Farmington Valley November 2013 ALWAYS FREE! Covering 15 Towns • Print Editions Mailed To More Than 60,000 Homes PRINT EDITION Serving Avon, Farmington, Canton and Simsbury WHAT’S INSIDE 530 Bushy Hill Road Simsbury Commons Simsbury, CT 06070 THE ONLY 24/7 GYM IN THE AREA! JOIN NOW AND GET A FREE WEEK! WE HAVE THE BEST AND NEWEST TECHNOLOGY ON THE EAST COAST ZOOGYM.COM WHAT’S INSIDE Farmington foot- ball poised for run at tourney berth Pages 4-5 FHS volleyball falls in L title game Page 7 Second title just as sweet as first for Indians By Tom Powers Staff Writer WATERBURY — The Farmington High boys soccer team got all the scor- ing it would need just 42 seconds into the Class L state championship game Saturday. But the Indians decided to tack on three more for good measure on the way to a convincing 4-0 victo- ry over Joel Barlow. The victory gave Farmington its second consecutive state title. “Full Focus.” Farmington coach Steve Waters preached those two words to his team Saturday morning before disembarking from the team bus, and from very early on it was clear that the Indians were confident and focused on winning their second straight Class L championship. “We played the entire game in our comfort zone,” Waters said. “We came into this game confident knowing that we won it last year,” Farmington senior Jon Mazzanotte said of the team’s attitude towards de- fending their title. The Indians had an incredible post- season run to repeat as champs. As an eight-seed, Farmington did not re- ceive a first round bye, but handled 25 ND-WH 2-0 to advance. The following round, the Indians knocked out rivals Avon, the team they defeated in last year’s championship game. Back-to-back Tom Powers | Staff The Indians celebrate at midfield after the buzzer sounds in Saturday’s Class L state championship game. The 4-0 victory is Farmington’s second title in two seasons.
Transcript
Farmington Valley November 2013
ALWAYS FREE!
Covering 15 Towns • Print Editions Mailed To More Than 60,000 Homes
PRINT EDITIONServing Avon, Farmington, Canton and Simsbury
WHAT’S INSIDE
530 Bushy Hill Road Simsbury Commons Simsbury, CT 06070
THE ONLY 24/7 GYM IN THE AREA!JOIN NOWAND GET A FREE WEEK!
WE HAVE THE BEST AND NEWESTTECHNOLOGY ON THE EAST COAST
ZOOGYM.COM
WHAT’S INSIDE
Farmington foot-ball poised for run at tourney berth
Pages 4-5
FHS volleyball falls in L title game
Page 7
Second title just as sweet as first for IndiansBy Tom PowersStaff Writer
WATERBURY — The Farmington High boys soccer team got all the scor-ing it would need just 42 seconds into the Class L state championship game Saturday. But the Indians decided to tack on three more for good measure
on the way to a convincing 4-0 victo-ry over Joel Barlow. The victory gave Farmington its second consecutive state title.
“Full Focus.”Farmington coach Steve Waters
preached those two words to his team Saturday morning before disembarking from the team bus, and from very early
on it was clear that the Indians were confident and focused on winning their second straight Class L championship.
“We played the entire game in our comfort zone,” Waters said.
“We came into this game confident knowing that we won it last year,” Farmington senior Jon Mazzanotte said of the team’s attitude towards de-
fending their title.The Indians had an incredible post-
season run to repeat as champs. As an eight-seed, Farmington did not re-ceive a first round bye, but handled 25 ND-WH 2-0 to advance. The following round, the Indians knocked out rivals Avon, the team they defeated in last year’s championship game.
Back-to-back
Tom Powers | StaffThe Indians celebrate at midfield after the buzzer sounds in Saturday’s Class L state championship game. The 4-0 victory is Farmington’s second title in two seasons.
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Our Readers Are MobileAnd So Are We!The SportsDept.com-Print Editions are now available without restriction on all mobile devices! READ TheSportsDept.com-Print Editions anytime, anywhere! Go to www.TheSportsDept.com aand select “Print Editions” to see this month’s papers.
