You've heard of super-dedicated high school hockey and basketball players who never seem to stop playing their favorite sports. They call those guys "rink rats" and "gym rats." Well, meet Chris London, the _Tewksbury High_ wrestling team's "mat rat." London, the TMHS 170-pounder who only stops wrestling long enough to play football in the fall, has so far put together an unblemished, 25-0 record during his senior year, ranking him right up there with some of the top names to have worn the Redmen colors over the last three or four decades. Only Tewksbury High legend Dave Shunamon, the two-time…

There are times in life when you'd give anything to be able to be in two places at the same time, and this past weekend was one of those times for me. I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to Tampa to watch my daughter's club soccer team compete in the Super-Y National Championships, but at the same time my heart was in Foxboro, rooting for the Tewksbury High football team to pull off yet another monumental upset in the Division 2 Super Bowl. That upset never happened, and even though Saturday evening's final score was not what folks around here had hoped for, I'm still hoping that the …

Getting any of the athletic directors or principals from the schools involved in the Dual County League expansion process to go on the record and spill the beans ahead of time is harder than finding Whitey Bulger. But unless this typist has completely missed his guess, the Tewksbury High Athletic program is about to receive some very good news on Monday when the Dual County League announces its future expansion plans. This past Tuesday, the current DCL athletic directors and many of the DCL principals met and did their best impersonations of Randy Jackson, Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler. …

So we're all feeling warm and fuzzy about the Tewksbury High hockey team winning the Division 2 State Championship this weekend, as well we should. Any time a group of good kids does great things, every parent in town feels at least a little tinge of pride and satisfaction. For lots of Tewksbury families, Sunday's state championship game was a little booster shot that makes you feel like maybe, just maybe things may not go to hell in a hand-basket before your kids are old enough to fend for themselves. The Dohertys, the Pettis, the Cunhas and the Pruynes, the MacLeods and the Golinis, the …

You have to admire the mature approach that Tewksbury High super speedster Anthony Arcari is taking toward the Division 2 state championship track meet this weekend. Arcari rode an emotional roller coaster last weekend, winning the Merrimack Valley Conference 55-meter championship at the Reggie Lewis center and breaking his own school record in the process. Problem was, Fast Anthony nearly broke his neck in the process, too, as he pulled a hamstring muscle with less than 10 meters to go and literally stumbled across the finish line to edge out Dracut's Keith Hamel for first place. Arcari's …

Sitting through Wednesday night's School Committee meeting at the Wynn School library it was clear that there are no easy answers as to how the school committee and superintendent Dr. John O'Connor are going to balance next year's budget. Like our parent's used to warn us "someone's gonna end up crying." Well, as a sportswriter, coach and parent of two pretty good little athletes, I vote that it's somebody other than the Tewksbury High athletes who get handed the tissues this time. At the risk of waxing philosophical for a minute, let me remind my reader(s) of the values intrinsic in …

Coaches and sportswriters love to talk about over-achievers so forgive me if I kill part of a snowed-in Wednesday rambling on about the Tewksbury High girls track program for a while. Why do I refer to the TMHS tracksters as over-achievers? For openers, Tewksbury's female runners represent the second smallest student enrollment in the Merrimack Valley Conference. On top of that, their facility is, by far, the worst in the MVC. Actually, I probably shouldn't even use the word facility.  In the winter, the team trains by running through the halls of the high school (cue the John Mayer music …

(Editor's note: Tim Woods, athletic director at Dracut High, is the brother-in-law of Tewksbury Patch correspondent Rick Spencer.) As was reported first in the Boston Herald, some schools from the Merrimack Valley Conference -- including Tewksbury -- are talking to schools in the Dual County League about defecting from the MVC and joining the DCL. From where this reporter (and Dad, and coach) sits, it makes a lot of sense for the second smallest school in the MVC to be looking for a way to pick on people its own size. But don't get too excited about the prospects of Tewksbury High teams being…