AMHERST — At the 2017 Amherst Regional Hall of Fame induction Saturday at the UMass Marriott, the Hurricanes remembered and honored one of the most dominant teams in school history.
It was a team that had weekly reports from ESPN, and had a book written about it by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who traveled with the team — a team that packed gymnasiums all over western Massachusetts, to the point where fans had to sit on the baselines to accommodate crazy attendance numbers.
It was the 1992-1993 Amherst girls basketball team, led by Jamila Wideman, that went 24-1 en route to a state championship.
The Hurricanes blew out defending champion Haverhill 74-36 to win the title. But for Amherst, the halftime score resonated with the team.
Amherst led 51-6 at the break, and it was widely believed that Haverhill was the favorite.
Before the ceremony began, several teammates embraced their old coach, Ron Moyer.
“This is a team that was special to my heart,” Moyer said. “It changed my life a little bit. You really get close to the kids. It’s a special group. It was great to see a girls’ sport take over a town.”
In 1995, Madeleine Blais published “In These Girls, Hope Is A Muscle,” which chronicled the entire season.
Recently, Blais added an epilogue, giving an update on the players and coaches.
“It’s a book about basketball on the surface,” Blais said. “But it’s really about finding excellence within yourself in a group of people.”
Moyer coached Wideman for six years, as she played as a seventh-grader. Wideman scored 1,626 points as a Hurricane.
Wideman played at a speed well beyond her opponents in high school and it took her to Stanford, where she continued her basketball career.
In the first ever WNBA draft, the Los Angeles Sparks selected Wideman with the third overall pick.
“She played in the first-ever WNBA game,” Moyer said. “I went to that at Madison Square Garden.”
Today, Wideman is a lawyer and lives in Brooklyn, but could not attend the induction.
Amherst’s one loss that season was to Agawam on the road.
Emily Jones, the team’s center, made a speech at the ceremony. She adorned her No. 25 reversible practice jersey and displayed a pair of Nike Air sneakers that she wore during the season.
“We’ve taken so much of each other with us as we have gone on in our lives,” Jones said. “To get back together and reconnect it’s like we are 25 years younger again.”
Jen Pariseau, the team’s 3-point specialist, was well known at the time for dagger shots at crucial moments. She was the co-captain of the team along with Wideman.
“There was immediate happiness in seeing everyone today,” Pariseau said. “It was a pervasive feeling of support and camaraderie all season long.”
The year before the state championship win, Amherst lost in the Western Mass. semifinals to Northampton.
Beth Kuzmeski and Lauren Demski led that Blue Devils team, along with coach Tom Parent.
“We had beaten them two years in a row and they used us as a catalyst,” Parent said.
The Northampton and Amherst rivalry was a good one, and was a must-see event whenever the teams played.
“They were one of our fiercest rivals,” Pariseau said. “That last year, we entered that gym for the away game — I remember it being packed and it feeling hostile in a good way.”
The packed gyms for a girls basketball game were great for female athletics.
“The level of attention for a girls sport was amazing,” Pariseau said. “It was pretty crazy.”
Kristin Marvin spoke about how her involvement with the team taught her to appreciate the thrill and pursuit of winning. Marvin still goes after wins every day, in her job working in advertising.
“Sometimes I win pitches, sometimes I lose pitches,” Marvin said. “Winning is sometimes considered a bad word in certain contexts. That’s a real mistake. It builds resiliency and character.”
Also in attendance were members of the current Amherst girls basketball team, who are coming off a tough season where they finished 3-17.
Erin Klaes, who had an impressive freshman season for the Hurricanes, said she hoped her team can learn from the success of the ’93 team.
“They had their ups and down,” Klaes said. “But they pushed themselves. I feel like my team needs to push more and be better.”
Klaes is a 3-point shooter just like Pariseau, who had some advice for the young player.
“I would say learn to have a quick release and have a good medium range shot to complement the outside,” Pariseau said. “To be a good threat you need to fake and drive.”
The event was part of homecoming weekend at Amherst. The ceremonies concluded with a ribbon cutting for the new gym floor at Amherst Regional.