CORRECTION: In last month’s issue we honored a very de-serving and accomplished student athlete as our Simsbury Stu-dent Athlete of the Month. The Simsbury student is Phillip Brown. We accidentally printed his name as Paul Brown. We apolgize for the mistake.
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By Shawn TuthillMSPT, CSCSAs the sports season changes and our stu-
dent athletes move indoors for more exercise and training, I am often asked by parents of adolescents and pre-adolescents, “should my child be lifting weights?” This is an excel-lent question, as parents and coaches worry about the risk of injury to the young athlete by “overtraining”. Current research in the world of strength and conditioning is demonstrating the safety of resistance training in youth, how-ever there are risks.
Two of the main concerns for anyone be-ginning a strength training routine are quality of the movements performed and intensity of load applied. This combination of variables is even more important when discussing train-ing protocols for adolescents and pre-ado-lescents as developing bones with un-fused growth plates are at risk for damage if the load or intensity applied is too high. With regard to form, often young athletes, especially pre-ad-olescents, do not have the training experience or muscle maturity to perform complex move-ments with free weights without guidance of coach or professional.
A safe place to start with any young ath-lete is performing body weight training, using complex movements such as squats, push-ups, pullups, walking lunges, plyometrics and light free weights. The most current research is showing that healthy children, cleared by their doctor to participate in sport activities, are safe to begin resistance training between the ages of 10 and 12 years old.
Searching on the internet will likely give you an endless number of professionally de-signed routines for youth strength training, but simple adherence to a few principals should be universal to any program. Anyone starting a weight or resistance based program in this age group should be screened by a trainer, strength coach, physical therapist, or expe-rienced coach to look for proper movement patterns and form while squatting, jumping, and performing pressing maneuvers with the upper body. Second, the routine should be designed to accommodate the sport season if participating. Third, with youth and begin-ner strength training, the workout days should be designed around a few basic lifts for the upper and lower body that involve multiple muscle groups (ie: squats, deadlifts, standing shoulder press, lunges etc.) Once exercises are chosen, adolescent and pre-adolescents should be performing no less than 8-10 reps on a particular set, allowing the weight to be far less (less than 60% of a 1 repetition maximum.) This allows the body to focus on building endurance, proper form, and reduce the chances of overloading the developing growth plates. Lastly, frequency should be kept to 2-3 days per week to allow the body to fully recover and avoid overtraining, as rap-idly growing bones increase the likelihood of strains and tendonitis.
As with any program involving weight training, if pain or discomfort persist beyond a normal 48-72 hour period from the time of completion extra rest should be given and the load/intensity should be reduced.
Adolescent strength training
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Of all the youth sports seasons, winter is naturally when the majority of kids on a team get sick at one point or another. And this just isn’t because it’s cold and flu sea-son, but also a result of parents, players and coaches not always taking appropri-ate steps to prevent germs from spread-ing once they join the team.
Parents need to make smart decisions when sending their child to practices or games. I always use the rule of thumb that if you wouldn’t send your child to school in his or her condition, he or she certainly does not need to go play a sport — re-gardless of what he or she wants to do.
I also have the rule that if a child is sick enough to stay home from school, what-ever the extra-curricular activity is on the schedule that night is not important enough to attend. It’s not always a popular decision, but I believe it’s the correct one.
But not every child will keep his or her germs benched at home. There will be times when players on your team just have bad colds, and while each parent
certainly needs to make an individual de-cision, I don’t think having a cold always warrants missing youth sports (or school).
As a result, there will be germs at youth sports practices and games, and it’s up to everyone involved to help fight them.
Kids should never share water bottles, which is the biggest germ-spreader of them all. I always make sure to have extra bottles of water in my trunk in case a play-er forgets his or hers. It’s still important to drink water, just not out of a teammate’s bottle.
You hear all the time people spread
germs the easiest by shaking hands or through any skin-to-skin contact, and yet in youth sports, the most popular way to congratulate a teammate is with a high five. Just picture the germs that are passed along every time a goal is scored. Try to encourage teammates to invent another way to celebrate, one that is still not taunting but also not a passageway for germs.
