Last March, Bishop Fenwick coach Adam DeBaggis found an additional, unintended perk of being a father of two small children: He had an excuse to tune out the MIAA postseason.
DeBaggis didn’t watch a single playoff game. Neither did Celia Neilson. Caitlin Boyle paid attention occasionally when her friends played, and she watched Medfield defeat Worcester South in the Division 2 championship. It wasn’t easy.
“You obviously respect the good basketball that was going on, but it was definitely hard, knowing that we had beaten (Medfield) twice, and that if we were allowed in the playoffs, we probably would have been there,” Boyle said.
The headline-grabber of the 2023-24 MIAA season was Bishop Fenwick’s school-wide ban from state playoffs. In July 2023, the MIAA handed out its most significant punishment ever as a result of multiple athlete eligibility violations on Bishop Fenwick’s baseball team. The MIAA alleged the school repeatedly provided misleading and inaccurate information in its waiver applications for those players and failed to take responsibility for its mistakes. Bishop Fenwick contested the decision and sought an emergency order against the ban, but a Massachusetts Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the MIAA in October.
The ban dealt the toughest blow to the girls basketball team. The Crusaders had one of their best rosters in recent years and were the favorites to win their second state championship. They wore frustration on their sleeves last season, and fueled by it, they finished 17-3, won their Comcast Tournament bracket and only lost to the two Div. 1 finalists.
It’s a new year, but wiping the slate clean is easier said than done.
“I'm a competitor, so deep down, there’s a little fire in there,” DeBaggis said. “Any real good competitor needs that. We got screwed, for lack of a better term, and there's just a nameless, faceless enemy out there that we're still trying to beat. That's not why, but I'm emotional like that. I don't think I'll ever get over that totally.”
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Boyle (Beverly, Mass.) and Neilson (Georgetown, Mass.) started as sophomores last season. They were key members of the supporting cast surrounding Cecilia Kay, a dominant center who is now a freshman at American University.
Kay was Bishop Fenwick’s beacon. Her preseason pep text once the ban became inescapable is part of program lore. Boyle recalls being scared of Kay’s competitive intensity when she arrived as a freshman, but that fire helped power the entire team through last season’s ordeal.
“Some people try and joke, and if you tried to joke with her, it was not a thing. You couldn't do it,” Boyle said.
With five graduated seniors, that tone-setting responsibility now falls on Boyle and Neilson. DeBaggis has encouraged them both to be more vocal and take initiative as the two best players in the program, and Neilson looks to Kay as a blueprint.
“Just definitely being the person that (Kay) was for everyone — she was like my big sister,” Neilson said. “I could always go to her if I had something, or if I wanted to work out with her, she would always be there for me. Just doing that, and trying to grow up a little bit, in a sense.”
Boyle and Neilson are capable stars-in-waiting. They’re close friends who eat Chipotle together before every home game and are AAU teammates on MCW Starz. Their talent is becoming evident — both picked up their first Division 1 offers over the summer.
Neilson got hers from Le Moyne and remembers the coaching staff calling her post-AAU season as soon as she returned from a trip to Costa Rica. Boyle (who also has a Le Moyne offer) got her first from Harvard. She was in a study hall when her AAU coach, Keith Derba, texted her that big news was coming.
“He goes, ‘Oh yeah. I just got off the phone with Harvard,’ and it said, ‘...they're gonna offer,’” Boyle recalled. “It was the craziest feeling ever, because I've been playing basketball for a while, and I wanted to play in college, but I never really thought it was gonna be real until that text.”
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Both ramped up their offseason training. Neilson, a 6-foot point guard, was in the weight room three times per week in addition to her AAU practice and game schedule. Boyle committed to developing more of her scoring and post moves, things that took a back seat when the 6-foot-2 forward supported Kay in the frontcourt.
The duo is replacing Kay’s impact and the steadiness of graduated guard Bella Lopez-Marin. DeBaggis plans to maximize their synergy by mixing in some two-player actions, and believes they have the tools to fill star voids.
“Two simple things give me the confidence: their work ethic and their talent,” he said.
Bishop Fenwick has others ready to step up — DeBaggis mentioned seniors Caroline Perry, Kylie Bloom and Sienna Mancinelli, as well as sophomores Kyleigh Pidgeon and Abby Jenkins — but those five played scarcely last season. DeBaggis will need to make on-court changes, and recalibrate his own coaching wiring.
The 14th-year head coach’s cold-blooded competitive energy had a different fuel source. DeBaggis typically likes to build his team up so they’re at their best in March. But last year, the only way the Crusaders could prove themselves was by winning every regular season game possible. During Christmas break, when Bishop Fenwick played Medfield the first time, DeBaggis called a timeout mere minutes into the contest and laid into his team for their lack of early effort in a potential statement matchup.
“Everything was a little more in the moment — we’ve got to win this game (or) win that game — and so I actually didn't like that,” he said. “I think that was more negative. Aside from not being in the playoffs, it created that negative (of) everything matters right now, and growth doesn't matter as much as winning now.”
Neilson said her motivation to win didn’t change much, but for Boyle, it created a different sort of chip on her shoulder.
“People are watching, and they're kind of waiting for you to fail, or just go down from not being able to play and just give up,” she said. “So I feel like the motivation (was there) to prove everyone wrong and just keep playing for us and the team.”
Now, DeBaggis’ challenge is re-teaching players how to work through a season with state championship goals in mind. He’s happy to have the experience of Boyle and Neilson, who were part of Bishop Fenwick’s 2022-23 state finalist team.
From the outside, the Crusaders aren’t the shoe-in title favorite they were last season. But that might motivate them even more. Neilson, Boyle and DeBaggis feel they’re owed a championship, and they’re out to claim it.
“It's always a new season, but we're also trying to get back what we lost last year,” Neilson said.
