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Veterans at the ceremony in Woodstock. Front page: Members of the BSA Troop 27 in Woodstock.

Legion CT Dept. Senior Vice Commander John DeBisschop in Woodstock. 1st Selectman Jay Swan stands behind him.

WWII vet Raymond Williams at the American Legion event in Putnam. Courtesy photo.

Putnam's American Legion Post Commander Michael Rocchetti with a tally of funds raised. Courtesy photo.

Right: The Woodstock Academy Hill Singers sang at the Woodstock American Legion's Veterans Day ceremony.

Legion raises
money and
honors vets
PUTNAM — Putnam’s Mayotte?Viens American Legion Post 13 raised $12,804 at its annual Veterans Day Guest Bartending and Veteran Recognition event Nov. 9.
The Master of Ceremonies for the event was Post 13 Commander Michael Rocchetti. The event opened with the singing of the national anthem by Army National Guard Specialist Emily Lajoie. Then guest bartenders worked the bar collecting tips for the American Legion. According to Rocchetti, “The Guest Bartenders really brought in a tremendous amount of donations for the Post. This is really important for us because it helps pay for our scholarships, American Legion Baseball, Boys State, the State Police Youth Academy, the youth oratorical contest, our Veterans?in?need fund, and our ongoing Americanism initiatives.”
Rocchetti also recognized the generosity of the many donors that made the event successful: “Dozens of gift baskets were donated by members and friends as raffle items. Local artist Jonathan Fitiz donated two original paintings which were auctioned off. Big Gary’s Discount Liquor Store donated a custom?etched bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon which was auctioned off. Also Foxwoods Resort Casino donated one of our auction items (an overnight stay for two people in a deluxe room at their luxury hotel.)”
Post 13’s Finance Officer Chas Mackenzie said: “Between the tips, donations, raffle ticket sales, and auctions, this event raised $12,804 for the Post – I am overwhelmed by the generosity of all of  the people who made this possible, especially Gates Auto Group, Dr. Steven Raheb, Putnam Lions Club, Roger Franklin, Putnam Area Foundation, Christopher and Kathleen Johnson, Diane and Richard Tremblay, Rawson Materials, Loomis Real Estate, WINY Radio, Fluid Coating Technology, Tenaya Desaulnier, and Rick and Dee Carnahan.”
The highlight of the night was when Post 13 honored their last remaining WWII veteran, 96-year old Raymond K. Williams. He was born in 1927 in New Britain and his family moved to Woodstock in 1941. During WWII, Ray was drafted into the military in 1945 and served in the US Army Air Force. He was trained as an aircraft radio operator, and was sent to Japan shortly after their surrender in August 1945. Ray was assigned to the 5th Air Force and his occupation duties were at an airbase in Nagoya, Japan. Williams was honorably discharged from the Air Force in 1947 as a sergeant. His awards and decorations include the WWII Victory Medal, the Asian?Pacific Campaign Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the Army of Occupation Medal, and the Good Conduct Medal. He returned to northeastern Connecticut and worked for many years as a machine operator. He has been an American Legion member since 1948. His certificate of honor citation reads: “to Raymond K Williams In recognition and grateful appreciation for serving during WWII in the United States Army Air Forces, Fifth Air Force ? in the name of freedom and democracy, and for allegiance to God and country in courageously protecting our liberty and independence”.
Commander Rocchetti said: “It was great to see Ray at this event with his extended family. He doesn’t get out to often because of mobility issues – but he did really well and we were honored to have him as our guest”.
Rocchetti also lamented the dwindling ranks of WWII and Korean war veterans:
“Post 13 recently lost three WWII vets – Peter Trama, a U.S. Merchant Mariner; Carl Eisen, an Air Force bomber crewman; and George Olson, a U.S. Coast Guardsman. They truly were part of the Greatest Generation.
During the evening, Mayor Barney Seney and Dave Gilbert spoke briefly about the work being done by the Putnam Veteran’s Advisory Committee to finance repairs and upgrades to Putnam’s Veteran’s Park through the sales of commemorative paving bricks. Dave Gilbert also displayed some samples of the bricks and passed out information on this program.
The guest bartending teams included the Putnam Town Hall (Barney Seney, Travis  Sirrine, Brian Lynch, and Denise Geeza); the Putnam Business Association (Richard Loomis, Gary Osbrey, Earl Rosebrooks, and Jeff Rawson); the Putnam Rotaract (Tayler Shea, Matt Gardner, Hailey Messier); the Putnam Lions Club (Leia Faucher, Melody Cassio, Doria Daviau, Mikayla VanDam); the Day Kimball Health Care team (Crystal Lanning, Roger Franklin, Dan Durand, Brian Fulton, Bob Kovaleski); and the Gates Automotive Group (Mike and Joann Gallo, Chelsea Cormier, Nick Deojay).