And lastly, sometimes the responsibility has to fall directly on the players’ shoul-ders, especially as they get older and
learn how to “fake” being sick or not. It’s important to teach early in the season that it’s a long one, and trying to play through an illness not only hurts the team at the time when a player can’t give 100 percent, but it could also affect the team in the long term if that same player gets a more seri-ous illness.
Hopefully by involving all three parties — coaches, parents and players — strat-egies can be implemented to prevent germs from spreading. It will make for a healthier, happier winter season.
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Farmington boys soccer wins 2nd straight titleSee ‘CLASS L,’ continued on PAGE 5
Continued from PAGE 1
Top-seed Naugatuck took Farmington to overtime in the quarterfinals, but the Indians would come out on top by a score of 2-1, and in the semifinals Farming-ton cruised to another comfortable 4-0 victory over 13 Pomperaug.
“I’m relieved that we got our last goal to win our last game together,” Waters said of his team, which will graduate 14 seniors. “It’s extremely difficult to repeat.”
Class L Tournament MVP Sabri Akter led the way for Farmington. Akter scored his first goal just forty-two seconds into the game.
“It’s huge in the state championships to notch in that first goal,” said Waters.
“It took a lot of the nerves out of the game,” Akter said of his quick goal.
Akter was active again with 32:08 remaining in the first half, tapping in a ball that just got away from Joel Barlow keeper Peter Cohen to give Farmington a 2-0 lead in the first eight minutes of play, a lead they would hold through the half.
In the second half, the offense was at it again for the Indians.
Senior Matt Sroka chipped a ball over the Joel Barlow
keeper with 32:20 left in the game to give his team a 3-0 lead. Colin Cheesman, a senior as well, got involved in the scoring with 28:25 left to play, giving Farmington it’s final goal of it’s championship season, and a 4-0 lead that would stand when the final buzzer sounded.
“There’s a certain mentality and acceptance level of where you want to be and how you have to get there,”
Waters said of his program, which has won five state championships since 2003. “It takes a lot of hard work to get here.”
Waters’ players certainly achieved this mentality prior to Saturday’s game, and quite possibly before the start of the 2013 season.
“We had the mindset that we would win the champion-
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Tom Powers | StaffThe 2013 Class L state champion Farmington Indians boys soccer team poses with the trophy and their medals after the 4-0 win.
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AVONStudent Athlete of the Month
Abby was a scholar athlete for two sports her freshman year and has been an All-NCCC selection in both volley-ball and basketball.How Abby prepares before a game: I
take some time to Visualize what I need to do before a game. How Abby has improved this season: I moved from middle blocker last year to Opposite Hitter this year in volleyball, so a whole new position and also play-ing all six rotations during the game.Abby’s most memorable moment as a Falcon: Having a double double last year in basketball vs arch rival Ellington (22 pts, 18 rebounds, 8 blocks) and this year having 20 kills vs NCCC Confer-ence champion Coventry in VolleyballAbby’s proudest accomplishment so far this year: Our Volleyball team won a set from Coventry and No. 1 ranked Farmington and also a win vs a strong Granby team.Abby’s favorite pro athlete: Kev-en Durant in basketball and Destinee Hooker in volleyballAbby’s college plans: To try and play volleyball or basketball in college.
Abby LaszewskiVolleyball, Basketball
SIMSBURYStudent Athlete of the Month
Sarah has a 4.0 GPA, is in the Nation-
al Honor Society and is a Simsbury Scholar. She has earned All-State and All-Class status in cross country, set the school course record at Stratton Brook, holds the two mile school re-cord and is also an All-Conference tennis player.How Sarah prepares before a game: Team music on the bus and our own version of the “Miracle” speech. How Sarah has improved this sea-son: I’m more prepared for races be-cause I have learned to prioritize sleep.Sarah’s most memorable moment as a Trojan: Breaking the Simsbury High School 5k record.Sarah’s proudest accomplishment so far this year: Getting fourth place in Class LL.Sarah’s favorite pro athlete: Shalane Flanagan.Sarah’s college plans: ToRun for Di-vision 1 School (Undecided).
