BY MICHAEL GRIFFIN
The Holy Cross gymnasium hosted its first varsity basketball game on Dec. 5, 1970, a 76-70 loss to Kennedy. The Crusaders held a fourth-quarter lead but were outscored 13 to 5 over the final three minutes of a back-and-forth affair.
Carmen Vacarelli led the visiting Eagles to victory with 21 points, while Tom Amodeo scored 14 and sophomores Mark Duquette, Tony Hanson and Dennis McGuire also reached double figures for Holy Cross.
“We were a young team, mainly a bunch of sophomores having to play most games against guys who were a couple of years older than us,” remembers Frank Samuelson about that initial season at Holy Cross. “Coach (Tim) McDonald and Assistant Coach (Marty) DeFazio realized we’d take our lumps for a year or so, but knew it would help us build for successive seasons.”
The Crusaders endured a 2-18 opening campaign in the new gym, but it wasn’t long before McDonald’s team quickly made “The Pit” its home fortress. The versatile Hanson was named to the Class L All-State team the next season, when Holy Cross went 13-7 and advanced the furthest among all city teams in the 1972 state tournament.
shot during a home game
in the 1971-72 season.
Hanson repeated as an All-Stater the next season, when Holy Cross made history by becoming the first city team to complete an undefeated (20-0) regular season in more than 50 years — dating back to the 1921-22 run of Crosby’s squad.
Senior guard Jim Albon emerged as a dependable scorer alongside classmate Hanson, and 6-6 sophomore Jim Abromaitis added frontcourt depth, as the Crusaders claimed the 1973 Naugatuck Valley League title in their first season as league member – and just their third season at the varsity level.
“By that year, our senior season, we had a fanatical student fan base and every home game was a sellout,” says Samuelson. “If you didn’t have your ticket for a Friday night game by mid-week, you were not getting into the gym.”
A come-from-behind win over Naugatuck and a victory over Hartford Public – the top-ranked team in Connecticut at the time – were the most memorable home games that season for Samuelson. “The win over Hartford Public marked the first time Holy Cross gained recognition among Connecticut’s top teams,” notes Samuelson. “But we lost point guard Mark Duquette to a broken wrist later in the season and lost to Fitch of Groton in the Class LL quarterfinals.”
Hanson – and Abromaitis two years later – would move on to star at UConn, but they represented just the start of a progression of talented players who flourished under the guidance of McDonald. Holy Cross would win five more NVL titles before McDonald stepped down in 1988, to become school principal shortly thereafter. Regularly ranked among the best programs in the NVL and the state, the Crusaders reached CIAC state finals three times under McDonald, winning the Class LL title in his last season at the helm.
“His teams always executed so well. Everything they did had a purpose and a reason,” says Ed Generali, who coached against him while at Sacred Heart and later replaced him on the bench at Holy Cross.
“Ironically I hated going to ‘The Pit’ as a visiting coach, but so loved being there as the home school coach,” admits Generali. “The dim lighting there really added to its aura, and I was actually disappointed when new efficient lighting was installed!”
Holy Cross fans wouldn’t be disappointed much during Generali’s tenure, which lasted through the 2015-16 season. Building on the foundation begun by McDonald, Generali’s Crusader teams won 493 games over 27 seasons, and captured eight NVL titles and two state championships (in 1995 and 2000).
In addition to the state crowns, Generali’s most memorable moments and games at the Holy Cross gym during his coaching career include:
– a CIAC Class LL encounter with Wilbur Cross of New Haven in 1991, “when Rob Paternostro hit a driving layup before the final buzzer for a 63-61 win that avenged a loss the season before and gave him 1,000 points for his career.”
– a 1995 contest in front of a raucous crowd at The Pit that decided the NVL title, between two teams that would both go on to win state titles that season. Harold Miller scored 52 points, including 10 three-pointers, as the host Crusaders pulled away for an 82-65 win over Ansonia to repeat as league champions.
– “The come-from-behind, overtime win over Sacred Heart in 1997, after being down 6 points with 40 seconds left in regulation,” says Generali. “The two teams were undefeated and ranked numbers 1 and 2 in New England (according to a NESN poll). It was just an incredible game, and the player who hit a huge three-pointer in the comeback is now coach, Ryan Olsen.”
dedicating the Holy Cross court in his name.
(Republican-American photo)
Olsen’s Holy Cross teams have added to the program’s storied history, most notably last March when the Crusaders ended archival Sacred Heart’s 125-game win streak against NVL opponents with a 66-58 upset in the 2020 NVL tournament semifinals.
And the Pit continues to draw spirited crowds – fifty years after the school gymnasium was first christened – though technically we now have official names for the venue on Oronoke Road. The gym and the court honor the two coaching legends that built and maintained a winning tradition for the Holy Cross basketball program.
In 2013, the gymnasium was renamed in honor of McDonald, who passed away at the age of 72 in 2019.
“He put Holy Cross on the map,” says Samuelson, who succeeded McDonald as school president in 2015. “And the winning tradition continued with Coach Generali,” whose name now adorns the court at Tim McDonald gymnasium.
“I am honestly so blessed to have coached at two great institutions and have the players that I had play for me,” says Generali. “Then to actually have the court named after me was surreal. And it happened the year after the Boys’ and Girls’ Club of Greater Waterbury named their court after my father, Mario, the longtime director there How many people can say that?”
The best part of the ceremony, adds Generali, “was that it came on a Friday night, before a game against a city opponent. When coaching, I said for years to my players that there is no better place to be than in the Tim McDonald gym on a Friday night for a game against a city opponent – and that held true that night.”