Lenox's Delgado, Mount Greylock's Smith Recognized

Two veteran student-athletes helped their teams earn Western Massachusetts championships across the street from one another on Saturday afternoon in Westfield.

 

And each earned the iBerkshires.com/Adams Community Bank Athlete of the Week award in the process.

 

At Stanley Park, the defending state champion Mount Greylock girls cross country team defended its Western Mass title with a two-point win over rival Lenox.

 

The lone senior running for the Mounties was Margo Smith, a consistent scorer for her squad throughout a career that goes back to her days as a middle schooler.

 

She finished 14th in the Western Mass D2 race on Saturday, and on Sunday she and her teammates will be back in Westfield looking for a second straight state championship.

 

“Her contributions go so far beyond her running, in terms of her leadership and her cultivating the younger runners, creating an atmosphere where kids want to be on the team,” Mount Greylock coach Hilary Greene said. “And also, I give her so much credit for having gone through some ups and downs and never giving up and always putting the team first and always giving her best.

 

“We are really, really going to miss her next year.”

 

A lot of people thought the Lenox boys soccer program would “really, really” miss the 10 senior starters it lost from the 2017 Western Mass champion squad.

 

But the Millionaires did not miss a beat, going all the way back to the top of the section and Wednesday’s state semi-finals against the Central Mass champions.

 

The one remaining starter from the 2017 Lenox squad is Keveen Delgado, who has been a force this postseason, scoring a goal in each of the team’s postseason wins and leading his coach, Matt Cote, to say he has never seen a player quite like him.

 

Delgado, a junior, accepted the role of veteran leader on the Millionaires’ squad.

 

“At the beginning of the season, I was a little worried because it’s 10 new people on the field,” Delgado said after Saturday's Western Mass final at Westfield State. “But I was their captain. I cheered them on. I told them to work hard and play smart, and we did. We battled through the whole season.

 

“We won the Western Mass final, but we’re not done here.”

 

The iBerkshires.com Athlete of the Week is sponsored by Adams Community Bank.