Sarah MattisonCross Country, Track, Tennis
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Football teams have Thanksgiving showdownsBy Brian MazzoneStaff Writer
As is tradition acrodd the gridiron, Thanksgiving day means both football and turkey for local football fans. Here is a look at the slate of games prior to this year’s feast.
Farmington Indians vs. Plainville Blue Devils
Series: Farmington 2-0Last Year: Farmington 46-14This isn’t quite a rivalry yet, but it is
a Thanksgiving showdown none the less. For years Farmington didn’t play on Thanksgiving, but head coach Chris Marcol wanted to get his team playing again. Plainville squared off with North-west Catholic for years, while Farming-ton went in and out with Fermi, Avon, Simsbury, etc. For the third consecutive year these two teams will meet.
Farmington has had an excellent season. Their signature win of the sea-son was against Windsor when they shut down the state runner up with the
rushing of Ivan Guadalupe and behind their stout defense that was led by Ken-ny Jones. That evening Jeremy Buck did not have his best night, but he has been fantastic this season, including a 300 yard passing game.
Lately the Indians have struggled. They lost a hard fought battler to Mid-dletown 21-7, and this week they were surprised by a dominating performance from Manchester. Manchester came in at .500 and thumped Farmington 44-24. Early in the evening it looked like the loss could crush their playoff dreams, but they are still alive as the 7th seed in Class L. They need to beat Plainville in order to stay alive; a loss would almost certainly knock them out of the playoff picture. If the season end-ed today they would have to play a road game versus CCC foe Platt of Meriden. Each team in Class L has at least one game left; a few teams have two games left to play. A lot can change between now and Thanksgiving Day.
The disappointing thing is that with such a fantastic season, most likely a
9-2 finish, they cannot win the division title because Middletown is undefeated in league play.
AvonAvon does not play on Thanksgiv-
ing’s Eve, Day, nor do they have a traditional rivalry the Saturday before. They just play whoever the sched-ule-maker gives them on the last week-end. This causes problems for the rest of the league because it creates a bye week somewhere in the season instead of the traditional Thanksgiving Day bye.
On Saturday Avon crushed a Crom-well team who is spiraling out of con-trol. The game was never a contest as Avon won 44-14. Last week they had a crushing last second loss to rival Gil-bert/Northwestern in a 34-33 loss. This hurt their chances to win the Pequot West title.
“I hope our key players such as Jim-my Murphy, Steve Griffin, Noah Hahn, Dylan Marquis and Justin Reichler can step up and lead us to another victo-ry,” said Avon Head Coach James Cauoette.
He is looking for a strong finish to the season, one that started off poorly with some tough losses in the first quarter of the year.
“Ellington is one of those games that is a battle every year. For some reason our kids and their kids really "get after" each other every year,” said Cauoette.
“If we can pull off two more wins and finish 8-3 I would think that would be a decent year considering we graduat-ed 19 seniors and the Gatorade State Player of the Year.”
Canton Warriors vs. Granby Bears
Series: 1-1Last Year: Canton 38-12These two teams were reluctant to
play each other when the programs started, as neither team wanted to play on Thanksgiving. After a few years, the two teams decided it was time. They have squared off for two years, a split for both teams, and this year they will play on Thanksgiving’s Eve.
This week Canton opened their state of the art turf facility with a home game versus Lewis Mills on Friday night. They dominated the game in a 42-16 victory. They have to play Enfield on Friday night and four days later (this is where the Avon bye impacts teams) they will square off against Granby. Canton still has an outside shot at the playoffs, but a lot of things would have to happen in order for things to fall in their favor.
Dan Daleos has led the team with 12 rushing touchdowns. Terrance Brophy, Eric Scott and Sebby Gombs have also helped pace the offense who shares the wealth by running multiple forma-tions and getting all of their backs in-volved.
Evan Macy | StaffFarmington quarterback Jeremy Buck stands strong in the pocket admist pressure from Windsor.
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The Avon Falcons ended a success-ful campaign with a hard-fought second round loss to Farmington in the Class L State Tournament.
The Falcons (14-4, 13-3 NCCC) scored 78 goals, the fourth most in school history, while allowing only 10 (tied for the fifth best mark in school his-tory).
