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$6.1M 'forest'
grant
available
Attention woodland landowners: Funding is available to improve your woodland habitat for important bird species and to manage your woods for wildlife and people. The Last Green Valley (TLGV), the MassConn Sustainable Forest Partnership (MassConn) and the Northern Rhode Island Conservation District (NRICD) are offering the next round of funding for woodland landowners to obtain forest management plans with bird habitat assessments.
The application deadline for Connecticut and Rhode Island is Dec. 31, but start early. Massachusetts is accepting applications on a rolling basis. Contacts: For Connecticut, Bill Reid, 860-774-3300; Massachusetts Projects, – Christopher Riely, 401-225-6135; Rhode Island Projects, Kate Sayles, 401-934-0840.
Visit www.thelastgreenvalley.org for links to the application materials, including a list of communities in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island that are included in this program.
The program is part of the $6.1 million Southern New England Heritage Forest conservation effort, an unprecedented three-state collaboration made possible through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The NRCS funding is being matched, bringing the economic infusion into the region to $12.2 million.
A professional forester will walk your property and coordinate with the Audubon society in your state to produce a high-quality forest management plan with a bird habitat assessment of your woods. The plan will recommend measures you can take to improve the health of your woods. The plan will meet federal and state requirements and may be used to apply for property tax reductions at the local level (where applicable).
Grant funds are available to pay for most of the forester’s costs and to completely fund the bird habitat assessments. Landowners will be responsible for choosing a forester from an approved list and paying for a percentage of the total cost of the forest management plan.
This program is ideally suited for landowners who have never had a forest management plan and own more than 10 acres of woodlands.

Supporting partners for this project include: MA Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Providence Water, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Hull Forest Products, Thames River Basin Partnership, New England Forestry Foundation, Eastern CT Conservation District, Norcross Wildlife Foundation, RI Division of Forest Management, RI Woodland Partnership, Harvard Forest, Yale Sustaining Family Forests Institute, Audubon Connecticut, Mass Audubon and Audubon Rhode Island.
The Southern New England Heritage Forest is a 1.49 million-acre unfragmented forest corridor stretching along the Connecticut and Rhode Island border to the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts. Bounded by more heavily urbanized areas, with more than one million nearby residents, the SNEHF has an astonishing 76 percent forest cover and offers one of the last viable wildlife corridors from southern to northern New England.
The Last Green Valley National Heritage Corridor is the heart of the Southern New England Heritage Forest and is the last stretch of dark night sky in the coastal sprawl between Boston and Washington, D.C.  The Last Green Valley, Inc. works for you in the National Heritage Corridor. Together we can care for it, enjoy it and pass it on!