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PSA claims
1st soccer
championship
They had played twice during the season, and twice PSA’s Elite soccer team came out on the wrong end of the result. But by the end of Sunday’s GESP Conference Tournament championship game, those games didn’t matter.
PSA won the third and final meeting with Woodstock Academy’s second team, taking a 2-1 victory to claim the first championship for PSA’s soccer program.
“This is 100 out of 100,” said vice-captain Leo Uren. “It is so good to be the champions with the school that I’ve been with for three years. We’ve never won a championship so in my senior year, winning a championship … it’s insane.”
Said captain Bereket Hadgu: “We listened to coach Kurt (Lunzmann)’s tactics. This is one of the first times we kept disciplined for 90 minutes. I’m so tired but I’m so happy for the boys. I love it, I love everyone. It’s good to make history at PSA.”
Mario Navas opened the scoring after collecting a misplay by a Woodstock defender and beating the keeper one-on-one with about 13 minutes to play in the first half.
“I pressed the center back, and I don’t know what happened but I had a one-vs-one with the keeper and I threw the ball through his legs,” Navas said. “I can’t describe how this feels because it’s the best feeling I’ve ever had. It’s the most emotion…I can’t describe it. It’s just simply the best feeling.”
It stayed 1-0 until Woodstock leveled it with a quick strike five minutes into second-half play but PSA picked itself up and answered just two minutes later. Carlos Paniagua dropped a perfect free kick onto the foot of a sliding Anton Lemos, who buried the shot in the lower right corner from just in front of the net.
“Carlos gave a perfect cross and I just volleyed it,” Lemos said. “I was so excited to score the winning goal. And now winning for the first time with PSA soccer…I’m honored that I scored the goal that was the difference. And I’m so happy for my friend (Mario) scoring the first one.”
PSA advanced to the title game by knocking off Hoosac 2-1 in a Saturday semifinal.
Assa Mora got PSA on the board in the first half and Gabriel Gomes added a score in the second half. Mora’s goal in the 30th minute was assisted by Aiden Basabose. Hadgu assisted on Gomes’ goal, which came in the 70th minute. Hoosac scored with five minutes remaining in the game to make it interesting.
“We dominated the game and scored two goals, but we squandered too many one-on-one opportunities,” Lunzmann said. “The score line could have been 5-0. We need to put those opportunities away early if we are to have a chance against Woodstock.”
PSA hit a crossbar once in the first half but was able to do just what Lunzmann hoped for and put those chances away. And in the process, the Mustangs made history.
PSA Prep Team Ends Season with a Loss
As has been the case too many times this season, PSA’s Prep team had scoring opportunities but couldn’t finish them, and its regular season ended Saturday with a 2-0 loss at Vermont Academy.
“It’s been tough,” coach Ryan Dunnigan said. “The first goal they scored came off of nothing and their second goal shouldn’t have happened. So they got a little lucky, we didn’t get some calls to go our way, and then when we had the chance to score, one-on-ones, we didn’t put the ball in the net. It’s the way it has gone for us all season.”
Stephen Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy

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Roundup
Centaurs girls’ soccer season comes to close
There is a common thought among all teams who make the state tournament in any sport.
Games, generally, get harder as teams advance.
Such was the case for the 20th -seeded Woodstock Academy girls’ soccer team.
The Centaurs traveled to Simsbury last week to meet the fourth-seeded Trojans and saw their season come to a close with a 3-0 loss.
“They had a lot of high-level players and a professional coach. Those two things go well together. We were right with them but they had a lot more chances,” said coach Dennis Snelling.
Simsbury scored halfway through the first half and then added another 6:48 left to play in the opening half.
The Trojans added a third goal midway through the second half but senior keeper Rebecca Nazer was solid in front of the net, making 10 saves.
Woodstock finished its season with a 9-8-3 record.
It was a day to remember for Leah Costa earlier in the week.
The junior girls' soccer player was beaming after she scored all three goals for the 20th-seeded Centaurs in a 3-0 win over 13th-seeded Killingly in a Class L first round state tournament match in Killingly.
For a while, it looked like the match at Killingly would come down to who snuck one in.
The Centaurs clearly had the advantage as they doubled up on shots, 10-5, but nothing found the back of the net.
The back-and-forth led to a scoreless first half.
Killingly (10-7-1) was then just inches away from going up by a goal midway through the second half.
A corner by Killingly senior Laura Farquhar drifted across the net to the foot of teammate Spencer Chviek.
Fortunately for the Centaurs, senior Taylor Lamothe was there. How big a play was it? In the scheme of things, huge.
Fortunately for the Centaurs, Costa found the range just moments later.
Costa took a pass from Bella Mawson and rifled a rising shot from about 30 yards out to put the Centaurs up, 1-0, with 21 minutes, nine seconds left in regulation.
Costa made it a 2-0 advantage just a little over seven minutes later when Kendall McCormack sent the ball from the left to the middle. While it may not have gone to her intended target, it did get to Costa on the right side who converted the insurance goal.
The last tally came with just under three minutes to play when Freya Robbie made a pretty pass to Costa who made a run on goal and posted the hat trick.
Costa finished with 14 goals on the season.
Cross-Country
Cross-Country is not often known as a contact sport.
At the New England boys’ cross-country championships at Howard Middle School in Belfast, Maine, it became just that.
In an oddity for a high school event, the start was called back.
“I haven’t seen a recall start in a CIAC or New England event ever,” said coach Josh Welch. “The only time I saw a restart was when I coached in prep school. It doesn’t happen often. Usually there is only a little contact and one person goes down and (the officials) let it ride.”
A handful of athletes went down at the starting line.
The problem was the runners out in front were already 200 yards down the course including junior Christian Menounos.
“They were shooting off the gun to call the runners back from the get-go but there were so many people there that no one heard the gun and they didn’t have a flagger at the front to show them that (the start was no good),” Welch said.
The lead pack eventually realized that everybody had stopped.
The runners had gone out fast to try and get to a spot where the 50-box length at the start narrowed to about 20.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Welch said of the spacing at the start. “I think the kids were really trying to go out hard. It was a little muddy in the first 50 meters or so, not that bad, I think some kids lost their footing or piled up really quick.”
The second start wasn’t much better as a few more runners went down.
“Christian was tired in that first mile,” Welch said.
Overall, the junior did well as he finished in 36th in 16 minutes, 15 seconds.
“I think he was hoping to be sub-16 on that course but with the two starts and the adrenaline, the whole deal, it was a lot for him but he did well. He finished (51st) in 16:50 last year at New England’s and he finished well under that so he made a lot of excellent progress on the season,” Welch said.
Menounos qualified for the New England championship with a 14th-place finish earlier in the week at the CIAC State Open championship.