Bobby Zaino led Avon’s powerful offense with 25 goals, the fourth high-est-single season total in school history. Riley Strassner (14 goals, 15 assists) and Sean Janson (12 goals) also pro-vided firepower for the Falcons.
The Falcons’ defense put together twelve shutouts led by Stephen Dorney, Jared Rosenblatt, and Kevin Brown. Former field player, Marcus Husted, unselfishly filled a void as starting goal-keeper and became an asset by sea-son's end. Avon will lose five gradu-ating seniors, but the returning varsity group is young, with five current juniors
and six current sophomores.CantonThings did not look great for the Can-
ton Warriors halfway through the 2013 season.
Canton struggled in the middle of the
year with a six game losing streak but was able to rally and go 5-2 to end the season.
The Warriors final record of 7-9-0 was enough to finish eighth in the NCCC and earn them a 19 seed in the Class S State Tournament. In the tournament, Canton started off strong, beating 14 Hale-Ray 2-1 in the first round in an overtime match on the road.
The Warriors would lose in the sec-ond round to 3 Valley Regional 9-2 to end their postseason run, and end the season with an overall record of 8-10-0.
Head coach Bill Phelps lost twelve graduating players from last year’s team, but this year’s Warriors team made in-season adjustments to over-come their inexperience and finish the season strong. Phelps will lose senior leaders Lucas Rich and Justin Fortier, but will return key players in sopho-more Rieley Hoffman and junior Tanner Clarke.
SimsburyThe Simsbury Trojans had high hopes
coming into the 2013 season. The Tro-jans returned twelve starters from last season’s team that finished 12-5-1, but struggled to get their offense going this season.
Simsbury finished the year 5-5-6, enough to earn them a 25 seed in the Class LL State Tournament.
The Trojans lost in the first round of the tournament to 8 Amity by a score of 2-0.
The most telling statistic of the Tro-jans season has to be the six ties, three of which were by a score of 0-0. Scor-ing just one goal in those three games could have drastically changed the Tro-jans’ fortunes.
Head coach Ed Lynch gives a lot of credit to his defense for keeping his Trojans in games in a tough CCC West conference.
The defense was able to allow only 23 goals, but unfortunately the offense was only able to string together 18 goals all season. Simsbury, who finished in the middle of the CCC, will lose versatile seniors Mason Burr and Keegan Rice.
Avon boys soccer eliminated by Farmington again
Erika Studer | StaffThe Falcons lost to Farmington in the second round of the Class L state tournament.
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FARMINGTONStudent Athlete of the Month
Colin is an honor role student, a mem-ber of the National Honor Society, a class delegate and an AP Scholar. On the playing field, he is a proud state
champion from the 2012 soccer team, an offensive player of the yearselection and a key member of the 2013 Farming-ton Indians soccer team.How Colin prepares before a game: I Listen to music and then get a proper warm-up.How Colin and the Indians have im-proved this season: Our entire team has focused on playing less selfish and setting other players up for one time fin-ishes.Colin’s most memorable moment as an Indian: Winning the 2012 state championship.Colin’s proudest accomplishment: All the aforementioned accomplishments up to this date, however all the accom-plishments don’t mean much to us with-out a state championship.Colin’s favorite pro athlete:Tiger Woods.
Colin CheesmanSoccer, Basketball
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One of the most commonly asked questions I hear as a Learn to Skate Director is “Should I start my child in hockey or figure skates?” My answer is always “It depends”.
In general, most Learn to Skate coaches recommend starting a child out in a figure skate regardless of whether they want to ultimately play hockey or continue with figure skating. The primary reason why has to do with the blade.
Picture a rocking chair: the more curved the rockers on the bottom, the more the chair will rock back and forth. The flatter the rockers, the less rock-ing. Ice skates are the same. The blade on a hockey skate is more curved and therefore has more “rock”. Younger skaters (3-5yrs old) who are not quite fully in control of their bodies tend to fall more from rocking forward and backward, thereby getting more frustrated and discouraged and want-ing to quit. The blade on a figure skate
is more flat and also has a toepick, enabling the skater to find the center balance point more easily, which is es-sential to learning the basic skills.