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The calendar turns, the rosters turn over. The expectations always stay the same though.
Winning, and winning at a high level, are the goals surrounding the Putnam Science Academy prep basketball programs as the season officially started this week. It is the sole focus.
“We absolutely have high expectations with the recent success we’ve had,” said boys’ coach Tom Espinosa. “We expect good things this year. We’ve brought in the guys we wanted and we had a great preseason. We’re really excited to get this year going.”
Amanda Morales is in her first year guiding the Mustangs but she is on board.
“Everything we are doing is in preparation for that,” she said.
The boys’ team is coming off a third-place finish in the national prep tournament last year, and is two years removed from winning the national title.
The Mustangs have three returning players, postgrads Hassan Diarra, Marty Silvera, and Luc Brittian. Diarra is the headliner.
“He’s the face of our program,” Espinosa said. “He’s our heart and soul, he’s our leader. He’s been unbelievable for us the last three years and we expect nothing less from him again this year.”
Diarra is a highly regarded four-star recruit who is weighing scholarship offers from more than two dozen schools. He took official visits to Georgia, Indiana, and Texas A&M and is expected to decide soon.
“There are two ways to look at it,” Espinosa said. “Guys can commit early and then you worry about them not playing hard through the season because they’re thinking about college. Or they don’t commit early and you worry about them putting too much pressure on themselves and their season suffers.
“With Hassan, I’m not worried either way. He’s a winner and wants to go out of here a champion. He will be totally focused on that. I don’t worry about him.”
Silvera, meanwhile, is on his way to a bounceback season. He starred at Worcester’s Doherty High before playing a minimal role at PSA last year. This year figures to be quite difference for him. He dropped 25 pounds since last season ended, had a great preseason, and is drawing interest from mid-major programs.
“He was basically our 12th man last year,” Espinosa said. “He brought it every day for us, but I don’t think he wanted to go through that again this year. He’s going to play a huge role for us.”
Brittian is another player who saw limited minutes last year but figures to see an expanded role.
“It’s his third year and he’s just gotten better and better,” Espinosa said. “He’s turned himself into a Division II-level scholarship player. He’s another guy I know I can count on.”
Putnam Science Academy, which is big (two 7-footers, Josh Gray and Mathias Van Den Beemt, plus the 6-11 Elijiah Hutchins-Everrett) and deep, opens its season against Ridley Prep of Ontario, Canada as part of the Caribbean Tip-Off Classic in the Bahamas on Nov. 1.
Lady Mustangs
Morales’ group opens its season at home, then goes to Canada to play three games in three days starting on Halloween against the No. 1 prep team in Canada.
The Mustangs also play three games in three days at the She Got Game Classic in Washington, D.C., (Dec. 13-15) and the Rivers School Holiday Tournament (Dec. 19-21).
The idea is to be ready for the Insider Exposure Independent School National Championships in late February, where the Mustangs have finished in third place the last two seasons.
“We were very intentional putting our schedule together,” Morales said. “Our goal is to win that tournament. And if we want to do that, we have to win three games in three days. Our schedule is set up to give the girls the opportunity to mimic what they will have to do at the end of the season.”
So far, at the beginning of the season, Morales has liked what she’s seen. She noted the extreme competitiveness that runs through the roster.
“We realized pretty early on that we have to track everything they do,” Morales said. “Mile times, skill work. We did a fund-raiser and they competed at that. I love it.”
The Mustangs have tremendous depth and athleticism, and spent the preseason pushing each other. Morales said she saw a lot of improvement in their skill work and also their developing chemistry.
The latter is extremely important with only four players back from last year’s prep team.
Niya Fields is the only one who started last year. The point guard, who has already committed to play next year at Norfolk State, is also the only one who was on the Mustangs’ inaugural team three years ago. Damoni Tucker, a Harlem native, is arguably the team’s biggest talent and is drawing a lot of interest from colleges after a stellar AAU season. Guard Lucie Castagne has committed to Bryant, and forward Aaliyah Brittian is a junior on the rise.
Morales also likes newcomer Sabou Gueye, a native of Senegal (“No one knows about her, but she is set to have a big, big season”), and Nasserine William (“She’s 6-2 and built like a linebacker, but so nimble. She’s a freak of nature. I’m happy to have her on our team and not have to go against her.”).
Stephen Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy

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caption, page 5:

Signed Ball
Woodstock Academy senior Paula Hernandez receives a signed ball from coach Adam Bottone to commemorate her 1,000 career kill, which she got the week before at Ledyard. Photo by Marc Allard.




