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Boys’ Cross Country
The Woodstock Academy boys’ cross-country captains Ethan Aspiras, Tristan Monahan and Evan Gianfriddo limber up prior to practice on South Campus. Photo by Marc Allard.
The Woodstock Academy girls’ cross-country team is looking to compete for an Eastern Connecticut Conference championship this season.
The boys may not be in that same position quite yet.
But can the potential success of the girls’ team rub off on the boys’ squad?
“Absolutely,” said Centaurs boys’ cross-country coach Peter Lusa who enters his 11th year at the helm of the program. “Now, having taught (at Killingly High School) when Meghan Owen ran, it didn’t rub off so much on the boys there, in fact, it didn’t even rub off on her (girls’) team. She was like a solo runner. There is some rub off, though. The girls pay attention to the directions and they tell the boys and the boys pay attention to them. It leads to a more cohesive team and I’m really pleased with how it’s working here. It’s something I’ve tried to do for several seasons, get the two teams working together.”
Junior captain Ethan Aspiras agreed.
“The girls’ success can help us because we’ve watched them progress. They are a completely different team than my first year here. Seeing that change and how a team can become successful can, hopefully, influence us to also progress and in years to come also be much better,” Aspiras said.
The Centaurs did compete in Division 1 of the ECC last year for a first time in a while and found out how difficult it was.
The Centaurs finished 6-8 overall, but were 0-6 in the Division.
Lusa doesn’t expect it will be much easier this season.
“(Coach) Chad Johnson is not at (Norwich Free Academy), we will see how that shakes out. I know they have another coach who has just moved over, but they have been slackening a little bit. The East Lyme boys (ECC and Class MM state champions last year) will be good again. I think it will be a good season. We will see how we do in our opener against Waterford, The Lancers are still looking pretty good,” Lusa said.
That first meet with Waterford, Killingly and Wheeler is Sept. 10 at Owen Bell Park in Dayville.
Before that, the Centaurs will participate in the season-opening event for most, the 41st annual Haddad Windham Invitational at Windham High School Sept. 7.
“It’s a lot of tar. It’s also 3 miles and not 3.1 so the times are a bit faster. Some run in the freshmen or JV races so teams don’t run together as a pack. There may be kids separated by races who are not running with who they are used to running with; that can be both good and bad. It’s a good shake-out meet. No high expectations. If they run a little faster and times are a little better, that just gets it in their head that they can run these times and when they go to 3.1 miles with hills, and soft gravel, and they do it again, we can talk about doing better on harder courses,” Lusa said.
The Centaurs did lose a little of their glue when Kenneth Birlin graduated.
They also lost Noah Pepper, Holden Pimental, and Spencer Collins.
But Lusa has been pleased with the turnout.
“You always want more, but we have a good smattering of (athletes from) all the grades so it bodes well for the future,” Lusa said.
The leader of the pack will be Aspiras.
Some of that progress Aspiras talked about, he has begun to see happen.
“I’ve been telling my friends, I can’t believe we’re juniors already. It seems like yesterday that I came to this track for the first cross-country practice,” Aspiras said. “The team has been getting better and better since I first came. It’s great to see that.”
But progress in cross-country doesn’t come without work, especially in the summer.
Aspiras said he put in 405 miles during the offseason.
It wasn’t quite what he wanted to reach.
His goal was 450.
“But, it’s a lot better than last year,” Aspiras said with a smile.
Aspiras finished 21st in the ECC championship race (18 minutes, 35 seconds) and 30th in the Class MM state meet (17:57) in 2018.
“I am definitely looking forward to finish in the top-10 in the ECC and definitely want to qualify for the State Open championship,” Aspiras said.
Lusa is confident that Aspiras can reach his goals this season.
“I have to hold him back a little (early) and then let him go when it’s time,” Lusa said. “Coach (Josh) Welch and Coach (Joe) Banas are keyed in with that. I’m taking more of an administrative role, getting all that stuff done and they’re in charge of dialing in workouts.”
Aspiras will be joined in the captain’s role by seniors Evan Gianfriddo and Tristan Monahan.
“Tristan went away to running camp this year,” Lusa said. “He came back asking me all these questions like ‘Is this why you made us do all these workouts? The coach there was saying these are great’ It was awesome to have him ask, ‘What do I do if this happens?’ Other summers, it was just crickets and I was like ‘Tristan, are you out there?’
