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Woodstock Academy senior Keenan LaMontagne knew the target on his back was pretty large — he was the defending state champion in Class MM boys’ track in the discus. He came home last week with his second consecutive state title with a throw of 162-feet, 4-inches in the MM championship.
“I was really hoping to break the state record but stuff happens and you just have to move on,” the senior said.
He was only 19 inches off the mark set by, ironically, Woodstock alum Jeff Barrette who threw 163-11 in 1998.
LaMontagne had a 175-8 toss at the Middletown Invitational to set the school mark which was held by Barrette.
Unfortunately for LaMontagne, state records can only be had in state championship meets and this year’s MM competition was his last chance.
LaMontagne also finished well in the shotput at the Class MM championship, finishing second with a toss of 47-feet, 11-inches.
LaMontagne said he will re-focus on shotput in the State Open championship on Monday (the meet ended too late for this edition) as he would like to qualify for the New England championships in both discus and shotput.
Fellow senior Ian Hoffman accomplished his goal. He finished fifth in the 800-meter race in 2 minutes and 11-hundredths of a second.
That broke the Woodstock record by .25 of a hundredth-second and also qualified him for the State Open in the event.
He was being cheered on over the last 200-meters by the man who previously held the school record, Woodstock girls’ track coach Josh Welch.
Vince Bastura placed 11th for the Centaurs in the 1600-meter race and Silas Strandson was 11th in the javelin.
Girls’ Track: Finish in Top 10
Josh Welch was not only busy watching Ian Hoffman break his school record Wednesday at the Class MM state championships. He was also paying attention to his girls’ track team.
The Centaurs may not have had all of the performances they had hoped for but they had enough to finish seventh overall as a team.
The top finish belonged to junior Magdalena Myslenski who threw the discus 111-feet, 2-inches for a second-place finish.
Myslenski qualified for the State Open championship with that performance.
She will be joined by senior Linsey Arends who qualified in two events. Arends finished fifth in the 800-meter in 2 minutes, 24.71 seconds and also qualified to run in the 4x800-meter relay.
Arends was joined by teammates Julia Coyle, Leila MacKinnon and Leah Castle for a fourth-place finish in that event.
The coach also thinks the 4x800 team, with a good performance at the State Open, could advance to the New England championships.
Jillian Edwards also qualified for the State Open as she finished fifth in the high jump, clearing the bar at 4-feet, 10-inches.
Reegan Reynolds placed sixth in the triple jump; Bella Sorrentino finished seventh in the shotput and eighth in the 100-meter hurdles and Sophia Quinn was seventh in the discus.
The Class MM meet last week didn’t start until after 5 p.m. and didn’t end until after 9:30 p.m.
Baseball: Rally But Fall Short
The memory flooded back into the mind of coach Brian Murphy. His son, Kaden, cruised into third base last Wednesday in a Class L state tournament second round game at Wethersfield, keeping the Centaurs’ hopes alive.
Woodstock trailed by five runs at the time with one out in the seventh and final inning.
It brought to his mind an AAU playoff game in which Brian Murphy’s son and Woodstock teammate Zach Roethlein played and he coached.
The Centaurs would score two more runs but it wasn’t enough to overcome a nine-run deficit going into the final inning and sixth-seeded Wethersfield survived with a 9-6 win over the No. 11 Centaurs.
The loss ended the season for Woodstock (16-10).
The Eagles scored a run in the second inning, two in third and three each in the fifth and sixth innings to take the 9-0 lead into the seventh.
Wethersfield needed almost all of those runs to advance to a quarterfinal game.
Roethlein singled and, after an out, Brady Ericson walked and Eric Mathewson singled to load the bases in the top of the seventh for Woodstock.
A Wethersfield outfield error allowed the first Centaur run to cross.
Kaden Murphy then reached on an infield error which allowed two more to cross the plate. Ethan Davis pushed Murphy to third with a run-scoring double to make it 9-4 and give Brian Murphy some hope.
A short fly out left both runners on base but Jon Smith delivered a two-run double to cut the deficit to three.
Smith was left stranded when a line out ended the contest.
Earlier in the week, the baseball team lost to Bristol Eastern in the first round of the Class L state tournament a year ago.
So when the Centaurs drew No. 22 Bristol Central for the first round of this year’s Class L baseball state tournament, Brian Murphy knew his 11th-seeded team would be challenged on their home field.
The two teams went at it for nine innings before Woodstock pulled out the 4-3 victory.
Carter Morissette led off the bottom of the ninth for the Centaurs, worked the count full and then delivered a single to left field.
Murphy pinch-ran Brennon Blow for Morissette and the senior stole second base. A strikeout brought up junior Mathewson. On the second pitch, Mathewson popped a ball up to short right field.
Mathewson reached safely, Blow ran to third and then scampered home when the throw in to the infield went awry.
It was a nice win for the Centaurs who were coming off a loss in the ECC championship game to Fitch. The Centaurs opened the early lead over the Rams (9-12). Mathewson singled to score Ericson who had ripped a triple to right field.
After an error and a Davis single, Mathewson came around on a wild pitch. The Centaurs then made it 3-0 on an RBI single by Roethlein, but that’s where the scoring stopped.
The Rams scored one run each in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings to tie the game and send it into extra innings before the Centaurs rallied.
Woodstock Academy will have to fill some holes next year as Shawn Wallace, Roethlein, Brendan Hill, Smith, Davis, Jackson Goetz, Blow and Hamilton Barnes will all graduate.
