The Woodstock Academy field hockey team enters the week in need of a couple of wins over Fitch-Ledyard.
The Centaurs fell to 3-7 with a pair of losses to Killingly and Old Saybrook last week.
They need to win half of their remaining games to qualify for the state tournament.
That won’t be easy as they have games against the likes of East Lyme, Waterford and Stonington still to play coming into the week.
To make the Eastern Connecticut Conference tournament as well as the state tournament, the Centaurs will likely need a sweep of the Fitch-Ledyard cooperative.
The two teams play back-to-back games this week with the Centaurs hosting the Falcons at 4 p.m. Oct. 18 and going to Groton Oct. 19 for a 4 p.m. contest.
On Oct. 13 against Old Saybrook, the Centaurs had their chances, but could not cash in.
Rachel Canedy had four shots and Emma Durand three, but none found the back of the cage and the Centaurs fell to the Rams, 5-0, at the Bentley Athletic Complex.
The Centaurs were outshot by the Rams, 15-13.
Five different players scored for Old Saybrook (7-4-1) led by Mandy Beck who had a goal and two assists.
It was quite the battle Oct. 9.
Goals were plentiful on both sides, but it was Killingly that found the net first in overtime.
In the 7-on-7 extra period, Woodstock Academy peppered Redgals keeper Alyssa Gaudreau early but she made three excellent saves and Hannah Walters stepped in with a key defensive saves to thwart the Centaurs.
Killingly then took its turn with several shots at the Woodstock Academy goal and Alyssa Elsey won it when she poked a rebound back into the cage for the 6-5 victory.
Avery Jones put the Centaurs (3-4 Eastern Connecticut Conference) ahead with just 12 minutes, 39 seconds left in the first half.
Killingly’s Brianna Caffrey scored two of her four goals in a 2:16 span to put Killingly ahead. The Redgals’ Soudalath Souvanhnaphan added a goal with four minutes left in the first to give Killingly a 3-1 halftime lead.
But Woodstock Academy answered with three goals of its own in the first 9 1/2 minutes of the second half.
Abbe Lecuyer pulled the Centaurs within one and Rachel Canedy added a pair of goals just two minutes apart to put the Centaurs ahead.
A pair of Caffrey goals surrounded a Hannah Chubbuck tally for the Centaurs and it was even at 5-5 at the end of regulation.
Marc Allard
Sports Information Director
The Woodstock Academy

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'Time to
get serious'
Oct. 12 Woodstock Academy girls’ cross-country coach Joe Banas was busily getting prepared for one of the toughest workouts of the season.
He felt the Centaurs needed it, because their toughest races of the season lie just ahead; the Eastern Connecticut Conference championship race Oct. 18 and the state championship races take place on Oct. 27.
Both are held on traditional cross-country courses with grass, hills and, yes especially this year, mud.
So, Banas set up a quarter-mile practice course within the Centaurs home course on Stonebridge Road.
It went up a particularly nasty uphill, with the mud already in evidence, and back down with more mud waiting for the runners.
This wasn’t a workout to build speed, but more importantly, strength.
He then warned the boys’ and girls’ teams of his plans.
The regular season is over, it was time to get serious.
The Centaurs girls finished with a 10-1 mark after scoring wins over Norwich Free Academy, Stonington and Windham in their only home meet of the season Oct. 9.
“According to (former coach) John Ywarsky, we hadn’t beaten either Stonington or NFA in a long time. It was on the bucket list. That was big. I was happy that (Ywarsky) was here to see it,” said Banas.
The Centaurs downed Stonington, 21-35, and NFA, 24-31. Windham brought several runners but opted not to compete, giving Woodstock Academy the 15-50 forfeit victory.
Linsey Arends and Stella DiPippo were first and second again with the freshman crossing the line in 21 minutes, 32 seconds with the sophomore 17 seconds back.
Iris Bazinet and Shannon D’Alessandro were sixth and seventh in the race with Julia Theriaque in 14th.
For the Centaurs to do well in the ECC championship at the Norwich Golf Course, the girls behind Arends and DiPippo will have to move up.
“The pack needs to get moving,” Banas said.
In the home meet, D’Alessandro started slow.
She was 50 meters back of a pack of NFA and Stonington runners at the mile mark.
D’Alessandro caught up to all but three of them by the end of the race.
“I wasn’t panicking (at the mile mark) because that is Shannon’s M.O. She goes out, knows her pace and sticks with it throughout,” Banas said. “I knew if she maintained that pace, (the NFA and Stonington runners) were coming back to her.”
Banas wanted to make sure that his team would not be the ones coming back to the pack in the league championship meet, thus the strength workout.
The Centaurs can still tie for the Division I title if they beat East Lyme in the championship race.
“I’m still looking at the ECC’s. I’m not giving up hope yet. This team will not go down without a fight. East Lyme has to be perfect and in a big meet, crazy things happen,” Banas said. “At the moment, being second out of 19 teams in the conference, I’m so proud of these girls. I’ve walked into something great.”
Not only do the Centaurs have a chance at the team championship, two of their runners have to be considered potential ECC individual champs.
Arends and DiPippo should give defending champion Mady Whittaker of Montville a challenge.
DiPippo finished third in the championship race as a freshman.
She was all of 1 minute, 2 seconds behind the Montville senior.
Now, she has to not only contend with Whittaker, but also her teammate, Arends, Bacon Academy freshman Jordan Malloy and St. Bernard junior Brigid Kunka.
“There are definitely a lot of fast girls. It’s going to be hard, but I’m going to go for it,” DiPippo said. “The golf course is tough, but it makes it interesting. It’s more fun to run than just a flat race.”
DiPippo added she will be treading a fine line.
She doesn’t want to start too fast.
If that happens, “the race usually goes terrible for me,” she said.
But she also doesn’t want to be too far back, because it’s easy to get bodied out of the front pack and it’s difficult to make up the ground lost early.
Arends will find that out.
She is running in the ECC championship and on the Norwich Golf Course for a first time.
But Banas points out that there is a lot of reason for optimism.
Both Arends and Whittaker ran in the Wickham Invitational albeit in different races.
But both ran on the same course, in the same conditions and Arends was eight seconds faster.
“Mady will be the favorite, she is the defending champion and has those wheels at the end,” Banas said. “Are they the favorites? No. But, Stella and Linsey are in the conversation.”

Boys’ cross-country
The Centaurs boys’ team finished above .500 for the regular season.
That was not easy considering it moved up to Division I in the Eastern Connecticut Conference this season where it finished 0-3.
“We knew before the season started, unless someone else had a really bad year, that we would be struggling to catch up to them. We don’t have that running culture here, “said coach Peter Lusa.
The Centaurs finished up the season with a 23-32 win over Stonington and a 15-50 victory over Windham although they lost to Norwich Free Academy, 16-47.
Lusa was pleased with the effort of sophomore Ethan Aspiras who finished sixth in the race Oct. 9 in 19:01.
Kenneth Birlin finished 11th just 40 seconds behind Aspiras, Hamilton Barnes was 14th, Matt Rothlein 17th and Evan Gianfriddo 19th.
“The kids ran well on their home course which is another feather in their cap. A great effort on their part,” Lusa said.
It was, also, almost a new experience.
While it is their home course, they hadn’t practiced on it all that much during the season.
“It used to be, when we used this area (near the Woodstock Fair horse show rings) for football (practice), we would be down here the first week of school and it became, our place. They love to train here,” Lusa said.
The goal for the boys’ team is much more conservative than the girls.
“Running their best, returners beating their time from last year, newcomers get a chance to see how they do,” Lusa said. “It’s a big meet. There are a lot of kids to run with some we have never seen before and it will be great to see how our kids will do. There is no overarching goal. Two years ago, we tied for first in the Medium Division (now Division II) and then we get thrown back in the Large (Division I) so it will take us a few years to sort back out.”
Marc Allard
Sports Information Director
The Woodstock Academy

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caption:

Dribbles
Woodstock Academy freshman Adeline Smith dribbles down the sideline for the Centaurs against Old Lyme Oct. 13. Photo by Marc Allard.




