant field hockey and volleyball programs drew female talent. This was the team’s first title since 2006.

For the first time since 1985, Gilford boys cross country placed in the top two at the D III championship, where the top five runners from each team are scored. 

Senior Patrick Gandini "won the race, but we did so well because all of the other top boys ran their best,” coach Kathy Aldridge said. “We were hoping for top five, so getting runner-up meant a lot.”

Gandini went on to win the Meet of Champions against runners from all districts by two hundredths of a second. He placed fourth at the New England Championships and will go on to compete at regionals and, if he’s top five there, at nationals later this fall. Gandini is the first male cross country runner to win the Meet of Champions in Gilford High School history.

Gandini hits the ground running every season, Aldridge said, because of a regular yet measured training schedule. His success has accumulated throughout his running career because of this work ethic, and his leadership uplifts and motivates his teammates. 

“Patrick takes his running very seriously, but he doesn’t take himself too seriously,” Aldridge said. “He’s well-liked,” even by runners from other teams. This leadership, as well as the addition of assistant coach John Goegels and more regular summer training, has helped the program make gains in the last two years, something Aldridge hopes to continue. 

Gilford-Belmont football, after forming a cooperative team in 2014, spent years struggling in a division dominated by resource- and population-rich schools like Bow and Plymouth.

Last year, the team had its first winning record and made its first playoff appearance since conjoining. This year, while coaches knew at the outset they had a chance to reach new heights, they had no idea just how high they would soar. 

The success — an undefeated regular season and number-one ranking entering the playoffs — was a long time in the making for this group, said head coach Josh Marzahl.

“This is a group of kids that have been playing together for a very long time,” Marzahl said. “They won a couple of championships at the elementary and middle school level, so they really know how to win as a team, and that’s translated into what we do here.”

Handily defeating Bow, a division darling, in the third week of the season, the team gained confidence and hunger.

“That was really a big turning point for us,” Marzahl said. “We went from just wanting to make the playoffs to wanting to make a playoff run.”

And though that run was halted in a devastating 29-28 semifinal loss against Souhegan after being up 28-14 at the half, the season is still a landmark for the program and shows the players that hard work can and does pay off. 

Trophies and scoreboards are a triumph in the moment, but broad, shared success has brought renewed vigor to school pride and a sense of inter-program inspiration to GHS. 

Every coach interviewed mentioned how special it was to see students from across the school cheering them on this year.

“I’ve seen students attend games before,” Acquilano said. “But not like this.”

“This was the first year I’ve seen the kids really excited about other sports,” Aldridge echoed. “It’s contagious.”

That “network of support, caring and rooting each other on,” Acquilano continued, are the true spoils of the season.

“It’s a tough season to replicate,” Acquilano chuckled. “Winter coaches take notice.”