However, that said, there’s no rea-son why a child can’t learn to skate on a hockey blade. It might take a lit-tle bit longer, but it’s definitely doable. If your child has already decided they want to play hockey, then start them off in a hockey skate. If he or she strug-gles, consider switching them over to a “learning skate” (don’t call it a figure skate). Once they’re stronger and have mastered the basic skills, switch them back to a hockey skate. There will be a period of adjustment, but they will pick it up more quickly.
If your child isn’t sure or just wants to start off learning the basics, then start them off in a figure skate. They can always switch to hockey later if they choose.
When deciding hockey vs figure skates, think about what your child’s ultimate goal is and be flexible along the way. It is important that the child has fun but is also building a solid foundation.
Hockey or figure skates?
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Youth Photos
ICE HOCKEY Images from an October battle between Squirt B squad’s Avon and South Windsor.
Erika Studer | Staff Avon’s Christos Stergos controls the puck against South Windsor in an offensive minded game.
Erika Studer | Staff Avon’s Savvas Stergos dribbles the puck as Benjamin Fialkiewicz watches.
Erika Studer | Staff Liam Smith tries to start Avon’s offense as he advances the puck, (left), and Abigail Ferrald races to the net.
Erika Studer | Staff Alex Penn makes a save and covers up.
MUD HOGS Maroon and Blue A squads in Farmington Valley face off.
Evan Macy | Staff
Action from a battle between the Farmington Valley Mud Hogs’ two A teams on Sunday, November 10 at Farm-ington High School.
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By Brendan FahertyStaff Writer
After a run of four straight finals ap-pearances, the No. 5 seed Avon Fal-cons did not make a return trip to the CIAC championship, dropping a 3-1 decision in the quarterfinals to No. 4 Guilford.
It was a strange feeling for coach Jim Murray.
“It is kind of a weird feeling. You make that advancement so far for a few years. The girls were pretty upset,” Murray said.
Guilford proved to be a tough task for the Falcons.
“We really had to play a flawless game to beat them,” Jim Murray. “They were able to get balls deep,” Murray said They were able to get scoring op-portunities and corner kicks,” Murray said. “They scored on a corner.”
The Falcons, who are back to back Class L champions, defeated Sacred Heart Academy in the second round
after receiving a first round bye. In that game Michaela Marcus scored in the 71st minute for the game winner. Han-
Avon girls soccer
Erika Studer | Staff Avon’s Lauren Miller with the ball against Suffield.
Indians volleyball falls in thrilling Class L final
By Danny AtkinsonStaff Writer
BERLIN — By every measure, the Farmington girls volleyball team had a remarkable season, going 24-2 and ad-vancing to the Class L title match. In the end however, they were not able to ac-complish their ultimate goal of winning a state championship. The top-seeded Indians fell 3-2 (25-19, 22-25, 26-24, 22-25, 15-13) to second-seeded RHAM in a thrilling back-and-fourth affair on Saturday afternoon.
Farmington head coach Laura Arena had nothing but praise for her player’s efforts after the defeat.
“I’m really proud of them,” she said. “I thought my players competed with so much heart, determination and ef-fort. This match could have gone either way.”
The Indians stayed with the Sachems for most of the first game, but RHAM eventually pulled away thanks to the outstanding play of outstide hitters Sar-ah Veilleux and Angelica Czercowy.
In the second game, Farmington start-ed out slow but eventually established a rhythm on offense and was able to outlast RHAM. Setter Sophie Borg and outside hitter Megan Gombatz played especially well during this stretch. The pair used their athleticism to an espe-cially strong job of controlling play at the net and setting up scoring opportunities for themselves and their teammates.
The Indians sustained this level of play for much of the third game, but were unable to contain Veilleux and Czercowy in the final minutes. Hannah Schmidt also played a large factor in the comeback, as Farmington struggled to return her serves.
“The lead just slipped away at the end of the third game,” a visibly frustrated Arena said. “There’s no other way to describe what happened.”