Other key runners include junior Cody Currie and sophomore Hamilton Barnes.
“(Hamilton) is the person right behind me right now. Hamilton has been following my times as a sophomore so that’s pretty good to see that happen, having a younger person following what you have been doing and, hopefully, maybe even do better than I did in past years,” Aspiras said.
Other returning members of the team include senior Ben Green, junior John Peabody, and sophomores Hans Rhynhart and Noah Salsich.
The newcomers include juniors Pablo Lopez, Avery Pajak, Thomas Walden, Aaron Allard, Maxwell Auker, Vince Bastura, Lance LaFemina, Adam Thompson and Jacob Vadeboncoeur.
The cross-country teams also had a little advantage.
They were allowed to practice a week earlier than the other programs such as soccer, field hockey and volleyball.
Football was the only other team practicing prior to last Thursday.
It was something that Lusa didn’t even realize.
“I didn’t think of that,” he said with a
laugh. “I asked someone and they said everyone had started already. It does feel nice. We didn’t have to battle for (space on the) buses.”
Boys’ cross-country schedule
Saturday, Sept. 7: at Haddad-Windham Invitational, TBA
Tuesday, Sept. 10: at Killingly with Wheeler , Waterford ( Owen Bell Park), 3:45 p.m.
Tuesday, Sept. 17: Ledyard, Norwich Free Academy at Woodstock Academy, 4 p.m.
Sat., Sept. 28: at Ocean State Invitational (at Goddard State Park, Warwick, R.I.), TBA
Tuesday, Oct. 1: at Fitch with Bacon Academy (at Haley Farm State Park), 4:30 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 5: at Auburn, MA. 2:30 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 10: at East Lyme (at Rocky Neck State Park), 4:30 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 12: at Wickham Park Invitational (at Wickham Park, East Hartford), TBA
Thursday, Oct. 17: at ECC championship (at Norwich Golf Course), TBA
Sat., Oct. 26: at Class MM state championship (at Wickham Park, E. Hartford), 1:35 p.m.
Marc Allard, Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
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PSA Golf Tourney
On left: The first-place team, left to right: Dan Barrett, Pete Gerardi, Bob Gerardi, Tyler Scheiblich. Second-place team: Cy Romans, John Darigan, Jeter Darigan, Bob Darigan. Photo courtesy of Vasiliki Brodeur.
Heather Stewart, Putnam Science Academy’s director of Marketing and Recruiting, had been worrying for weeks. Her mind went everywhere as she prepared so many of the logistics of the school’s first Mustang Golf Classic. And much was focused on all the things that could go wrong.
“It’s not that we weren’t prepared,” Stewart said. “It’s just that this was our first one. But for our first time doing this, it was amazing. Even if it wasn’t our first time, amazing.”
The event, a fund-raiser for the Mustangs Club to help allay some of the expenses of the school’s athletic programs, was held Aug. 24 included lunch and dinner, and a sports memorabilia auction.
“We did have to pay a little extra for the weather,” Stewart said, “but it was totally worth it.”
In all, 92 golfers teed up in the contest, which was played in a scramble format. The winning foursome of Peter Gerardi, Bob Gerardi, Daniel Barrett and Tyler Scheiblich shot an 18-under 53. The team of Bob Darigan, John Darigan, Jeter Darigan and Cy Romans finished in second place after going 15-under, while Nathan Brodeur, Andrew Zamagni, Chris Pulcini and Ty Gaudreau combined to finish seven shots off the pace and take home third-place honors based on a back-9 tiebreaker.
The day also included competitions such as longest drive, won by Anne Kelly (women) and Tyler Scheiblich (men), and closest-to-the-pin, with Jess Musto (women) and John Herlihy (men) claiming victory.
“It was a huge success,” said Mustangs Athletic Director Tom Espinosa. “Great day. We’re looking forward to doing it again next year.”
The second annual Mustang Golf Classic will be held Aug. 15, 2020, again at CT National.
Steve Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy
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New Coach
Sam DeMello is the new Putnam Science Academy soccer coach. Courtey photo.
It was a small-town connection that led Sam DeMello to Putnam Science Academy to coach soccer, the world’s most global game.
DeMello used his high school alma mater, Williston in Northampton, Mass., as the home field in his position as a manager in the youth organization Global Premier Soccer last year. And as a show of goodwill, he offered to help Williston’s coach, John Chiavaroli, with offseason and preseason training when he had free time. Chiavaroli just so happens to be a former prep school roommate of Matt Kokoszka, who currently serves as the director of the Soccer Program at PSA.
“So it was one of those things where I know him, and he knows Matt,” DeMello said, “and it just came about that way.”
Now the detail-oriented DeMello, who turns 29 in October, is in charge of PSA’s First Team, which last year was ranked as high as No. 8 nationally and has designs on being higher this season. The Mustangs, featuring a roster of predominantly international players, had a preseason training trip to Bermuda earlier this month in which they impressed in matches against some of the island’s top national teams. They performed well in a friendly with Oakwood Developmental Academy’s U19 team (out of Glastonbury) Thursday and fared well there. The regular season opens Sept. 8 against Berkshire School.
DeMello, who is quick to point out the importance of Second Team coach Ivan Damulira and goalkeeper coach Giovani Riello to the program’s success, inherits a team that is loaded with talent. He said there are three or four players whom he expects to play at the “very, very elite college level,” meaning the Atlantic Coast Conference, which features seven teams in the preseason Top 25 poll, including four of the Top 10. And he thinks another dozen or so can play at the college level, some not far behind the top-tier guys.
Having such high quality technical players would seemingly lead the Mustangs to play a possession-based game, though DeMello said that is his ideal style in a perfect world anyway. But having so many strong players on one team is not without its challenges, especially for a team that has been together for less than a month.
“Any time you step into a new situation, there’s always rough patches, just in terms of communicating your ideas,” he said. “So no matter what or where you are, it does take some time to develop and establish that. But before we get into our regular season, we’ll have a good chunk of time to let these guys know what our standards are, what our expectations are, this is they style we want to play, and this is how it works.
“We have all these guys from different parts of the world — Spain, Brazil, South Africa— where they play all these different styles and show they can be successful,” DeMello said. “As a coach, you always have your own ideas about how you want to play, but at the same time, you can never do that if you don’t have the players to fit that style. You do have to adjust to their strengths too.”
So far, so good. His players say they like playing for him and that he helps them deal with the other adjustments many of them are making, the biggest of which is being so far from home.
“He’s a good coach and he’s a good man,” said senior Artur Selva, a native of Brazil who is at PSA for the first time. “He wants to help us be OK. He wants to help us on the field and to get better. He wants to help us with recruiting for college. I like him very much.”
Steve Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy
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Cross Country
Left to right: Lynsey Arends, Megan Gohn and Stella DiPippo participate in a preseason work out on the South Campus track at The Woodstock Academy. Photo by Marc Allard.
High expectations.
That’s what the Woodstock Academy girls’ cross-country team carries into the 2019 season which begins Sept. 7 with the 41st annual Haddad Windham Invitational meet at Windham High School.
“Really, really badly,” senior captain Megan Gohn said when asked how much the Centaurs want to win their first Eastern Connecticut Conference championship. “Especially with this being my senior year, I want to get one before I graduate.”
She is not the only one hankering for a title.
Second-year coach Joe Banas is also thirsty for one.
“It would be huge because it’s never happened. (The Academy) won back in the days of the (Quinebaug Valley Conference). I’ve won as a runner. I’ve been on a national championship, a New England championship, a state championship, and on a conference championship team. But as a coach, I’ve never had a title. At 62 years-old, I would love to be involved in that. To get a banner in the gym that says, ‘ECC champions,’ (would be great),” Banas said.
But not easy to accomplish.
To try and make it happen, Banas is digging deep into his book of tricks.
He wants to bring the team closer together as a unit and he’s doing so from the bottom up.
Banas has 10 freshmen on the team and 10 runners with experience.
Put the two together and see what happens.
To encourage the growth of the younger runners, both mentally and physically, he has set up a mentor program with established runners working with the newcomers.
“I can’t remember where I found it, but there was research that if you have a mentor-mentee program set up, the chances of a girl finishing all four years of running cross-country are over two-thirds. To me, that means seven out of the 10 girls here. If you don’t have it in place, the percentage drops to under 50 percent which is 4 of 10. That means I’m gaining three additional girls if I use this strategy. It’s a great way of bringing newbies into the fold,” Banas said. “They were making friends with the seniors even before they came on campus and I don’t want any girl left out. I want to create a little family atmosphere here.”
“I really think that’s important,” Gohn said. “When I was a freshman we didn’t have that program. Coming from middle school to high school, even without sports, is pretty daunting and joining a big sport like this, it’s good to have a mentor to guide you through that first semester.”
Gohn said it’s been effective so far, especially getting the youngsters adjusted to the new expectations of the program.
“Middle school is very relaxed whereas the competitiveness in high school is ramped up a lot. We just work on them, trying to make them not feel as much pressure as they might and
their (running) form is also a big thing,” she said.
The new runners do have a couple of older teammates to model themselves after.
Junior Stella DiPippo and sophomore Lynsey Arends led the Centaurs to a 12-2 overall record and a 4-2 mark in ECC Division I in 2018.
Their only two regular-season losses came against East Lyme which was also the only team to best them in the ECC championship, 57-83.
Arends finished third in the ECC championship race (20 minutes, 54 seconds) while DiPippo placed fifth in 21:07.
Arends went on to finish 10th in the Class MM state championship race and qualified for the State Open.
Both have improved.
Banas encourages runners to do, at least, 200 miles of running over the summer beginning on June 1.
Arends completed around 350 miles, third-best on the team.
She has also grown about 4 inches in height and put on a little weight which makes her a little stronger.
“I think her eyes were opened last year and she really wants it this year. I can see she’s coming into the season with the ‘I want to see what else I can do attitude’ and wants to turn it up a notch,” Banas said.
DiPippo put on 475 miles over the offseason, the most of anyone on the boys’ or girls’ team.
“Stella broke 20 (minutes) over the summer and Lynsey is determined not to let Stella beat her this season,” Gohn said with a laugh.
That interior competition is not a negative.
“The competitiveness within the team is healthy,” Gohn said. “It pushes us in practice a lot and in our meets, too. Sometimes, girls from other teams are not around us so having them 1-2 right next to each other pushes them to faster times.”
The Centaurs did lose a couple of runners.
Shannon D’Alessandro, who was one of the top five runners on the team, graduated, and Emily McClure opted to concentrate on another activity.
The team, however, did get Julia Theriaque back.
The senior had been on the sidelines since the indoor track season with a hip problem.
“We shut her down for four months and she hasn’t run much over the summer but the last couple of days, she has been showing a lot of heart. You can’t teach being an athlete; she has that athletic talent already built in. She says she’s feeling good,” Banas said.
Gohn and junior Iris Bazinet return and also filled top five spots for the Centaurs last year.
Also back is another senior captain, Alexia Bourbeau, and sophomore Leah Castle.
The freshmen may also be heard from.
Banas likes what he has seen in newcomers Brooke Bergivin, Avery Mowrey, and Tessa Brown.
“Bergivin went to Woodstock Middle School and ran over 400 miles this summer, but we had to shut her down for the moment because she has Achilles’ tendinitis. Avery is from Brooklyn and I believe was second in the Quinebaug Valley Junior Conference championship (last season). Brooklyn has been great to us the past two years with Stella and Lynsey and maybe this will be another great gift from Brooklyn Middle School,” Banas said.
The ECC won’t be easy, however.
“I understand that (East Lyme coach) Mike Flynn has all five of his girls back and I know that NFA has its No. 1 back from two years ago and a freshman. NFA got stronger and I really see Division I, because you never know what Fitch will have, being as tough as the MM in the states,” Banas said.
Girls’ cross-country schedule
Saturday, Sept. 7: at Haddad-Windham Invitational, TBA
Tuesday, Sept. 10: at Killingly with Wheeler and Waterford (at Owen Bell Park), 3:45 p.m.
Tuesday, Sept. 17: Ledyard, Norwich Free Academy at Woodstock Academy, 4 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 28: at Ocean State Invitational (at Goddard State Park, Warwick, R.I.), TBA
Tuesday, Oct. 1: at Fitch with Bacon Academy (at Haley Farm State Park), 4:30 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 10: at East Lyme (at Rocky Neck State Park), 4:30 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 12: at Wickham Park Invitational (at Wickham Park, East Hartford), TBA
Thursday, Oct. 17: at ECC championship (at Norwich Golf Course), TBA
Saturday, Oct. 26: at Class MM state championship (at Wickham Park, East Hartford), 1 p.m.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
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