Hitting
early goals
The Woodstock Academy volleyball team was able to celebrate before and after its match with E. Lyme last week at the Alumni Fieldhouse.
The Centaurs honored senior Paula Hernandez prior to the beginning of the match for her milestone of 1,000 career kills which she accomplished the week before in Ledyard.
The team then went out and shutout East Lyme, 3-0, to clinch at least a share of the ECC regular season title.
“It’s awesome,” said Woodstock Academy coach Adam Bottone of another league championship. “It’s our third year in a row and we couldn’t be happier. It’s always good to do that against East Lyme, they are a good team.”
It’s even more impressive considering the start the Centaurs (9-4, 3-0 ECC Division I) had.
They lost their first three matches, but have won eight of their last nine and the last seven in a row.
“At the beginning of the year, after the first five games, I was thinking this would be a rough season for us. We really dug our heels in, started working more individually with people,” Bottone said.
The success of that approach has been seen in the results.
Woodstock Academy does feature Hernandez who has 277 kills this season.
She added 25 digs in the win over the Vikings and is also closing in on 1,000 digs for her career.
Just her presence is a steadying influence on the rest of the team.
It acknowledged that by giving Hernandez a ball signed by the team in honor of her achievement.
“I know if I’m setting and do my job, I’m 100 percent sure that they will do their job especially Paula. She is just so enthusiastic and aggressive out there and that is what really carries us through sometimes,” said junior setter Marissa Mayhew, who had 26 assists in the win.
That was the case late in the first set against East Lyme.
The Vikings (6-5, 2-2) had built a 19-15 lead when Hernandez stepped behind the service line.
She never left.
Hernandez delivered 10 straight service points and The Academy won the first set, 25-19.
Hernandez had two aces in that run and a pair of kills from the back.
She also had the help of a kill from sophomore outside hitter, Aurissa Boardman.
It was the last of five that Boardman had in the first set.
“I’m really working on my confidence and it definitely helps when I get the hits because my confidence goes up,” Boardman said.
Bottone has said that confidence or lack thereof is the biggest thing that is standing in Boardman’s way. She is sometimes her own worst enemy.
“It’s not only him, other people have told me that. I just have to work through that,” she added.
Woodstock Academy, as a whole, will have to work through something else, too.
The service game, a strength for the Centaurs this season, was off against the Vikings.
Woodstock Academy had 10 service errors in the match.
“It has been a yes or no thing with us,” Mayhew said. “It’s been known as the best in the league at times and at others, it’s questionable. That just means you have to keep working through it and focus on what we can do ourselves rather than trying to critique each other.”
The Centaurs held off the Vikings in the second set, again overcoming a late deficit, to score the 25-23 win.
It was the same story in the third set with East Lyme ahead, 20-18, before the Centaurs rallied and Mayhew served the final five points in the 25-21 win to seal the victory in the match.
“We didn’t really play that well. We struggled with our receive. (Libero) Katie Papp told me earlier in the season that she does better when she relaxes. She was getting frustrated and I reminded her of that conversation. I said to her, ’You need to relax and you will play better.’ She went back out and did that. I think it speaks to our resiliency as a team that even when we don’t play well, we are still pushing through and winning. I hate to be the opponents when we start to play really well,” Bottone said.
He’s starting to see signs of that happening.
The Woodstock Academy coach was especially impressed by a block by junior middle hitter Amelia Large.
“She hung in the air for like five hours and then sent it back down, That was ridiculous,” Bottone said with a laugh.
Bottone was also to see Boardman stepping it up and getting a good number of kills and Mayhew going to an overhand set.
“While it was a struggle, I think we finally have our lineup set and now, we just have to start to fine tune everything. We’re still going to have our lumps along the way and that’s OK. It’s how we respond to that, persevere and get over that,” Bottone said.
Earlier in the week, the Centaurs accomplished another season goal.
They qualified for the Class L state tournament with a 3-0 win over Griswold.
It ended the Wolverines five-match win streak at the time.
“After those first five games, I wouldn’t have expected (qualifying for the state tournament) to come so easy,” Bottone said.
Gabby Garbutt had 16 kills and eight service points including four aces in the win over the Wolverines.
Hernandez added 14 kills and 22 digs while Mayhew had 25 assists.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy

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Centaurs
football
ties program
record for wins
It was a great way to go into the bye week for the Woodstock Academy football team.
A 7-6 win in Hartford over the Capital Prep-Achievement First cooperative program Oct. 12 raised the Centaurs record to 4-1 on the season.
They don’t take to the field again until Oct. 26 when they host the Stonington Bears at 1:30 p.m. at the Bentley Athletic Complex.
The Centaurs now get a little break to step back, relax and enjoy what they have already accomplished thus far this season.
“We gave them Monday off and they will also have Friday off. It will be a three-day week. We will focus on lifting, film, conditioning and, hopefully, have a little bit of fun,” said Woodstock Academy coach Sean Saucier.
The fourth win of the season was significant. It equaled the highest total for the program in the win column since it began fielding a varsity football program in 2006.
The Centaurs won four games in 2008 and equaled that in 2016, Saucier’s first year with the program.
A win over the Bears will set a new standard.
“It’s always nice to raise the bar. That’s what we’re really trying to do. We’re trying to raise the expectations as far as what the football program can do. I’m a couple of years into it and it’s really nice to see that bar being raised,” Saucier said.
Woodstock Academy moved the ball well on its first series.
The Centaurs put together a 14-play drive, but it stalled at the Capital Prep 19-yard line.
Saucier called on kicker Aidan Morin to attempt the 36-yard field goal.
The Trailblazers broke through and blocked the attempt.
“I know why that got blocked. We’re going to work on that because it would have been nice to put three on the board in the first drive. But it was a little bit of a chess match. We had to earn every yard, so did they. You could kind of feel the game going that way,” Saucier said.
The Trailblazers recovered the blocked field goal at their own 42-yard line and could only go 7 yards, turning the ball over just inside midfield.
The Centaurs had a punt blocked on their next possession which gave Capital Prep the ball back on their own 48.
A 23-yard run by the Blazers’ Makhi Buckly moved the ball to the 30-yard line of the Centaurs.
But the Woodstock Academy defense was up to the task. After a 4-yard run by Capital Prep, a sack and a tackle behind the line of scrimmage resulted in 11 yards of losses.
Capital Prep turned over the ball on downs at the Woodstock 37-yard line.
“The defense was just amazing,” Saucier said. “The job that (defensive coordinator) Jesse Bousquet has done with game planning, watching film, understanding what the opponent does, what their strengths are and trying to take them away and then have the kids execute it, has been fantastic.”
The Centaurs did bend a bit when the Blazers drove to the Woodstock Academy 37 midway through the second quarter but a false start and a Trey Ayotte sack for the Centaurs gave Woodstock Academy the ball back on the Capital Prep 39.
The Centaurs got as far as the 23 before running out of downs.

