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May 23, 2025BY BILL DOYLE | CFP CORRESPONDENT
WORCESTER – It’s safe to say that a Catholic education is important to Colin Kreuz and his family.
“It means everything,” Colin’s mother Julie said while tearing up during an interview at St. Paul Diocesan Junior- Senior High School.
Colin, who was to graduate from St. Paul’s yesterday, starred in hockey and baseball. His sister Caroline attended St. Peter Central Catholic Elementary School before enrolling at St. Mark’s School in Southborough this year. Their younger sister Charlotte is an eighth-grader at St. Peter’s.
Mrs. Kreuz graduated from St. Peter-Marian High School and her mother and maternal grandmother both graduated from St. Peter High School. Mrs. Kreuz taught at SPM for 19 years before moving on to St. Paul’s in the fall of 2020 after the SPM and Holy Name High School merger.
Colin’s grandmother and Julie’s mother, Meg Kursonis, has worked at St. Peter Central Catholic for 37 years, the last 25 as headmaster. She started the preschool program there.
“My husband and I,” Mrs. Kreuz said, “have made sure that our kids have this because it’s so important to us that our kids are educated as a whole individual. So not only are they receiving the top academic education, but they are growing spiritually and emotionally as well.”
Colin, a resident of Worcester who will turn 18 on June 17, has blossomed at St. Paul’s as a student and an athlete.
“God and religion are very important to me,”
he said. “Whenever I have something going on, I can take a deep breath, talk to God, go to church. Just knowing that he’s always there for me, that’s really important to me.”His faith motivated him to volunteer at the St. John’s Food for the Poor Program at St. John Church.
Four St. Paul’s hockey players transferred to other schools this school year, but Colin never considered leaving.
“I was committed to this with my friends,” he said. “I knew that Catholic edu- cation was important to my family. It was kind of instilled into us at a young age. So I wanted to stick with that.”
Colin attended St. Peter Central Catholic from pre- school through the eighth grade while his grandmother was the headmaster.
“When you think about it it’s a little weird looking back on it,” he said, “but I was just so used to it at the time that I didn’t really think about it.”
His grandfather, Ed Kursonis, drove him to elementary school each day and now drives Colin’s sister and his three younger cousins.
The grandparents try to attend every game that their 10 grandchildren play, including the Holy Cross hockey games that Colin’s cousin Matt Kursonis plays. If there are two games at the same time, they each choose one.
“They’re the best,” Colin said. “They’ve always been there for us.”
Colin’s mother taught his honors English class his sophomore year.
“It was weird at the start and then I kind of eased into it,” he said. “She treated me just like every other kid. It was probably weird- er for some of the other kids than me because I’ve always been so used to having a family member in the building.”
“Colin and I have always had a great relationship,” Mrs. Kreuz said. We’re extremely close, but when he came to school here we always said, ‘I do my thing and he does his thing.’”
Colin’s mother made sure he did his homework.
“For every single class,” he said.
Colin’s a member of the National Honor Society and he took AP classes this year in calculus, literature and government. In the fall, he’ll be in the honors program at Bryant University and major in finance and data science. Bryant doesn’t have an NCAA hockey program so Colin plans to play club hockey there.
The 6-foot-2, 170-pound captain scored 62 goals and collected 128 assists for 190 career points, the most by a Knight in St. Paul’s five years as a school. His father, Nick, coached him in hockey since he learned to skate, including for the Worcester Junior Sharks and Worcester Junior Railers, and he was an assistant coach of his St. Paul’s hock- ey team for his four years on the team.
“He’s harder on me than any other kid,” Colin said. Colin said his grandparents and parents taught him a lot, including to believe in himself. That belief helped him receive St. Paul’s Male Athlete of the Year Award and the Coaches Award in hockey and baseball.
“The Coaches Award doesn’t have to be your most valuable player, but in this case he is our most valuable player,” St. Paul’s baseball coach Chris Pow- ers said. “I look at it as being an all around leader, an all around good player, good athlete. The kid has done everything for us.”
Colin was a captain, hit third in the batting order and led the St. Paul’s base- ball team with a .360 batting average heading into the last game of the season on Wednesday, May 21, at Nashoba Regional. The right-hander was 2-0 on the mound. He played mostly third base, but some first base as well.
Colin told Mr. Powers that he would play any position he wanted him to play. He even led the team’s stretch- ing exercises.
“He’s just a great kid, just a pleasure to be around,” Mr. Powers said.
Unfortunately, St. Paul’s had only 14 baseball players, including three freshmen, on the varsity and had no junior varsity or fresh- man team. The Knights lost a lot of close games.
The hockey and base- ball teams posted losing records this year after being successful the previous two years.
His father and his mother, who used to coach field hockey at SPM and St. Paul’s, are competitive people, but they taught their children to not take losses too hard.
“You can’t be stuck on all these losses,” he said. “You have to move on and focus on the next one and play the best you can.”
In April, Colin played at Polar Park for the first time when St. Paul’s beat Doherty, 6-5. His uncle, Brian Sargent, coached Doherty and his cousin Tommy Kursonis, Matt’s younger brother, pitched for Doherty that day. Colin had two hits off his cousin. Colin was excited to play at Polar Park and to hit in the bat- ting cages before the game. Each player’s name was announced as he came up to bat and each player chose a walkup song to play as he approached the batter’s box. Colin selected “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Ozbourne.
“It was a lot of fun,” he said.