Built to Win: Inside Hampshire Regional’s relentless work ethic and state title pursuit

WESTHAMPTON — A dozen Western Massachusetts titles – including 15 Western Mass. final appearances – in 18 seasons, and two state championships (2015 and 2016) to go along with it. That’s the Hampshire Regional softball program’s resume since head coach Brian McGan took over in 2008. Raiders players of the past two decades only know what it’s like to play in high-leverage games. That’s all they have done under McGan.

Some of the success of Hampshire, which only won two sectional crowns prior to the hiring of McGan, can be credited to the phenomenal work of Don Spear and his daughter Ashley – the organizers of the local youth feeder programs in Southampton. But a good chunk of the Raiders’ regional and statewide dominance comes from McGan’s extremely detailed practice regime.

After observing Hampshire’s two and a half hour session – which seniors CC Thayer and Teagan Charles noted was on the “shorter side” – on Tuesday afternoon, it became quite apparent why the Raiders have been so good for so long.

When I interviewed McGan before a practice earlier this season for a story I wrote about his New York Baseball Hall of Fame induction, he mentioned a typical practice lasts around three hours. Internally, I thought there was no chance he could keep a large group of high schoolers engaged for that long. Externally, I nodded my head and continued to take in his answer to my question.

I knew it was something I wanted to revisit later in the season once the Raiders made their annual deep run in the Division 4 state tournament, and based on the trajectory they were on at that point, it felt safe to say that would be coming.

So I waltzed up to the second floor at Hampshire Regional, opened the door to the gymnasium and stood still for a brief moment. The rain may have forced the No. 1 Raiders (23-1) to practice indoors ahead of their Final Four contest with No. 4 Joseph Case (17-6), but it certainly didn’t cause them to lose any focus.

I noticed right away four assistant coaches, each doing something with a different group of players. One group practiced bunts. Another group tucked in the corner hit balls off a tee. One player took live batting practice in a batting cage (which gets set up and taken down before and after each practice) while one stood and held the net to give that player room to take a full swing. In the middle of the floor stood a coach who tossed squishy-but-weighted balls to another group of hitters. On the far side of the gym stood Ryanne Dubay dialing in her pitches to her sister, catcher Raegan Dubay.

McGan made his rounds, ensuring everything was done correctly and efficiently.

“The reason why I do it is because this game is not easy,” McGan said of the long practices. “To be good at something, you have to work hard at it and you’ve got to put time into it. Even though we work this hard in our practices, sometimes I tell these kids they need to go home and keep working at it… You’ve just got to keep working harder at it every single day. Us coaches put a lot of time into this to try and train them to be in that mode.”

Now, not every high school head coach has a staff as deep as McGan’s, and he revealed it allows him to be better at his job. Instead of having to run individual drills himself, he can watch it all happen at once.

Steve Moussette, Kevin Contior, Chris Mettey and Colin Provost round out the Raiders staff. McGan made it clear Hampshire wouldn’t have all the championship hardware it does without them.

“I give them more credit than me,” McGan said. “Without those guys, we wouldn’t be able to break things down into different stations, I wouldn’t be able to walk around and oversee everything to make sure everyone is doing their drills correctly. Those guys put a ton of time into it. Sometimes I steer the ship, but you need people to paddle and row it. Those guys do a lot of that kind of work.”

I stood beside the drill Moussette was in charge of, throwing the weighted balls to Hampshire hitters. Chelsea Vanasse took some hacks while McGan looked on. He instructed her to focus on a particular motion with her swing, and felt she didn’t do it well enough on the next Moussette pitch.

McGan looked over to me.

“These guys make me hit all the time,” he said jokingly as he grabbed the bat from Vanasse and demonstrated what he was looking for her to do.

Witty one-liners like that have become a staple of Hampshire’s practices, and McGan was chock-full of them on Tuesday. As Ryanne Dubay went through her full arsenal of pitches, seventh grader Charlotte Carr stood and acted as a batter to simulate a more game-like scenario. After Dubay threw a perfect change up at knee level, McGan asked her to paint an inside fastball on the next pitch.

It nearly hit Carr, who backed out of the way to avoid the ball with a smile on her face. She was then called over by one of the Hampshire assistants to get started on another drill. So Carr jogged out of the batter’s box, providing McGan with ammo for another joke.

“Oh c’mon, you almost get hit and now you’re done?” McGan said to Carr as she laughed and headed to the other end of the gym. “It won’t hurt that bad if it hits you.”

The coaches aren’t the only ones who tease the players. They’ve picked up on it themselves.

“These girls really get along,” McGan said. “We have some friendly banter going on, where if someone misses a ball and they get a bruise, someone will tell them, ‘You should’ve caught the ball instead of letting it bang off your leg.’ And it’s never head down or tears, they always laugh it off. To me, I see a big difference in that. Sometimes taking things too seriously puts too much pressure on you. These girls have found a good balance.”

I witnessed it myself when I had McGan call over Thayer and Charles, the team’s only two seniors, so I could talk to them. The interview coincided with team pickup, and the two graduates were happy to find out the rest of the team took down the batting cage as they answered my questions.

Thayer, the Raiders’ starting left fielder, had something to add to the fun-loving nature of Hampshire’s program when talking about the outfield unit.

“I have to slap them in the face sometimes because they get to be really annoying,” Thayer said. “It’s really [sophomore center fielder Rachael Hickox], I’m going to name drop. She likes to goof around and laugh a lot. But no, seriously, it’s great. It really is a lot of fun with those girls in the outfield and everyone works really hard in practice.”

McGan, 65, was a former MLB Draft selection of the Toronto Blue Jays, and his “old-school” approach, as he called it, has shaped Hampshire into a juggernaut that nobody in the state wants to play. Don’t get it twisted; while they have their moments of laughter, this Raiders team is all business.

The old adage of “practice as hard as you would play in a game” doesn’t apply to Hampshire. The Raiders practice even harder than they play, to the point where the games may even feel easier than select practices.

“We’re constantly moving,” Charles said. “If we aren’t doing something, you need to be doing something. As far as staying engaged goes, we’re working and practicing as if we’re in a game. Coach [McGan] always says it, we play harder in practice so that we go into games already with that intensity.”

Hampshire has won three Western Mass. titles in four attempts since the new statewide tournament format went into effect in the fall of 2021. McGan and the Raiders hoisted the 2025 Class B plaque a little over two weeks ago. They have a pretty good idea of what that trophy feels like.

But it’s been a while – for their standards – since the state championship trophy has been in Hampshire’s hands. As the No. 1 seed in D4, this may be the best chance the Raiders have had to capture that coveted crown since they last raised it in 2016.

You always hear athletes utter the cliché of “our hard work paid off” after winning championship games, and it may feel a bit watered down or overused.

But if the Raiders are able to get past Joseph Case in Thursday’s semis and finish off their historic season with a state title, they can shout that phrase as much as they please and know they mean every single word of it.

First pitch with a spot in the state final on the line is set for 4 p.m. at Worcester State University.