The Woodstock Academy girls’ soccer team had a pretty productive week.
The Centaurs put themselves in position to clinch an Eastern Connecticut Conference Division I title with wins over East Lyme and Norwich Free Academy.
They also posted a victory over two-time defending Class S champion, Old Lyme, in the rain Oct. 13.
“This was probably one of the better wins for the program,” Woodstock Academy coach Dennis Snelling said about the Old Lyme win.
The 1-0 victory over Old Lyme came on the heels of a 3-1 victory over Norwich Free Academy Oct. 12.
The two victories raised the Centaurs record to 9-0-2.
“We managed it pretty well (Friday) with the minutes being shared. We brought up some JV players who did a good job. Other than the defensive line, which never subs out, it was a pretty conservative day for us with everybody else. It was an issue, but I knew we had plenty left for (Saturday),” Snelling said of the back-to-back matches.
Old Lyme did present problems.
Senior Mya Johnson is one of the better players in Connecticut, according to Snelling, and the Centaurs had to contain her.
That job fell to Ashleigh Angle.
“It was very difficult,” Angle said. “She had really good foot skills. I had to watch the ball the entire game. It was hard because I could not make as many passes as I wanted to Ivy (Gelhaus) and the strikers.”
Johnson did get a couple of shots off.
One Angle could not do much about.
Old Lyme was awarded a direct kick about 35 yards out in the first half and Johnson’s kick was tipped just up and over crossbar by Centaurs’ keeper Irene Askitis.
In the second half, Johnson sent a header toward the goal, but it somehow went wide to the right.
“I just watched it. She’s a very dangerous player, not in the effect that she is physical, but she’s a very good, very strong player,” Angle said.
Old Lyme (5-3-3) also had another good chance later in the half when it put another shot off the post.
Nothing, however, found the back of the net until just 5:57 was left in regulation.
The Centaurs were awarded a corner when Emma Redfield worked hard to tip the ball out off an Old Lyme defender and then lobbied the officials for the corner.
She got it.
Gelhaus walked over and asked Redfield if she wanted to play a short corner to her.
“We had been doing it in practice and in one game where we did a short 1-2 and I asked her if we should because there wasn’t a lot of time remaining in the game. Every shot is a shot and, luckily, it went in,” Gelhaus said.
Gelhaus launched from 23 yards out with 5:57 to play, and unlike a similar effort against East Lyme where her shot struck the cross bar, this one got over the keeper’s hands and under the cross bar.
It was the 15th goal of the season for Gelhaus and her fifth game winner.
“It feels great,” Gelhaus said of the win. “Last year, we lost 3-0 to them and they seemed like the dominant team. This year, we were.”
Gelhaus was the key figure in the Centaurs 3-0 victory over East Lyme to start the week.
The senior scored all three goals.
“I think our team is just so good and we have great chemistry. It’s easy for them to send me balls and it’s easy for me to get shots off because everyone on the team is working together so well,” Gelhaus said.
Gelhaus scored just 15 seconds into the game, taking a pass from Regan Stuyniski off the opening kick.
“It kind of set the tone for us,” Gelhaus said.
Her second goal came with 6 ½ to play in the first half and finished off the hat trick with 13:10 left when she scored off an assist from Aislin Tracey.
The Centaurs didn’t wait all that much longer to score their first goal against Norwich Free Academy.
Just six minutes had ticked off in the first half when Peyton Saracina took a pass from Redfield for the only goal of the half.
The Centaurs made it 2-0 just 1:50 into the second half when Saracina assisted on a Gelhaus goal and sophomore Gillian Price finished things up with her first goal of the season off a pass from Isabel Cintron.
“We hadn’t seen NFA yet and were curious what they had, but they have been bothered by injuries. It was a good win, we were even with them last year, and it wasn’t all that close this year. I’m happy with that,” Snelling said.
Marc Allard
Sports Information Director
The Woodstock Academy

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