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Honored
The Woodstock Academy freshmen girls’ cross-country team was honored after its second-place finish at the Wickham Park Invitational. Kneeling, left to right: Sydney Lord and Madison Bates. Back: Coach Joe Banas, Brooke Bergevin, Tessa Brown, Shannon Cunniff, Delaney Canty, Carah Bruce, and Coach Josh Welch. Photo courtesy of Peter Lusa/The Woodstock Academy



The ECC championship cross-country championship races come up Oct. 17 and Woodstock Academy girls’ coach Joe Banas is optimistic.
The Centaurs have a runner with a chance to bring home an ECC individual title when the girls’ race gets underway at 1 p.m. at the Norwich Golf Course.
Sophomore Linsey Arends has had a very successful season thus far.
“I’m very hopeful as any coach would be for their athlete. She has beaten everyone up to this point,” Banas said.
Everyone that is except defending champion, Jordan Malloy, from Bacon Academy.
Malloy was in a boot when the Centaurs faced the Bobcats two weeks ago.
Like Arends, Malloy is a sophomore, and is apparently back and healthy.
“I don’t know how strong she is,” Banas said. “We were also curious (Saturday) because we heard NFA freshman (Eliana Duclos) was supposed to run and she didn’t. I’m wondering if she will run at the ECC’s. Madison (Sjostrom) from East Lyme is solid too but I think (Arends) has just as good a shot as anyone.”
The team, itself, will have its work cut out for it.
The Centaurs found out how solid East Lyme is this past week.
The Centaurs will go in with a 1-2 record in Division I of the ECC after a 24-35 loss to the Vikings Oct. 11.
Arends finished first in the race and got a little bonus. She set the course record at Rocky Neck State Park with a winning time of 19 minutes, 34 seconds.
Arends was running with Sjostrom for the first half of the race.
“You could tell that Madison was struggling somewhat while Linsey looked fresh and in full control,” Banas said.
Sjostrom finished 16 seconds back of Arends in second while Woodstock Academy junior Stella DiPippo was third in 20:11.
The next five runners were all from East Lyme.
“I think it will be East Lyme, E.O. Smith and Guilford as the top three teams in Class MM,” Banas said. “East Lyme coach) Mike (Flynn) runs quite the program there.”
The state championship races are Oct. 26 at Wickham Park.
Iris Bazinet and Meg Gohn finished ninth and 10th overall for the Centaurs against East Lyme.
As a result of the East Lyme race, the Centaurs varsity team did not compete in the Wickham Park Invitational Saturday.
Instead, Banas just had his runners run in between meets at the Invite just to get a feel for the course.
The freshmen team did run.
And did pretty well.
“Awesome,” said Banas.
Woodstock Academy’s freshmen group finished second to Whitinsville Christian in the team competition.
Tessa Brown was the first across in 15th place followed by Brooke Bergevin (19th); Madison Bates (22nd); Carah Bruce (31st); Shannon Cuniff (32nd) and Sydney Lord (36th).
Banas said the finish caught him a bit by surprise. He was called to the scorer’s tent after the race, and honestly didn’t know why. He hadn’t seen the results yet. Upon his arrival, he and his team received a nice surprise when they were handed the second-place trophy. “Assistant coach) Josh (Welch) and I are both so proud of them. I think this will be a confidence booster and they were so excited. It’s going to help for years to come,” Banas said.
Boys’ Cross Country
The Woodstock Academy boys’ cross-country team lost to the East Lyme Vikings at Rocky Neck State Park Oct. 11, 19-44.
Junior Ethan Aspiras put together a strong effort for the Centaurs (3-6, 0-3 ECC Division I) with a second-place finish, just six seconds back of winner Chris Abbey (16:59) for East Lyme (6-0, 3-0).
“Ethan ran a good race,” said Woodstock Academy coach Peter Lusa. “He was a bit slow at the one-mile mark and was outkicked over the last half-mile. But I think he’s looking forward to a good effort at the ECC championship.”
Hamilton Barnes finished 11th for Woodstock Academy and Evan Gianfriddo placed 13th.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy

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It was a little bit of everything for the Woodstock Academy girls’ soccer team last week.
The Centaurs had hoped for better, but had settle for a 1-1-1 finish against the likes of Fitch, Stonington and St. Paul Catholic.
It means the Centaurs will have to do well in their remaining four ECC matches against East Lyme this week, Bacon Academy and Norwich Free Academy next week and the season finale against Plainfield on Oct. 29. If they want a shot at the postseason in the league.
Nothing is out of the picture yet for Woodstock Academy.
The East Lyme match could loom important for the Division I regular season title. The Vikings are 3-0-1 in the league while the Centaurs are 2-2.
Should Woodstock Academy be able to avenge a 4-1 loss at East Lyme earlier in the season and the Vikings lose to Fitch, the Centaurs would emerge as the divisional champs.
It’s not something that ranks high on the list of priorities for Woodstock Academy coach Dennis Snelling. “I don’t care about a title that we beat three teams to get. It’s nice to have it, but we’re really focused on getting into the (ECC) tournament and not missing out on that opportunity,” Snelling said.
The ECC has reduced the amount of teams who will qualify for the ECC tournament to four from the eight it was last year.
Which made the match against Fitch early last week important.
Unfortunately for the Centaurs, things did not go as planned. Woodstock Academy took 27 shots on goal. The Falcons had three.
Two of the Fitch shots went in; the Centaurs only saw one of their numerous opportunities cross the goal mouth.
“It was the kind of day where it felt like there was a wall over the goal,” Snelling said. “The goalie was saving everything because we were kicking them right to her. We hit the post and crossbar four times. We were all around it.”
The only goal for the Centaurs came off the foot of Lucy McDermott who took a feed from Peyton Saracina just 8 minutes, 18 seconds into the match.
The Falcons (3-7, 1-3 ECC Div. I) got the equalizer on a penalty kick after the Centaurs tripped a Fitch player in the penalty area.
The game winner also came in the first half with neither team able to find the net in the second.
The saving grace of the week came Oct. 9 when Woodstock Academy scored a 3-1 victory over Stonington on a rainy and raw afternoon.
Unlike the Fitch match, all of the Centaurs goals came in the second half.
Saracina broke a scoreless tie at the half just 7 ½ minutes into the second half when she took a pass from Grace Gelhaus (11 goals, 7 assists this season) and drilled it into the upper left hand corner.
What proved to be the game winner came off the foot of Emma Redfield just 2:41 later when she took a Saracina (12 goals, 5 assists) dish and lobbed it over the head of the Stonington keeper.
The insurance came when Gelhaus scored with 4:49 to play.
The week ended just about how it began. With a match where the ball just wouldn’t go in. The Centaurs had to settle for a 1-1 tie in Bristol with St. Paul Catholic. “The goalie was very good and we only had nine shots,” Snelling said. The last of those nine found the net with five minutes to play when Saracina scored on a Redfield (2 goals, 4 assists) pass.
St. Paul Catholic didn’t have a shot on goal until the final 40 seconds. That’s when a St. Paul Catholic player ran into Woodstock Academy keeper Rachel Holden but before she did, got enough behind the ball and sent it rolling toward the net. No one could catch up to it and it agonizingly found its way to the back of the net.
“It was a good game. I thought we learned a lot. I thought we could go 3-0 this week. It just didn’t go our way,” Snelling said.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy

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Tais Mota. Photo by Vaso Brodeur




When Putnam Science Academy girls’ soccer coach Jen Bennett met her team for the first time, she needed someone she could talk to. Well, someone she could talk to who could then talk to the rest of the team.
Enter Tais Mota.
The 15-year-old from Fortaleza in northeastern Brazil, spoke Spanish well enough to serve as the team’s unofficial translator, bridging the gap between coach and players, as well as between players. Taking on that important role so early wasn’t something Mota was seeking, but she certainly felt at ease in a leadership-type position. She was, after all, a captain on her city’s Under-20 team at age 14.
Bennett continues to lean on the junior, but now for so much more than just translating.
“Tais is a special player,” Bennett said. “You can’t teach people to be tough. They either have it in them or they don’t, and she has it. She is just a vital part of the team.”
Mota is the center-midfielder, the area of the field from which Bennett demands so much. She wants them winning every 50/50 ball, making every tackle. She doesn’t want her players to win in the midfield, she wants them to dominate in the midfield. Bennett knows it’s a lot to shoulder.
“Tais can handle it,” Bennett said, “mentally and physically.”
Mota acknowledges the American game is much more physical in the midfield than it is in Brazil. But she likes it because it is more aligned with the professional level of play, something to which she aspires. And she benefitted from city not having a lot of teams to play on.
“They didn’t have Under-14 or Under-16 teams for me to play on,” Mota said. “So I used to play with older girls and adults and on the U-20 teams. When I was 13, I was playing with adults. I wasn’t a starter, but I played in every game. And then when I was 14, I was a starter and a captain on the U-20 team. So being physical, it was kind of how I played and how I learned to play.
“Sometimes I get physical and called for some fouls but it’s not like I’m trying to stop the game or hurt someone. It’s just my way to play.”
Bennett loves how she plays, and how that style never takes a break.
“She is a hard-nosed player,” Bennett said. “She elevates over other players to win balls in the air with her head. She literally throws her body in the air to volley a ball into the goal. This is all the time…practice, game, doesn’t matter.”
Said Mota: “If it’s practice or a game or if it would be the final of the World Cup, I always try to do my best. You should always do your best. It doesn’t matter if it’s practice or a game. Practice is what you’re going to do in the game. You can’t do it right in the game if you’re not practicing it the right way. You have to do it all the time.”
Stephen Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy