This is part a series of stories looking back on how the top New England prep school boys' hockey teams performed in the 2019-20 season and what lies ahead for next season.
Berkshire seemed to operate underneath the radar for most of the season. After a strong start, the Sheffield, Mass.-based Bears stumbled and found themselves searching for answers, and some thought they would be relegated to also-ran status.
In the end, they found answers and then some, beating four of New England's top prep school teams and upsetting the No. 1 seed in the Stuart/Corkery Elite 8 tournament.
And the journey was something else again.
Let’s take a look back at the 2019-20 season of the Berkshire Bears:
Record: 20-8-2
Highs
The Bears' overall record was pretty good, especially when you consider they jumped out to a 4-0-1 start before losing six of their next seven.
The leadership of captain Briggs Gammill (New Canaan, Conn.), Aidan Thompson and others, plus the stellar play of phenom junior goalie Jed Baliotti (New Canaan, Conn.) helped propel the Bears into the role of feared opponent. And not just for the lesser teams, either.
In one impressive stretch at the end of January, Berkshire played Avon on Saturday and Salisbury on a Monday, then Hotchkiss on the following Wednesday. This stretch would be a true test of what the Bears had as a team, proof one way or the other if they were contenders or pretenders.
As it turned out, fired up, Berkshire beat Avon, 2-0, and Salisbury, 4-2, before falling to Hotchkiss and star goalie Henry Wilder (Needham, Mass.), 2-0. But the tone was set; the Bears were bad news for other teams.
"I think for us beating those two teams, traditional rivals of ours, back-to-back on a Saturday and Monday, that really gave us confidence," said coach Dan Driscoll (Lynn, Mass.). "It helped us realize that we could beat just about anybody."
All told, Berkshire beat a team that went 23-2, beat the eventual Elite 8 champs in Salisbury and upset the No. 1 seed in the championship tournament, defeating Lawrence, 3-2, in overtime before losing to Dexter Southfield, 3-0, in the semifinals. Not too shabby.
"Yeah, exactly," Driscoll said. "I think we beat the top four teams in New England this year. But that (Avon-Salisbury) weekend was a true kind of turning point for us. And then in the Lawrence game, our goalie played unbelievable. We played our game. ... It's a road game, we know that they're a great team, we had to minimize our mistakes. We couldn't give up any odd-man rushes and we executed when we needed to execute. ... It was just a great effort on everybody's part."
Centers Thompson and Gammill were a formidable one-two punch for the Bears.
"Exactly," Driscoll said. "We split them up at different points of the year as well, just to make it more difficult for other teams to focus just on one of them.
"They're both dynamic players, both dynamic leaders. There's not many kids that skate like Aidan, see it like Aidan, compete like Aidan. Actually, I think he's a little unheralded; really, this kid has got a really bright future. And Gammill was a four-year guy for us who went through tough times the year before (with a season-ending injury). He was our captain, one of the best captains I've had in my 24 years, really a complete hockey player, plays both ends of the rink really well, extremely, extremely high IQ. So having those two guys, it's obviously huge for us."
Can't have success without a star goalie, and Baliotti was that and more for Berkshire.
"He was a difference," Driscoll said. "He came into his own this year, he really did. And I think his own confidence level rose with the team’s.
"Looking back at the end of that kind of losing streak, he had a bad game, and for the first time in my time with him he showed a lot of emotion and he came back and really put us on his back for the rest of the year. That Lawrence game, he made a couple of saves in that game that were just otherworldly. And, again, he's another kid that I've never seen a kid work harder at his craft. I've never seen a kid put the time in away from the rink, and he does it every year, he does it academically. But all that hard work seemed to pay off for him and for us this year, for sure."
Potent offense and spectacular goaltending are all good, but unless you have the defense corps to clear rebounds, protect the front of the net and facilitate the breakout on turnovers, it can be a struggle to win.
"I think that was the biggest change for us, to be totally honest with you, from the previous year to this year," Driscoll said. "And I think our ability to defend, our ability to move to puck out of our zone, really allowed our forwards, and allowed us, to play the way we wanted to play. And you're right, I think they were unheralded.
"But I think for us, internally, that was the biggest difference in our team from the year prior to this past year, was the play of our D, and them able to understand their roles and play their roles almost to perfection, which allowed everything that flowed from there. So, I can't say enough about those guys."
That meant moving forwards Griffin Grise (New Canaan, Conn.) and Jack Whitney back to the blueline. With their size and ability to move the puck, plus assuredly their ability to see defense from a forward's point of view, contributed to making them, according to Driscoll, "really hard to play against."
And, although he is generally humble about it, another highlight was also Driscoll's 400th win, which came with a 7-1 win over Williston-Northampton on Jan. 18. Driscoll, who is also the athletic director at Berkshire, was named New England Prep School coach of the year in 1997, 1999, 2007, and 2013.
Top five scorers
Lows
Without question, losing six of seven so early in the season was disheartening.
The losing string included two losses at the Avon Christmas tournament (by identical 1-0 scores to Gunnery and Avon Old Farms) and a 7-0 loss to St. Sebastian's.
But then the Bears got their act together, coming together suddenly to the point where they amazingly lost just two games (including their season-ending game to Dexter Southfield) the rest of the way.
The turning point came with meeting after a 5-2 loss to Williston-Northampton.
"We had unbelievable senior leadership this year," Driscoll said. "And I can remember having a meeting at eight o'clock on the Sunday morning after we lost to Williston with our captain, Briggs Gammill. He’s like, 'Coach, we got this.'"
And got it they did. The next true low point came with the season-ending loss to Dexter, but all things considered, the lull in late December into early January was where the season was redeemed.
"To be honest with you, we had to learn how to win again," Driscol said. "I think we had a crisis in confidence. I think we needed to get our confidence back. We had a bad thing we allowed to snowball, but then the guys came together in an unbelievable way and we figured it out. And we had great performances, don't get me wrong. I mean, our goalie won some games for us. Aidan Thompson, Briggs Gammill, every single one of our guys contributed. But we had to kind of suffer a little in order to learn how to be successful again."
Looking ahead
Driscoll said Baliotti, a University of New Hampshire commit, is coming back, which is huge news for the Bears and makes them a favorite again. All the seniors will be gone, of course, including Gammill and Thompson, which means recruiting and developing offense from returnees will again be key for Berkshire.
Among the returnees up front are Jake McDonald (Cumberland Center, Maine) and Cole Paredes (Norwalk, Conn.). The defense corps will have returnees Abdoul Diouf, Nick Donaldson (New Canaan, Conn.), Max O’Brien (Milton, Mass.) and Liam Bard (Southborough, Mass.).
"We're very excited," Driscoll said. "I'm not sure if I can tell you who they are yet, but we're very excited. We've got two forwards coming in that are really dynamic. We've got two additional D-men coming in that I think are really dynamic. I think we're bringing in a very strong core defensively. We're really excited about our returning players as well. I think they're going to, all of them, make another jump. So, we're excited for next year, for sure."
Paul Grant is an editor and a writer for HockeyJournal.com and Seamans Media. He previously oversaw hockey content at ESPN.com and Sporting News. You can connect with him at pgrant@hockeyjournal.com.
