Medford, GBL Teams Apply to North Shore League

– Allison Goldsberry

Medford and the four other remaining Greater Boston League teams are still looking to broaden the competition to other communities and recently applied to join the Northeast Conference.

According to Medford Athletic Director Bob Maloney, the five GBL schools- Medford, Malden, Everett, Somerville, and Cambridge- made a presentation to the Northeast Conference last week. The NEC’s principals are expected to make a vote in October about whether to accept the five GBL teams.

“We need 8 votes to get in so we will be working the phones in the next few weeks,” said Maloney.

The Northeast Conference currently has twelve communities, including Beverly, Marblehead, Gloucester, Swampscott, Danvers, Saugus, Lynn Classical, Lynn English, Salem, Winthrop, and former GBL teams Revere and Peabody.

Maloney said Masconomet also applied, so if that school and the GBL teams are accepted into the Northeast League, each sport would be broken up into two or three tiers.

The move is the latest on the GBL’s part to broaden the league to other communities since Arlington, Waltham, Peabody, and Revere left. The GBL is determined to stay together and is applying as a group.

“GBL schools have agreed on the merge only if- and only if- all five teams are taken because the GBL is staying together,” said Maloney in an interview last year.

The GBL was rejected last year in its bid to join the Middlesex League. It was the second time the GBL applied to and was rejected from the Middlesex League.

According to the MIAA website, the Middlesex League, currently 10 teams strong, is still seeking additional schools. Arlington, now in the very competitive Dual County League, is expected to join Middlesex in the 2011-2012 school year but is trying to get in  a year earlier, a move that has raised the ire of some of the Dual County schools.