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Billerica Memorial High School Field Hockey

Billerica Memorial High School Field Hockey was the girls' field hockey program of Howe High School and Billerica Memorial High School. The sport was introduced at Howe High in 1931, after the town engaged its first director of physical education for girls, lapsed after 1932 while the high school athletic field was out of use, and returned in the fall of 1939. From then on it was played every fall, as far as the school reports and yearbooks show, until 1981. The best teams were the undefeated teams of 1960 and 1961 under Barbara L. Hood, the 1965 team that played Chelmsford for the league championship, and the Merrimack Valley Conference teams of 1974 and 1979, which reached the state tournament. No field hockey team appears in the yearbooks after the 1981 season, and field hockey is not among the school's varsity sports today. For four decades the word hockey in the school reports meant this game; ice hockey came to the school only in 1964 (see Billerica Memorial High School Hockey).

Rose M. O'Neil, a graduate of the Posse-Nissen School, joined the Billerica schools in 1931 as instructor in physical education. The principal of Howe High reported that year that "the appointment of a Director of Physical Training has made it possible to carry on an excellent course for the particular benefit of our girl pupils, as well as training in Basketball and Field Hockey," and in 1932 that "under the supervision of the Physical Training Director and the Athletic Coach, we carried on work in football, baseball, basketball and field hockey." From 1933 the high school athletic field was out of use for five years during construction at the school, and no field hockey was played again until 1939.

In her report for 1939 Miss O'Neil wrote that "a new playing field allowed us to play field hockey again after an absence of seven years. The squad consisted of from forty to fifty girls and played two varsity games with Tewksbury." The Howe yearbook of 1940 called it the year field hockey "was taken up again as a competitive sport at Howe High"; the team, mostly freshmen and sophomores, lost to Tewksbury 1-0 and 2-0, and a second team lost to Tewksbury 1-0. Willa F. Pasho, in her first year as physical director, coached the 1940 team, again of twenty-five to thirty players, which lost 1-0 at Tewksbury and played a scoreless tie with Tewksbury at Howe; she wrote that the game's "popularity is increasing rapidly." The director of athletics listed the Howe sports of 1939-40 as "Football, girls' field hockey, boys' and girls' basketball, and baseball," all coached by full time teachers "without remuneration for the many hours of coaching."

Field hockey stayed on the girls' program through the 1940s and 1950s, and by the late 1950s the school also had junior varsity and freshman teams. Barbara L. Hood, a physical education teacher at Howe High from 1953, moved to Billerica Memorial High School in 1955 and coached field hockey, girls' basketball and softball. In 1960, when the school played in the Lowell Suburban League, the athletic director Charles L. Lampson reported that "the girls program on the interscholastic level also includes field hockey and softball"; his list of coaches gave the field hockey team to B. Hood, with forty girls on the varsity and only a limited junior varsity, for which he recommended a general assistant coach for girls.

Miss Hood's team of 1959 "didn't produce many victories" but lost "by very close margins." Her 1960 team went 6-0-1, beating Chelmsford twice, Westford, Burlington, Acton and Wilmington and tying Salem, and the yearbook called it the most successful season "since being introduced in 1956." The 1961 team went 7-0-2 for a "second consecutive undefeated season," and the 1962 team went 4-2-2. Miss Clark coached the 1963 team to a 3-1-3 record, and the 1964 team won three, lost two to Acton-Boxboro and tied three. The 1965 varsity went 5-2-1, losing only a nonleague game to Acton and the championship game to Chelmsford, 1-0. Mrs. Winters coached the 1967 varsity to a record of three wins, three losses and a tie, with Miss Foley coaching the junior varsity, and members of the class of 1971 remembered playing field hockey "with Miss Koplow."