In the next game, the Indians dis-played their trademark toughness by coming back from a 12-7 deficit. The comeback was driven by an improve-ment in the team’s serving and passing. Farmington also received a series of clutch plays from rightside setter Laura Roman at the end of the game when the Sachems were frantically trying to retake the lead.
When the Indians continued their out-standing play in the final game and took a 12-9 lead, it looked like they were all set to capture the program’s first state title since 1979. But if this match proved anything, it was that either team could recapture momentum at a moment’s notice. Once again, it was Veilleux who made the biggest plays as RHAM end-ed the game on a 6-1 run, and she fit-tingly earned the winning point.
“We had the opportunity to win the game, but we needed to finish it with a bit more power,” Arena said. “This was the most evenly matched finals you can ask for. “
“I think that both teams played their best and showed great heart,” Farming-ton libero Devon Michaelis said. “RHAM just made a couple of great plays at the end.”
Borg ended the game with 29 assists, 17 kills and 10 blocks. Michaelis record-ed 22 digs, and Roman earned 14 kills. Veilleux had 35 kills.
The Indians will return a number of their top players next season, including Michaelis, Borg, Gombatz, Roman and middle hitter Sarah Lipinski. Just three seniors started against the Sachems.
For Michaelis, the 2013 season will be defined by the camaraderie her teammates had with one another.
“We were always able to work togeth-er and help one another to improve,” she said. “I’ll remember how much fun we had with one another and the pas-sion we had for competing.”
Danny Atkinson | Staff The Farmington volleyball team huddles up during their Class L state finals loss against RHAM.
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falls short of return to Class L finalsnah Davey also scored for the Falcons. In the game against Guilford, Marcus scored the lone goal.
Murray expects Marcus to continue her midfield dominance next season.
The team will be losing key defen-sive players in Paige Hammock and Youn Jae Baek, which will be tough shoes to fill.
“Those girls will be hard to replace,” Murray said. “Quite a core in the back for us. Part of our preseason objective is to gain back defensive core.“
SimsburySimsbury pulled off a stunning upset
in the Class LL tournament as a No. 21 seed, defeating No. 12 Darien, 2-0 in the first round thanks to two goals from star Sydney Shudginis, who fin-ished the season with 14 goals on the season.
Up next was defending Class M champion and No. 5 Northwest Cath-olic. After the teams played a close game the first 15 minutes, Northwest
Catholic pulled away for a 4-0 win.Coach Jim Bayer said the first two
goals changed the confidence of the team. “[Northwest Catholic] is a good team. Against good teams, you can’t
make mistakes.Overall, Bayer was pleased with his
team’s season. “We got better as the year went on.
Our second half was stronger. The first half [of the season] we had trou-ble scoring. The second half we put it together and started to connect. We gave up 15 goals in 18 games.”
In order to build on the 2013 sea-son, the Trojans will have to replace Shudginis and two centerbacks, but they do return 15 underclassmen with experience. “We have a really strong group coming back,” Bayer said. “Maybe next year we will take another step forward.”
FarmingtonThe Indians had looked to make a
run in the Class L tournament after a 9-2-5 record during the regular season carrying a lot of momentum after shut-ting out East Catholic on the road, 5-0 on October 24th. The Indians, as the No. 13 seed, continued their momen-
tum in the first round of the tournament, defeating Masuk, 3-0 in the first round after Brittany Galske, Nicole DiTomma-so and Olivia Devoe each scored.
Their run would end earlier than they had liked, dropping a 3-1 deci-sion to eventual finals participant and SCC champion Guilford in the second round.
CantonThe Warriors just missed out on
making the CIAC tournament, finish-ing with a 5-11 record, one win short of qualifying for a spot. Canton had two wins this season over SMSA and East Granby and a win over Stafford.
The Warriors had a chance to get into the tournament if they won two of their final four games, but had a tough close to the season with Suffield, Cov-entry, and Somers on the schedule, all CIAC tournament qualifiers.
They lost 7-0, 3-0 and 3-1, respec-tively before closing out with a win in their final game against SMSA.
Evan Macy | Staff Canton’s Taryn Asklof tries to get control.