While the Centaurs graduate much of their offense, the pitching staff will remain intact.
Softball: Happy with What is Returning
The softball season came to a close for Woodstock early last week when Woodstock, the 18th seed in Class L, traveled to Milford to take on No. 15 Foran in a first-round state tournament contest and fell to the Lions, 10-3.
But this is a team on the rise and next year is what coach Jason Gerum is looking forward to. This season was a good warmup, ending in a very similar manner to 2021.
It was the second year in a row that the Centaurs lost to Foran in a state tournament game. The Lions won a second-round matchup a year ago.
Woodstock took the early lead. Sarah McArthur led off the game with a single and stole second. Madison Martinez got the green light on a 3-0 count and scored McArthur with a double to center field. Martinez advanced to third on a ground out and scored on a line drive single to left by Delaney Anderson.
Foran did score a run in the bottom of the first inning but the Centaurs clung to the slim lead until the bottom of the third.
The Lions scored two runs in that inning to take the lead for good, added two more in the bottom of the fourth and four in the fifth to seal the win.
McArthur scored her second run of the game when she singled in the seventh and came around on another Anderson single.
Anderson finished with a .431 batting average for the Centaurs. Woodstock finished the season with an 11-11 record.
The Centaurs did so with only two seniors, Jenna Bankowski and Madison Nichols.
He thinks that experience gained this season, especially by sophomores like McArthur and Anderson, will be invaluable.
Boys’ Tennis: Down in States
The trip to the southwest portion of the state is never easy whether it’s by bus or automobile. Especially on warm day.
The Woodstock boys’ tennis team had to make the trek early last week on a very warm, summer-like day to Newtown for a Class L state tournament first-round match.
That rough time continued on the court.
It was where the season would come to an end for the Centaurs as the eighth-seeded Nighthawks downed No. 9 Woodstock, 6-1.
There were a lot of close games, but the matches didn’t finish that way.
The Centaurs lost three of the four singles in straight sets. The Centaurs will lose Joe Zhou, Evan Haskins and Jai Abrams to graduation. Only Gabriel Viau, the team’s No. 2 singles player, will return.
The Centaurs finished 9-7 overall this season. They finished second in Div. II of the ECC and qualified for States.
Girls’ Tennis: Sickness Derails Team
Things went awry for the Centaurs even before they stepped on the court to play Fitch in a Class L first-round state tournament match early last week.
Coach Keith Atchinson had to shuffle his lineup as one of his doubles players fell ill and then singles player Jackie Trudeau was also sidelined by illness.
Atchinson was hoping his doubles teams could still pull off the sweep against the Falcons and that the Centaurs could sneak away with a singles victory.
Fitch had other ideas as it swept the singles and took two out of the three doubles to post the 6-1 win.
The loss ended the Centaurs season at 11-5.
The third doubles team of Emma Massey and Peyton Bentley was successful, 7-6 (4), 6-3.
The other two doubles teams also put on strong showings.
Ellie Bishop-Klee and Logan Reynolds fell just short, 6-4, 7-5 and the second doubles team of Morgan Bentley and Stella Atchinson battled but lost, 7-5, 7-5.
The Falcons won all four singles matches in straight sets with senior Addy Smith giving her Fitch opponent all she could handle, falling 7-5, 6-4.
Atchinson said the Centaurs reached most of their goals including winning the ECC Div. II regular season title.
The one that slipped away was winning a state tournament match.
“I think it’s important to have goals and when you accomplish most of them, it makes for a really good season,” he said. “It was another tough one with all the COVID issues, cancellations and scheduling but it was really fun to have this group of six seniors. We’re going to miss them next year.”
Smith, Trudeau, Sydney Schuler, Alexa Fernandez, Logan Reynolds and Morgan Bentley will all graduate this month.
It leaves Atchinson with only six players on the roster, Stella Atchinson, Paige Owens, Bishop-Klee, Massey, Peyton Bentley and Alecia Qu.
It means Atchinson may have to scour the hallways to fill his lineup.
“We have about five or six back next year and you need 10 to play in a match. We have to do some recruiting and hope to get some more girls interested in playing tennis. I’m sure that some of the girls on the team now will help do that for us,” Keith Atchinson said.
The coach is hopeful that some freshmen and eligible international students will also turn out. There are candidates for singles players.
Bishop-Klee did get a singles match in against Windham this season.
“She hits a really strong ball. She has been playing No.1 doubles for the past couple of years and will most likely step up into the No. 1 singles spot. She has the strokes to do it. Stella has the strokes and the fire, too,” Keith Atchinson said as far as his outlook for his top singles players next season.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
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All State
Senior Ethan Davis, who was named Class L All-State last week, gets congratulated after scoring a run in a Class L state tournament win over Bristol Central last week. Photo by Marc Allard.
Recognition
Woodstock softball players received ECC recognition recently. From left: Madison Martinez (ECC honorable mention); Lexi Thompson (ECC All-Star); Jenna Bankowski (ECC All-Star); Liz Morgis (ECC Scholar-Athlete); Madison Nichols (ECC Sportsmanship) and Sarah McArthur (ECC All-Star). Woodstock Academy photo.
Qualified
Senior Linsey Arends qualified for the CIAC State Open girls’ track championship in the 800-meter and 4x800-meter relay. Photo by Marc Allard.
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