Matthew Ponte
Graduating class: 2001
Inducted into Hall of Fame: 2017
Hall of Fame Category: Athlete
All-star labels were his athletic trademarks through four years of high school and few wear them with more distinction than Matt Ponte. He wore the all-star label after all three school seasons. In the fall, he was a standout end on the football team. Over the winter he shoveled clear paths to the basket as a combination center and power forward with the basketball team. And, in the spring, he mesmerized opposing batters as the baseball team’s top right-handed pitcher. A gifted all-around athlete, Ponte’s favorite sport probably was the one he happened to be playing and he played all three as well as anyone and better than most.
He made the majority of his headlines in baseball, capping his brilliant high school diamond career with a sparkling all-around effort that earned the 2001 graduate Player of the Year honors in The Standard-Times. As a pitcher he posted a won-lost record of 6-3 and boasted a microscopic ERA of 1.18 in leading the Blue Devils to a spot in the Eastern Massachusetts South Sectional Tournament. When he wasn’t pitching his way into the lead paragraph of post-game newspaper stories, he hit his way into the headlines. When Ponte didn’t pitch, he played a variety of positions including first base, third base and the outfield. The glove he wore didn’t affect the bat he swung as Matt hit a hard .451 with 23 base hits – including a homerun- and drove in 15 runs for the repeat South Coast Conference champions. His big senior year followed a solid junior season that saw Ponte help lead the Blue Devils to an overall record of 19-5, an SCC title and into the postseason tournament.
Matt limbered up for his annual busy school athletic schedule as a member of the Blue Devils’ football team and, in his junior year, he found the end zone three times to help power his team to a winning record (6-4). The following year he earned a spot on The Standard-Times Super Team. In his final basketball season, the 6’3” Ponte led Fairhaven to a regular season record of 15-5 by ranking among the South Coast Conference leaders in rebounds and led his team in scoring with an average of 18.6 points a game. He never scored fewer than 10 points in any game that season.
But it was baseball that paved the way to future success for Ponte who went on to become a record-setting pitcher at Wheaton College by graduating as the school’s career-leader in innings pitched (88.2) and complete games with seven. After coaching five years at the collegiate level, Matt now resides in Fairhaven with his wife Erin and two sons Jackson and Carter; where he enjoys coaching his sons’ teams.