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Hoosac, Mount Greyock, Wahconah Student-Athletes Sign College Letters of Intent
By Stephen Dravis & Shannon Boyer, iBerkshires Staff
10:23PM / Wednesday, February 04, 2015
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Jake Benzinger puts his John Hancock on his National Letter of Intent.

Jake Benzinger addresses a room full of students, coaches and family at Mount Greylock on Wednesday.

Jake Benzinger is flanked by his parents, Janice and John, and former Williams College coach and family friend Dick Farley.

Megan Richardson is surrounded by her family and her Hoosac Valley coach, Kristen Holmgren.

Megan Richardson signs on the line for Southern Connecticut soccer.

Wahconah boys soccer coach John Kovacs explains the significance of the National Letter of Intent.

Wahconah's Kevin Boino is joined at the table by his parents.


Wahconah's Kevin Boino signs his National Letter of Intent to play soccer for the University of Massachusetts.
DALTON, Mass. — No dramatic reveals, no packed gymnasiums, no live cut-ins from ESPN.
 
But for three Berkshire County high school seniors, Wednesday was a pretty big day.
 
Hoosac Valley's Megan Richardson, Mount Greylock's Jake Benzinger and Wahconah's Kevin Boino each signed a National Letter of Intent on Wednesday to attend the NCAA Division I school of their choice and play a varsity sport.
 
For Richardson and Boino, it's soccer at Southern Connecticut State and the University of Massachusetts, respectively. For Benzinger, it is football at Wake Forest.
 
Before enthusiastic crowds of friends, families and coaches, each of them committed an act that took a couple of seconds but which is the culmination of years of dedication to their sports.
 
Although all three made their intentions clear a while ago (last summer for Benzinger and Richardson, in November for Boino), Wednesday was the first day for student-athletes nationwide to officially commit to DI programs in football and soccer.
 
Benzinger, who arrived for the ceremony in a Wake Forest sweatshirt, jokingly "announced" his intention to be a Demon Deacon before pulling a black and gold hat from the podium at Mount Greylock's meeting room.
 
On a more serious note, he thanked his coaches — for football, basketball and baseball — his teammates and his family for helping to prepare him to make the jump from Berkshire County to the Atlantic Coast Conference.
 
After signing the letter and embracing many of the classmates and teammates who attended the event, Benzinger talked about his first taste of ACC football, on a visit to the Winston-Salem, N.C., campus in November.
 
"It was great," he said. "I saw a victory. They beat Virginia Tech. And I got to go in the locker room after the game. It was really exciting to do that."
 
Like Benzinger, Boino is spending the winter playing a sport that neither will play in college: basketball. Both have been encouraged by their college coaches to finish their high school careers the way they have spent them, as three-sport athletes.
 
For Benzinger, that means baseball this spring. Boino is a standout in track and field for Wahconah.
 
Boino said on Wednesday that he has no second thoughts about committing to one sport at the collegiate level.
 
"It's certainly going to be different, but I love the sport," Boino said. "I don't think it's going to be that hard. If you love to do what you do, you should want to do it forever. It's kind of like finding a job after college.
 
"Soccer's one of those things I feel like I'll want to do forever."
 
As he put pen to paper on Wednesday, Boino thought about all the soccer that has brought him to this point.
 
"It's just an amazing feeling to have worked so hard all through my youth and to earn such a wonderful opportunity," he said. "I'm just so happy. It's unexplainable."
 
Hoosac Valley goalkeeper Richardson will join coach Adam Cohen and Southern Connecticut next fall after signing her letter surrounded by family, teachers, teammates, and former soccer coach Kristen Holmgren.
 
Richardson was approached by Cohen in the fall of 2013 while she was playing in a showcase tournament with her club team out of Ludlow.
 
"My team manager brought it to my attention that the Southern Connecticut coach was interested in me," Richardson said. "When I got back to the hotel after my game I sent him an email introducing myself and stating what I was looking for in a college and in a soccer program."
 
Shortly after reaching out to Cohen, Richardson set up an unofficial recruiting visit for last February.
 
Richardson, who plans on studying math and secondary education, was quickly drawn to Southern Connecticut when she first stepped foot on campus.
 
"I knew it was the place for me," she said. "Also, Southern Connecticut was originally called the New Haven School for Teachers when it was founded back in 1893, so their education programs are excellent and Connecticut's standards for education are very high."
 
She also was looking at schools in Division II (Southern New Hampshire, AIC, Stonehill, and Assumption) and Division III (Simmons, Eastern Nazarene, and Clark), and was in contact with those coaches as well.
 
Richardson has been training hard in the off season and will continue to do so up until her date of departure to Connecticut this summer. She works with Rob Livingstone, the strength and conditioning coach at Williams College and owner of the Cages at the Mill and Livingstone Speed Academy in North Adams. She plays for the Western United Pioneers premier soccer team in the spring.
 
"When I was signing the letter I was on the verge of tears because it's a great feeling to know all my hard work finally paid off," Richardson said. "It took a lot of heart-pounding dedication and commitment; I've sacrificed a lot to get where I am."
 
Benzinger's signing ceremony at Mount Greylock was attended by, among others, former Williams College football coach Dick Farley, who coached Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson at Williams. On Wednesday, Farley noted another connection between Williams and Wake: former Williams College President John Wesley Chandler is a 1945 Wake Forest alumnus.
 
It was Farley who alerted Clawson to Benzinger's potential. But while the personal connection may have gotten Benzinger's foot in the door at Wake, the 6-foot-8 lineman's talent drew the attention of other college programs.
 
"The fun part for me as a coach was to see the schools that started to seek him toward the end of last spring," Mount Greylock football coach Shawn Flaherty said. "Dartmouth, Harvard, Colgate, the list goes on and on — basically all Ivy League schools. It was very impressive to see that.
 
"That's a testament to Jake's hard work in the classroom and on the football field."
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