It wasn’t just that the game could be Hopedale’s thirteenth win that could be a worry for the superstitious in Hopedale. Considering the first game between them, it looked like the team with the best chance of putting an end to  the streak was Southboro.

The girls team didn’t get much coverage in 1957, and even when Marcia Dee scored almost as many points as the opposing team, they didn’t get her name right.


     The Hopedale High School Undefeated Basketball Team of 1956-57

The George Albert Draper Gymnasium opened in 1955. Up until then, high school and junior high basketball games were played at the town hall. The 1956-57 season began with the Boston Celtics playing at the gym, and ended with the Hopedale High basketball team completing their year undefeated after nineteen games.

I thought that there was no need to cover all of the games here, and decided that starting with the second Northboro game would be going back far enough. Since the first game with Northboro ended with a two-point win for Hopedale, there was some concern about the second, but as you can see, it didn’t even turn out to be close. As I recall, there was a lot more worry about the second meeting with Southboro, but that concluded with the same score as the Northboro game. All in all, a very exciting season, that ended with winning the Clark Tournament.

The pages from the Milford News were printed from a microfilm reader at the Milford Library. In some cases I couldn’t reduce the size enough to include the entire article. I could have joined separate pages together, but I think there’s enough here for you to get the idea of what the season was like. I may  try doing a few of the pages over sometime to see if I can get clearer copies. One page that printed out as a negative (a problem with the machine that seems to occur after a dozen or so copies are made) was headlined, “Hopedale Not To Compete In Bay State Tournament.” That was printed the day after the Uxbridge game. The reason given was, “…in compliance with players’ parents who feel the cagers have played enough basketball for one season.” Would that happen now? I don’t think so.

While looking through early 1957 for the Hopedale story, I also noticed many other articles on the sports pages. One was about Hank Aaron, who had been looking for a 100% pay raise for the next year. He settled for 50%. He’d be getting $27,000 for the 1958 season. Another story said that Mickey Mantle’s leg problems might keep him out of the Hall of Fame.

   More pictures from the 56-57 season 

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