The spring version of the seasonal sports competitions between the varsity athletic teams from Londonderry High School and Pinkerton Academy – better known as The Beeman Trophy Games – take place at LHS this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, April 3-5.
Pinkerton has maintained possession of the plaque for the last three years, but as anyone who has watched any kind of sporting event between LHS and PA teams over the decades knows, the Astro and Lancer athletes get ramped up for head-to-head battles like they were playoff contests no matter what time of year they take place. Hence, nobody truly knows what the final results will be much of the time regardless of team records.
The two schools’ boys’ volleyball teams will get the 2018 games going this Thursday afternoon May 3 when they meet in the Londonderry High gym at 5:15 p.m.
The next evening at 6:30 the talented and determined boys’ lacrosse squads will face off, and that match will be followed by a full Saturday of play.
Pinkerton and Londonderry High track and field athletes will take part in the annual freshman/ sophomore meet starting at 8:30 on the morning of May 5.
That same day, the girls’ tennis teams will smack it around on the Nelson Road courts across the street from the high school starting at 11, and they’ll be followed by the boys’ squads there at 1.
The Lancer and Astro baseball teams will play on the varsity baseball diamond at the north end of LHS starting at noon, with the softball game starting an hour later on the softball field right next to the baseball facility.
And then at the other end of LHS – behind the Matthew Thornton Elementary School on the south side of the high school – the girls’ lacrosse teams will face off for the second time in a little more than a week at 2.
Londonderry High last won the Beeman Trophy in 2014, with Pinkerton retaking possession of the plaque in 2015 and holding onto it in 2016 and 2017.
The Beeman Trophy games began back in the early 1990’s – along with the winter Ball Family Trophy Games – following the success of the Mack Plaque games which were begun in the fall of 1983.
The Beeman Trophy is named for Mike Beeman, a Pinkerton grad who coached and taught at Pinkerton Academy and then Londonderry High before moving to Georgia with his family. He made an appearance in the local area recently when he came back up north to run in his 36th Boston Marathon.