Good morning!

Last week Natalie “Nat” Rios was the best MIAA javelin thrower in the commonwealth, and today she’ll try to be the best in New England. The former Pioneer student-athlete is in North Berwick, Maine, this morning to throw at the 79th annual New England Interscholastic Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Noble High School.

Currently a junior at South Hadley High School, Rios won the states last week at Merrimack College in North Andover where she threw a personal best of 125 feet, four inches, beating Taunton High School’s Max Cassinelli by one inch.

Javelin throwing dates back to the Ancient Olympics of 708 BC, and the sport was revived by the Scandinavians in the late 1700s. According to AI Overview it “requires a rare blend of explosive sprinting speed, elite shoulder mobility and total-body coordination.”

It’s no surprise that Rios has those qualities. Her father Pedro holds GCC’s scoring record in basketball, and her brother Brendan holds the record at Easthampton High School.

She was “discovered” in the eighth grade by former Pioneer track & field coach Erin Thayer, who’s now at Four Corners School in Greenfield. “Erin asked her to try throwing in practice and she was throwing about 20 feet short of the school record.” remembered her father. “She has the five longest throws in school history.”

Thayer said it was a matter of finding the right event for her. “She was an athlete but didn’t have a lot of self confidence.”

Pioneer AD Nick Adams said Rios had help along the way. “I believe it was Nat’s freshman year she worked with Boston University’s record holder Owen Faulha who threw at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Oregon on Wednesday.”

Rios is representing South Hadley High School and not Pioneer — just one of those things. About a year ago, Rios’s landlord told him he was putting their house on the market. “We decided to be proactive,” he said. “With the uncertainty of a thin housing market we settled on a house that we bought in South Hadley.”

When South Hadley’s town leaders threatened to eliminate sports after a Proposition 2-1/2 override failed, Rios, who works in the Amherst school system, assented to his daughter’s wishes to return to Pioneer but with one caveat. “If South Hadley came up with the money to save sports we were staying. That was the deal.”

If she can match her personal best today, Rios will likely finish in the top four. Last year’s winning throw by senior Lauren Smith of New Canaan (Ct.) High School was 138-4, but Smith was a senior and is currently enrolled at Cornell where she’s on the women’s track & field team.

Mackenzie Cleary of Burrillville (RI) High School was last year’s runner up with a throw of 129-9, followed by Emily Yurcisin (126-6) of Brookfield (Ct.) High School and Allessandra Forgione (123-11) of Peabody Veterans Memorial High School.

South Hadley did come up with the cash for sports in 2026-27 and Rios will be wearing orange and black, not Pioneer’s black and Vegas gold. Meanwhile the house they rented in Northfield still hasn’t been sold — just one of those things indeed.

****

Post 81 baseball boss Bill Phelps says “Until we get the situation with the lights fixed we’ll be starting our games at 5:45 instead of 7 p.m.”

This year’s team looks solid under coach Alex Siano, an all-star squad composed of players from eight different schools in Franklin County. Sean Callaghan is back doing the PA the way it’s supposed to be done; the way Sherm Feller did it for the Red Sox — just the facts.

****

Greenfield’s Taylor Lively will be inducted into Castleton State’s Hall of Fame next fall during Homecoming and Family Weekend. Lively is the Spartans’ all-time wins and strikeouts leader and was the North Atlantic Conference Player of the Year in 2012. “A good, quiet kid who shined big,” says a friend.

****

Adam Wodon and Mike McMahon were dishing on a recent offseason College Hockey News podcast. “Yale was searching for a coach,” said Wodon. “Their AD, Vicky Chun, was raked over the coals by their ex-coach in a letter that got out.”

Longtime coach Keith Allain called Chun “the absolute worst leader I have ever been around in my life.”

Allain was a four-year starter in goal for late Yale coach Tim Taylor. He was inducted  into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, named CHN’s coach of the year in 2008-09 and helped Yale win the 2013 Frozen Four, but that wasn’t good enough for Chun.

Former UMass assistant coach Jared Demichel — now at Michigan State — was turned down for the job despite helping the Spartans go 26-9-2 this year and finish fifth in the polls. “She makes the new hire,” said Wodon. “It goes to Jeff Hamilton who has never coached anywhere above youth hockey before. However, he has a boatload of money.”

****

Good punters go to bad teams because they don’t want to  waste their time punting into a net on the sideline. Their license plates should read 4+LONG.

Last year Keegan Andrews punted 69 times for the winless UMass Minutemen, two behind Coastal Carolina’s Emile Sebafundi and one behind Charlotte’s Bronson Long. Andrews put the ball inside the red zone 26 times, sixth-best in the FBS and good enough for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to take him 13th overall in April’s CFL draft.

The only punter on this year’s UMass roster is 6-foot-3, 230-pound sophomore Edward Phillipson of Geelong Grammar School in Melbourne. Apparently grammar school doesn’t mean the same in Australia as it does over here.

****

Mets radio announcer Keith Raad recently mentioned a journeyman righthander named Robert Stock who made a spot start for the Red Sox last season. “Someone tweeted he looked like he was twice-divorced and had given up on life.” said Raad. “His wife saw it and retweeted, ‘Zero times divorced, but if he keeps walking leadoff batters I’ll consider it.”

****

Former NBA point guard Jason Williams — seventh overall pick in the 1998 draft and member of the ’05-’06 NBA champion Miami Heat — left Oklahoma City after Texas Tech lost the first game of the College Softball World Series. He was there watching his daughter play for the Red Raiders but felt he was becoming a distraction. “There was a lot of chirping,” Williams said on Greg Olsen’s podcast. “It was best for me to leave and let the girls do their thing.”

****

SQUIBBERS: The first three hitters in the Red Sox lineup went 0-for-9 with nine strikeouts on Wednesday, and that hadn’t happened in an MLB game since 1901. Alex Cora’s still under contract, why not bring him back for another go-round? … Vanderbilt’s Candice Story Lee was named Sports Business Journal’s Athletic Director of the Year. What, no Ryan Bamford? … The SportsHub’s Jim Murray on PK Subban’s attire: “He was wearing something that looked like my grandmother’s couch.” … Monday’s the 39th anniversary of the day they traded Tom Seaver to the Reds and Dave Kingman to the Padres in what came to be called The Midnight Massacre. … There’s  probably more basketball than ads in the NBA finals, but it’s close. …. On Monday in Anaheim, Jose Altuve scored from third base on a pop fly caught in shallow center by second baseman Nick Madrigal.  Catcher Logan O’Hoppe couldn’t handle Madrigal’s throw and couldn’t hide his discouragement after the 5-4 loss: “This game takes more than it gives. I’m sick to my stomach about it.” … At the risk of alienating two-thirds of the readership, it is my patriotic duty to report that the Republicans beat the Democrats, 11-2, in the Congressional baseball game at Nationals Park on Wednesday. …  You can have Aaron Judge, I’ll take Cleveland’s Jose Ramirez who’s played in all but 29 of 879 regular season games since 2021 with 168 home runs and 545 RBIs. … Mark Halperin ended his interview with New York Post business correspondent Lydia Moynihan by asking, “Are you all caught up in Knicks mania?” Moynihan was stumped. “Who’s Nick?” she asked. And finally, Mike Noonan reports that Jim Rice had a hole-in-one at the Southampton Country Club on Thursday.