1976 Framingham South lacrosse team to meet 50 years later to celebrate title

David Clopeck, who died in 2022, and John Jachowicz, son of longtime South football coach Bob Jachowicz, played at Holy Cross; Curran, Stefanini and Billy Anderson played for UMass.

Michael Ablondi, Jachowicz and Frank DiVittorio, who was a football captain, were stars on the gridiron, and excelled as lacrosse players.

“Everybody played a physical style. They don’t allow the hitting like they did back in the day; there were some violent collisions,” said Curran, whose brother Stew won three state titles as lacrosse coach at Cohasset High. “We had a lot of football players on our team, like linebackers and running backs, and they loved to hit. Our midfield would just dominate games because they were so physical. Made my life easy in the goal, quite frankly.”

Members of the 1976 Framingham South boys lacrosse team pictured in the school yearbook.

Diatelevi, who coached football for 20 years, made some strategic moves that proved vital for the ‘75 team. Chris Keiley, who was an attack as a junior, moved back to midfield, which freed up a spot for his brother Warren. Anderson, a midfielder as a sophomore, switched to defense.

The team also included brothers Dan and Joe Frey as well as Pat Foley and Mark Foley, who were not brothers. Jim Solomon and Paul Sullivan have also passed away. Curran said Sullivan was one of the team's top scorers and comedian.

"Just one of those guys that kept the team loose," Curran said. "He made our fast break just lethal. We would demoralize teams after they would score; we would come right back after the faceoff with a fast break goal."

The team also included Jay Ducey, Dean Agostinelli, Chris Kelly, Peter Anderson, Pat Eden, Chris Clinton, John Taylor, Roy Roberts and Mike Desimone.

“We were very, very athletic,” said Curran, who still lives in Framingham after retiring from a 35-year career with the City of Framingham’s engineering division. “We ran teams off the field because of our athleticism. Coach Diatelevi put everybody in place. He foresaw that the previous year. In ‘75 we had a pretty good year, but ‘76 we really came together. It was quite a season.”

South ended up falling to Longmeadow in the state title game and Jachowicz, Stefanini and Chris Keiley later played in a New England All-Star game, which caused Stefanini to miss his graduation ceremony.

But the championship win over Lincoln-Sudbury is what still resonates with Stefanini, who had a hat trick in that game.

“That we’re even talking about it, 50 years later – it’s like we were Bobby Orr and the Big Bad Bruins or something,” he said. “It was just a good time for everybody; senior year, to end that way, we went out in style.”

Tim Dumas is a multimedia journalist for the Daily News. He can be reached at tdumas@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Instagram at tdumas1.

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Framingham South lacrosse team to meet in Ashland to celebrate 1976 title