Miss Hood was coaching again by 1972, a season of "a great desire to win, even though the results were lacking." With Nancy Phillips as her assistant, her 1973 team went 5-2-1 and finished "one game behind the leaders in the Merrimack Valley Conference"; the highlight was a 1-0 win over Andover, the league champion. The 1974 team finished second in the conference, entered the state tournament with the qualifying 15 points, and lost its first game to Wellesley, 6-0. The 1975 team went 3-4-7, and the 1976 team, with most of its players in their first varsity season, had a losing record. The 1977 varsity improved to 6-6-2, with a junior varsity coached by Miss Robertson and a freshman team coached by Mrs. Sarno, and the 1978 team went 7-4-3 and was second in the Merrimack Valley Conference.

The 1979 team was the strongest of the conference years: 11-2-1 in the regular season, it won a game in the state tournament before losing to Woburn, the defending state champion, and five of its seniors were honored on the all-conference team. The 1980 team went 7-2-4 and finished second in the Merrimack Valley West, missing the tournament by two tenths of a point (18 points, with 18.2 needed for the required 70 percent). The 1981 team went 6-1-6, allowed only four goals and shut out ten of its thirteen opponents, finished second, and missed the tournament "by only 8/10%"; its goalkeeper was nominated as a Globe All-Scholastic.

The 1981 season is the last in the yearbooks. The superintendent wrote in 1982 that under Proposition 2 1/2 there had been "many reductions in services" in the schools, including "Athletics both Intramural and Interscholastic for the 1981-82 school year," and that "the 1982-83 school year got underway with the same reductions." No field hockey team appears in the Warrior from 1983 on, and the sport is not among the varsity sports the school offers today. Girls' volleyball, begun in the fall of 1974, has been the school's other fall team sport for girls since then (see Billerica Memorial High School Volleyball).

Howe High School and Billerica Memorial High School girls' varsity field hockey by season, from town reports and the Howe and Warrior yearbooks. Records are as printed (W-L-T); blank cells are not known, and seasons with no surviving information are omitted.
Season	Head coach	League	Record (W-L-T)	League finish	Tournament result	Notes
1931	Rose M. O'Neil					Introduced under the new director of physical education
1932	Rose M. O'Neil					Last season before a seven-year absence
1933-1938						No team
1939	Rose M. O'Neil		0-2			Revived; squad of 40 to 50; two varsity games with Tewksbury (lost 1-0, 2-0)
1940	Willa F. Pasho		0-1-1			Both games with Tewksbury; letters awarded
1959	Barbara L. Hood					Few wins; losses "by very close margins"
1960	Barbara L. Hood		6-0-1			Undefeated
1961	Barbara L. Hood		7-0-2			Second consecutive undefeated season
1962	Barbara L. Hood		4-2-2
1963	Miss Clark		3-1-3
1964			3-2-3			From the printed scores
1965			5-2-1			Lost the championship game to Chelmsford 1-0
1967	Mrs. Winters		3-3-1			Junior varsity coach Miss Foley
1972	Barbara L. Hood
1973	Barbara L. Hood	Merrimack Valley Conference	5-2-1	One game behind the leaders		Assistant coach Nancy Phillips; beat league champion Andover 1-0
1974	Barbara L. Hood	Merrimack Valley Conference		2nd	Lost to Wellesley 6-0 in the first round	Qualified with 15 points
1975		Merrimack Valley Conference	3-4-7
1976		Merrimack Valley Conference				Losing record; mostly first-year varsity players
1977		Merrimack Valley Conference	6-6-2			Junior varsity coach Miss Robertson, freshman coach Mrs. Sarno
1978		Merrimack Valley Conference	7-4-3	2nd
1979		Merrimack Valley Conference	11-2-1		Won one game; lost to defending state champion Woburn	Regular-season record; five all-conference seniors
1980		Merrimack Valley Conference	7-2-4	2nd (West)	Missed qualifying by 0.2 point
1981		Merrimack Valley Conference	6-1-6	2nd	Missed qualifying by 0.8 percent	Ten shutouts in 13 games; last season in the yearbooks

Billerica Memorial High School Field Hockey

Billerica Memorial High School Field Hockey

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