Sean

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Daniel Villa’s meteoric rise as hometown hero while leading the Walpole football Rebels to an undefeated season en route to a Division 2 Super Bowl win on Dec. 6, 2008 was well chronicled throughout the state. The 2008 Coach of the Year’s astonishing crash to earth later that month, however, made national headlines.

 “Mr. Villa was the toast of his community. The fall from grace here is almost unimaginable and that is something Mr. Villa will have to live with,” said Peter Ball, one of Villa’s attorneys, before he was sentenced in August to two years in jail for three counts each of statutory rape and enticing a minor.

On Christmas Eve 2008, The Walpole Times broke the story that Villa, now 45, resigned his position as head football coach, athletic director and high school teacher hours after a meeting with Superintendent Lincoln Lynch on Dec. 23.

At the time, Lynch said Villa quit after he confronted the eight-year coach with a “credible parent complaint.”

It was later learned that Villa had been carrying on a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old high school freshman that fall who he first …

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   Both the present and future of Walpole High basketball was affected Tuesday evening at Dedham High when the Rebels lost to the host Marauders, 55-51.
   The bad news affects the present as the loss dropped the hard-working Rebels to 3-8 on the season, leaving them just three games away from postseason elimination with nine games left, many against some of the top teams in Eastern Massachusetts.
   While this season’s string of losses are hard to take for Walpole players,  fans and coaches, they can take solace in the fact that the future looks a lot brighter than their tourney chances right now.
   With seasoned veterans Anthony Conway and Matt Flanagan leading the way, the steadily improving Rebels are unveiling a core of underclassmen who could make this one of the Herget’s top teams again next year.
   It’s that general inexperience that has haunted the Rebels this winter, however, especially as they give teams a scare, only to have …

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   While it was a true team effort, Walpole’s exciting 60-54 win Friday night could easily have been attributed to senior Captain Matt Flanagan. Again. And again.
   Flanagan again and again is what the Norwood Mustangs saw at Walpole High in the first game of a rare varsity doubleheader featuring the boys’ and girls’ teams of the archrival schools.
   They actually didn’t even see Flanagan at the start of the game, unless they happened to look over at Walpole’s bench. That’s because Walpole Coach Dave St. Martin, in an effort to jump start both the team offense and Flanagan’s offense, asked him to come off the bench as Walpole’s first sub, coming in for new starter Tom Donnellan.
   Faster than one can say “Hondo” Havlicek, Walpole’s sixth man concept was born.
“Matt’s been struggling this year,” said St. Martin. “I approached him and said we’ll have you come off the bench. He accepted the role.”
   “We needed the win; our backs were against the …

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   They say that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.
   Whoever “they” are might have met Walpole High gymnast Amanda Carney, who gamely fought off a painful foot fracture last Tuesday in an upset bid of league-leading Wellesley.
   The powerful Raiders still won, 142.45- 130.95, but not before the Rebels scored a season high number of points, or before Carney had one of her best days ever with a 36.75 all-around score.
   The foot was still fractured on Friday, but Carney was also still hot. The junior captain not only gritted her teeth and scored a personal best 9.65 on vault in the meet with Norwood, but she also topped her PR on all-around with a 36.85 score.
   The all-around score is the fourth highest ever at WHS, following Kady Sullivan’s 38.3 and 37.0, and Kesley Cofsky’s 37.8. The vault score is the second highest in Walpole High history, topped only by the 9.8 by Sullivan on Feb. 9, 2008.
   The Rebels also lost to the archrival Mustangs, 129.65-122.25, dropping to 3-3 on the season, but not …

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   Dedham was just what the doctor ordered for the ailing Walplole High girls’ basketball offense.
   Two weeks after being held to just 26 points by Wellesely, the Rebels got back on track Monday night when they did the same thing to visiting Dedham at Walpole High.
   With a smoother transition and steadier offense than they’ve had in a while, the Rebels rolled over the Marauders 66-26, raising their record to 7-4 and bringing them within three wins of qualifying for the state tourney.
   Still stinging from Friday night’s 17-point loss to Norwood, the girls bounced back with a vengeance as 10 different Rebels scored.
   Senior Captain Brooke Waite celebrated her 18th birsthday in style as she also was the game’s top scorer with 15 points, followed by 14 from Walpole freshman Bridget Nicholson.
   There was no stopping Walpole once it got going. Nicholson hit three quick baskets to pace the locals to a 16-2 first-quarter lead, with Adrianna Frattasio …

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   The Walpole High boys’ track team had two immediate problems before it ever ran an event at the Reggie Lewis Center a week ago Thursday.
   First its opponent that day, Natick, matched up very well with the Rebels, such as having two guys who threw the shot put over 38 feet, and having a high jumper while Walpole at the time had none.
   Second, a continued knee injury to senior Ryan Doherty left the Rebels vulnerable in the 1,000, and left first-year winter coach Conor Cashman in a quandary.
   Coming into the season, the Rebels looked good against the Red And Blue, and capable of forcing a showdown with powerful Milton for the Bay State Herget crown.
   Then came Thursday’s meet and in order to win Cashman needed to make some strategic line-up moves and some Rebels needed to step up in order to keep the perfect season alive.
   All three things happened as Cashman’s distance gamble paid off, two Rebels stepped up in a huge way and their efforts helped turn a tight meet into a 42-40 win.

   …

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   It’s hard to find one particular wrestling match to cite as a favorite one when a team beats an opponent 46-26.
   Obviously there are a lot of wins when a team compiles as many as 45 points, which Walpole has done as many as four times already this year in Bay State League action.
   What might have been the most exciting and telling match of Thursday’s 46-26 win over Dedham, however, wasn’t even a Walpole win.
   The match, heavyweight, was the last match of the night and was not even a Walpole win.
But what a match it was as unheralded sophomore Danny Woods took on Dedham sophomore Matt Richberg, who was the state’s junior varsity heavyweight champion last year before moving up to varsity this winter, and is ranked fourth in the state by MassWrestling.
   With both tenth graders working a defensive match and not wanting to give up anything that could come back to haunt him, the pair …