Three straight incomplete passes giving the ball back to their opponents and guaranteeing a scoreless first half.
Capital Prep and Woodstock Academy exchanged punts to open the second half but the Centaurs again had their punt attempt blocked for a second time.
“They overloaded an edge and came hard,” Saucier said. “We have to work on the way we punt the ball, got to get it off a little quicker. Aidan is a little bit of a rugby-style kicker. It takes a little bit longer.”
Capital Prep could only move it as far as the Woodstock Academy 35.
When the Centaurs got the ball back, running back Ian Welz (20 carries, 33 yards) carried the ball twice but couldn’t get much beyond the line of scrimmage.
An offside call moved the ball up five yards to the Centaurs 40.
Offensive coordinator Connor Elliott made a quick adjustment on a route for senior receiver Nick Bedard.
Sophomore quarterback Ethan Davis (8-for-17, 114 yards passing) responded to the move.
He looked over the middle and spotted Bedard (6 catches, 90 yards) just beyond the Capital Prep safety. Bedard caught Davis’ pass in stride.
It was a good thing that he didn’t have to slow down because he barely won the foot race to the end zone to complete the 60-yard touchdown play.
 “When we scored, you got the feeling that even though we knew it may not be enough, we put them on the defensive with that punch down,” Saucier said.
Capital Prep, on its next possession, put together an 11-play drive of its own. It ended in the end zone.
Solomon Barlow (9-for-23, 118 yards), like Davis, looked down the middle and found Bryce Williams open.
Unlike the Woodstock Academy touchdown, this one only had to go 12 yards.
But the Trailblazers were denied the lead when Buckly was stopped short of the goal line trying to run in the two-point conversion.
“(Lineman) Gavin Lanning probably had the game of his career on both sides of the ball and he was involved in that stop. They tried to go up the middle and there was nowhere for the kid to go,” Saucier said. “They were big but Gavin was able to clog up the middle.”
What followed was best described by Saucier as “hectic.”
His Centaurs were forced to punt but Capital Prep failed to move the ball and tried for a first down on a 4th-and-10 from their own 20.
Barlow’s pass fell incomplete.
The Centaurs got a quick first down on runs by Welz and Davis that got them down to the Trailblazers’ 10.
But three more rushes resulted in a net gain of a yard and an incomplete pass gave Capital Prep the ball back on their own 9-yard line.
“For the second time this season, we were on defense in the final minute trying to stop a last drive by our opponent,” Saucier said.
It was made a little more stressful by the lack of a clock.
“The scoreboard wasn’t working. I knew there was 1 minute, 20 seconds left at one point in that drive and they were still on their side of the field and they never got out of bounds and didn’t have any timeouts. I think the last three plays, I knew time was about to expire,” Saucier said.
Unfortunately, he had no idea of when as the official keeping the time was on the other side of the field.
The Blazers threw three incomplete passes but a 15-yard penalty against the Centaurs extended their drive. Barlow then completed three straight passes of 15, 17 and 10 yards to get to the Centaurs 34, but Capital Prep ran out of time.
“I’m not really sure if I thought about being 4-1 this early. It’s certainly nice going into the bye week. It’s always nice to enter a bye week off of a win that way you’re not contemplating a loss for two weeks. I’m happy about that,” Saucier said.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy

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