EXETER � Forty two years ago, Exeter High School basketball was at the top of the state�s food chain.
Its starting five included four seniors � tough, multi-sport guys who had a common goal in mind and knew how to go about achieving it.
Its record was perfect, save for one game in a Christmas tournament. But the Blue Hawks got revenge on that team, Goffstown, in the quarterfinal round of the Class I tournament. They went on to smother Stevens in the semis and Pembroke in the final to cap off a 23-0 run through league play, the first basketball state title in Exeter�s history.
The date was March 6, 1977. It still stands as the program�s one and only hoop championship.
Generations later, with a new legal drinking age (it was 18 back in the 70s) and a 3-point arch, the 2018-19 Blue Hawks have a earned a chance to rule the state once again. Top-seeded Exeter (20-0) will face second-seeded Salem (19-2) in Saturday�s 3 p.m. Division I championship game on the same big stage � under the bright lights and before the huge crowds at Lundholm Gymnasium in Durham.
For this school, it�s been a long time coming. Saturday will mark just the fourth state final appearance in program history, and the first since 1998 in Class L. The only documented state final appearance besides the �77 championship team is a Class M runner-up finish in 1948.
The 70s were a different time, that's for sure, and the 1977 Blue Hawks were a unique crew. Most of the boys played every sport � football, basketball and baseball were the Big 3 � and had done so since their Little League days.
On the court, Swiezynski and Callahan � still together to this day as assistant coaches on Bill Ball�s football staff � were the lead-by-example types, a coach�s dream.
Swiezynski, a catcher on the baseball team and a football star who went on to play at UNH, was a self-described garbage collector, making his living in the paint, hauling in the missed shots and entry passes.
Callahan wouldn�t call himself your prototypical basketball player. But he was tough as nails on a football field, and he applied some of those same tactics in the Hawks� vaunted zone presses on the hardwood.
They had those, too. Ed Hersom, at 6-foot-5, could flat-out score. �Shooter,� as his team called him, finished as a 1,000-point scorer and averaged 31.5 points in Exeter�s two final four games.
Chip Toland was a 6-4 senior southpaw who patrolled the low blocks alongside Swiezynski. And perhaps the most important piece of the group arrived right at the start of the school year.
Exeter High School needed a new principal, and Doc Allard came down from Worcester, Mass., to take the job. Allard had a son, Billy � �and he was good,� then-Exeter head coach Bill Taylor said.
Bill Taylor was in his second year as Exeter�s head coach, but he could tell he had something special from the jump.
What they did, inside the old, cozy confines of Talbot Gym, was use their uncommon size, length and athleticism to pin and trap their opponents all over the floor. Their practices there tended to be more chippy and physical than the games.
For opponents, coming to Talbot was like entering a hornet�s nest � or, more literally, a bat cave.
There was a bat that would hang in the rafters, and when the music got pumping and the fans roaring, the bat would be spooked enough to zip around the gym.
What would in 2019 result in a full evacuation and call to an emergency exterminator, became one of the lasting memories of an undefeated regular season.
Only one team could say it defeated the �77 Blue Hawks, and that�s the Grizzlies of Goffstown High School. They nipped Exeter by one point in a Christmas tournament game. Hersom didn�t play that day, and Toland gave it a go with a temperature pushing 101 degrees.
�It certainly gave us plenty of fodder for the playoff game,� Swiezynski said.
The rematch at UNH was no contest, the Blue Hawks blowing the Grizzlies away in the second half. The semifinal game against Stevens was a similar story � an 81-62 Exeter win behind 33 points from Hersom and a punishing, 27-13 final quarter.
The energy was palpable, and the Blue Hawks could feel it building down in the Lundholm Gym dungeon, two floors below in the locker room.
�As we�re coming up the stairs, I�m talking to my two assistants, Garry Greenwood and Mike Olson � and we couldn�t hear each other,� Taylor said.
It was a monster matchup between two Class I giants � top-seeded Exeter and its 22-0 league record on one side; second-seeded, one-loss Pembroke and future UNH scholarship player Mike Keeler on the other.
Keeler was a 6-foot-6 force, but he didn�t even last three full quarters. With 17 points to his credit, he fouled out with 1:17 remaining in the third and the game tied at 45.
The Blue Hawks went to work from there. Hersom scored two quick buckets to send Exeter to the fourth leading 49-45. The boys pulled away � behind Hersom�s 30 points on 15-for-19 shooting and 13 rebounds � for a 63-55 win for state.
The aftermath was a whirlwind. The boys celebrated with their fans on the Lundholm Gym court before taking an escorted ride through town. A season that started at the old Boston Garden � the Blue Hawks facing ConVal in a prelim to Celtics-Bulls as fans trickled in � had its perfect ending, with memories that will last a lifetime.
Members of the team included seniors: Bob Caley, Tim Hilchey, Joe Michaud, Steve Taylor (no relation to Coach), Brian Foley, Callahan, Swiezynski, Hersom and Toland; juniors: Harry Williams, Joel Polichronopoulis, David Buchanan and Allard; and sophomores: Todd Mosher and Marty Stollar. Eric Lusignant was a team manager along with statistician Alan Greenwood, who now works as the sports editor of the Nashua Telegraph. Gary Greenwood and Olson assisted Taylor on the bench.
They�ll forever be known as state champions, but they hope to have some company real soon.
A 42-year wait is about long enough.