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Billerica Memorial High School Golf

Billerica Memorial High School Golf is the varsity golf team of Billerica Memorial High School. Begun as a spring sport in the early 1970s and played in the fall since at least the 1980s, the team has its home course at the Country Club of Billerica on Baldwin Road, which opened as a nine-hole public course in 1971. Under coach Mike Cowdrey, who coached from 1987 into the 2000s and won his 100th match in 1998, the team won Merrimack Valley Conference small school championships in 1993 and 1994 and reached the state tournament many times. Joel Jenkins has coached the team since about 2005.

There was no golf team at Howe High School. The first sign of one at the new high school is in the Warrior of 1974, whose seniors listed two years on the "Golf Team" and remembered "our 'perfect' golf record," so the team was playing by the spring of 1973. The yearbook of that year carried the first advertisement of the Country Club of Billerica, "Nine Hole Public Golf Course, Club House, Pro Shop, Driving Range." The Warrior of 1976 gave the golf team its own pages in its spring supplement, with a picture of the team in front of the pro shop, and a senior of 1977 remembered "State tourneys 75, 76, 77."

By the fall of 1986 golf was a fall sport in the Merrimack Valley Conference, with the state tournament held the next spring. That season the team needed to beat Haverhill, unbeaten at 14-0 and first in the league, in its last match to earn a place in the tournament, and did so in wind, snow and freezing rain. Mike Cowdrey's first teams went 11-5 in 1987, third in the league, and 10-5-1 in 1988, both qualifying for the state tournament. In 1990 the team went 10-5, finished third in the conference and fifteenth at the state tournament, and beat the defending state champion Haverhill 9-3 to end its 51-match winning streak. The 1993 team went 11-3, with nine straight wins, and won the conference championship, and Cowdrey was named coach of the year; the 1994 team, 9-4-1, won a second straight small school title. The 1996 team went 10-5-1, finished third in the conference and made the state finals "for the first time in over fifteen years." In 1999 the team ended Andover's 57-match unbeaten streak, and in 2000 it went 9-5-2, finished second in the conference and placed second in its division of the North Sectional tournament.

Joel Jenkins was head coach by the 2005 season, with Mr. Miner and later Caitlin Barry as assistant coaches; the yearbook of 2007 describes the team spending "endless hours at the Billerica Country Club" on putting, driving and chipping. His 2007 team went 7-9-2 and beat its town rival, Shawsheen Valley Technical High School, in the last match of the season to spoil Shawsheen's perfect record.

Mike Glavine, younger brother of Tom Glavine, played on the golf teams of the fall of 1989 and 1990 while also playing hockey and baseball at the high school. He went on to Northeastern University, played six games at first base for the New York Mets in 2003, and has been the head baseball coach at Northeastern since 2015.

Billerica Memorial High School varsity golf by season (the year of the fall season from 1986), from Warrior yearbooks. Records are as printed; blank cells are not known, and seasons with no surviving information are omitted.
Season	Head coach	League	Match record	League finish	State/sectional results	Notes
1973						Spring season; the first team in the yearbooks
1975-1977					State tournament each year, as a senior recalled	Spring seasons
1986		Merrimack Valley Conference	10-5-1		Qualified for the state tournament	Beat league leader Haverhill in the last match
1987	Mike Cowdrey	Merrimack Valley Conference	11-5	3rd	State tournament
1988	Mike Cowdrey	Merrimack Valley Conference	10-5-1		State tournament	Second straight year in the state finals
1989	Mike Cowdrey	Merrimack Valley Conference	7-9		Just missed the state tournament
1990	Mike Cowdrey	Merrimack Valley Conference	10-5	3rd	15th at the state tournament	Ended Haverhill's 51-match winning streak, 9-3
1991	Mike Cowdrey	Merrimack Valley Conference	6-8-2		Three golfers to the state tournament
1992	Mike Cowdrey	Merrimack Valley Conference	8-6-1		Missed the state tournament by one point
1993	Mike Cowdrey	Merrimack Valley Conference	11-3	Champion (small school)	State tournament	Cowdrey MVC coach of the year
1994	Mike Cowdrey	Merrimack Valley Conference	9-4-1	Champion (small school)		Second straight small school title
1995	Mike Cowdrey	Merrimack Valley Conference	6-8-2		Missed the state finals
1996	Mike Cowdrey	Merrimack Valley Conference	10-5-1	3rd	State finals	First state finals in over fifteen years
1997	Mike Cowdrey	Merrimack Valley Conference	11-5	3rd
1998	Mike Cowdrey	Merrimack Valley Conference	7-7-2	5th	Two individual state qualifiers	Cowdrey's 100th win, in his 12th year
1999	Mike Cowdrey	Merrimack Valley Conference		5th	Tied for 5th at the Division 1 North qualifier	Ended Andover's 57-match unbeaten streak
2000	Mike Cowdrey	Merrimack Valley Conference	9-5-2	2nd	2nd in the North Sectional
2001		Merrimack Valley Conference			5th at the state tournament	Won its last three matches to qualify
2002		Merrimack Valley Conference	7-8-1		Missed the state tournament by one win
2003		Merrimack Valley Conference	7-8-1		Just missed the state tournament
2004		Merrimack Valley Conference	8-7-1		Postseason tournament	First postseason in three years
2005	Joel Jenkins	Merrimack Valley Conference	6-10
2007	Joel Jenkins	Merrimack Valley Conference	7-9-2			Beat Shawsheen Tech in the last match
2011	Joel Jenkins	Merrimack Valley Conference				Assistant coach Caitlin Barry

Billerica Memorial High School Golf

Billerica Memorial High School Golf

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