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Farmington’s “Commish” a true MVPBy Reid L. WalmarkStaff Writer
True power lies in knowing when to use it. As league director for the Farm-ington Recreation Department’s first-through-fourth-grade co-ed basketball program, Frank Amara has the power and discretion to sometimes “bend” the rules.
When he sees a struggling player who hasn’t scored all season long, Amara steps in. It is called the phan-tom foul, says Geoff Porter, Farming-ton recreation coordinator, who has seen this scenario play out time and time again. The last game of the year in the waning moments is when Amara will make the call and send the young-ster to the foul line. He or she will shoot until a free throw is made. If the play-er misses at first, well, someone has stepped over the line; if the shooter misses again, well, the lights in the gym flickered. Someone sneezed in the stands. A player’s shoelace was untied. And so on.
In the end, the player leaves the court no longer struggling but beaming and proud. Amara gets it. He knows what youth sports should be all about. Fun and smiles, while learning about teamwork and acquiring skills and get-ting exercise throughout it all.
“Somehow internally he knows who hasn’t scored. It ends up being a shot that player will remember for the rest of his life,” Porter said of the children who benefit from Amara’s generosity.
Amara, 70, who has lived in Farm-ington for 45 years, got involved with youth sports when his 33-year-old son, Frank Jr., or Francis, started out in Lit-tle League as an eight year old. The older Amara, who shares the same birthday as his son, recalls it vividly. This was before t-ball. and coaches
tossed pitches to the young ball play-ers. Amara coached Frank Jr. in bas-ketball, too.
Amara was a teacher for 10 years then became a school administrator for 27½ years. He was assistant prin-cipal at Irving Robbins Middle School in Farmington and retired as principal at Keeney Street Elementary School in Manchester. He had less of the en-riching one-on-one interaction with children when his career moved from the classroom to the office, and help-ing out with youth sports brought him back to that place where interpersonal connections can flourish and relation-ships develop.
One of his most recent foul-shot in-terventions remains fresh in his mind. When the player returned the follow-ing year as a fourth-grader, Amara saw quite the transformation. “It was unbelievable,” Amara said. “He was grabbing rebounds, making shots. He came back the next year a different player. He had confidence. All because we helped him there at the end of the year before.”
Porter reports that his office has got-ten some flack from parents over the forced-scoring episodes. “Yes, but if it was there son or daughter, they’d think it was the greatest thing,” Porter said from the department’s offices earlier this month.
Town recreation department officials and Amara refer to the younger divi-
sions of youth basketball in Farming-ton as a “Shoelace League.” If some player’s shoelace is untied, the action is stopped and an official, or coach, will tie the child’s lace before he or she trips and gets hurt. The “show must go on at all costs” attitude is not embraced here. That is a theme to the program Amara supervises.
Amara took over stewardship of the program near the turn of the century — starting his involvement in the ear-ly 1990s — and immediately began to fiddle with the rules already in place to make the league fit the model he envisioned. When coaches and rec officials began questioning his innova-tions, they asked him — good-natured-ly, Amara claims — ‘Hey, who do you think you are? The commissioner?’ It became a standing joke and, hence, Amara has been nicknamed “The Commish.” He wears a ref’s top with “Commish” stitched on.
Amara, a native of Plainville, does not undervalue the role of fun and con-fidence play in keeping young players attracted to participating in sports. Without those in place, a child might become interested in different kinds of activities, perhaps of a sedentary na-ture. “If there’s too much pressure on a kid, and he doesn’t have too much skill, well, then it becomes not fun,” Amara said. “If the kids doesn’t have confidence, then it doesn’t have much fun.”
The younger divisions are mostly instruction-based at first, then game action and competition is woven in. Porter says Amara excels at teaching. Amara likes that aspect as he over-sees the the players. Amara deflects the success of the league to the de-partment administrators. “I’m doing a small part,” he said. He prefers games of 3-on-3 and 2-on-2 between the skills instruction, which he feels is the key piece to player participation, and the games on Saturdays. Amara has worked with high school coaches in town and uses players from Farming-ton High School as game referees.
“He can be compassionate,” Porter said. “He’s really trying to instruct and teach. He’s literally on his feet 10 hours a day, and I think he enjoys that.”
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