Menounos finished in 16:16.
The Open was pushed back from the Friday before due to the postponement of the Class LL state championship meet because of heat.
It gave Menounos and teammate Colton Sallum the opportunity to get some good training runs in prior to the State Open.
Sallum finished in 94th in 17:32 at the State Open.
Welch didn’t feel the two large meets in the same week had any adverse effects on Menounos.
The season is not over for both Menounos and Sallum as both will compete in the Foot Locker Regional cross-country championship on Saturday, Nov. 25 at Franklin Park in Boston.
Football
The football team hung with Norwich Free Academy in the first half but couldn’t get much of anything going in the second.
As a result, the Wildcats picked up their third win in a row with a 26-7 victory over the Centaurs on Veterans Appreciation Day.
Woodstock (3-6, 0-4 ECC Div. I) put together a really nice first drive in the game.
After forcing the Wildcats to punt on their first possession, the Centaurs took over the ball on their own 32.
They held on to it for the next 8 minutes, 20 seconds, going 16 plays down to the NFA 17-yard line.
The only problem with the drive was that Woodstock didn’t put any points on the board, turning it over on downs at the Wildcats’ 19.
NFA (3-6, 1-3) responded with an eight-play drive that resulted in seven points.
Quarterback Gage Hinckley spotted receiver Wyatt Woodcock who had got past the defense and lofted the ball to him for a 29-yard score.
Hinckley was “Mr. Everything” for the Wildcats as he completed 15 of his 18 passes for 170 yards and also rushed for 64 yards in nine carries. He is also the team’s kick returner, punter and a key defensive player at linebacker.
The Centaurs came back to tie following one of the few Hinckley mistakes, an overthrown pass that ended up in the arms of linebacker Kyle Grist at the Centaurs 44-yard line.
Woodstock quarterback Teddy Richardson used both his legs and arm and got a little help from NFA to guide the Centaurs down the field.
Richardson hit Lucas Theriaque (4 catches, 74 yards) with an 18-yard pass and added 10 of his 51 yards in 13 carries on the day in the drive.
On fourth-and-14 from the NFA 24, the Centaurs finally caught a break.
A Richardson pass to Theriaque was broken up but a flag flew and the pass interference call gave Woodstock Academy a first and goal at the NFA 9.
After a sack backed them up 4 yards, Richardson ran for three and Gabe Luperon-Flecha added to give the Centaurs a fourth-and-goal at the three. Instead of the field goal, the Centaurs opted to go for it and Richardson (14-for-28 passing, 137 yards) flipped it over the top of the defense to tight end Aiden Brailsford for the only touchdown of the day for Woodstock with 1:50 left in the half.
That turned out to be too much time to leave NFA.
Conor Gaughan dominated a series that would give the Wildcats the lead at the half.
The senior rushed for 16 yards to the NFA 41. Two plays later, Hinckley found him for a 27-yard pass to the Woodstock 31.
Grist almost had his second interception of the day on an errant pass by Hinckley but the senior quarterback didn’t make the mistake a second time, passing to Gaughan for the score with 46 seconds left in the half to give the Wildcats the 14-7 lead.
The second half was largely dominated by NFA as the Centaurs could only muster 12 yards on their first possession, lost eight on their second and only had 22 in their third.
Magnus King scored on a 1-yard run on NFA’s first possession of the half and Hinckley added an insurance score from 2 yards out with 2:35 to play.
The Centaurs finish off the season on the road next week with their annual Thanksgiving Day game at Killingly at 10:30 a.m.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy

captions:

Junior Christian Menounos proudly displays his medal for a 14th-place finish at the CIAC State Open boys’ cross-country championship at Wickham Park in Manchester last week (Photo by Josh Welch/Woodstock Academy)
 
Woodstock Academy senior keeper Rebecca Nazer punts the ball away in the Centaurs 3-0 Class L 1st-round state tournament win over Killingly. (Collin Hamilton photo)

Woodstock Academy senior Jacob Lizotte (9) gets some help from his friends in trying to tackle NFA quarterback Gage Hinckley Saturday at the Bentley Athletic Complex. Photo by Abby Ditzel/Woodstock Academy.


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It’s not exactly the way she drew it up in her mind, but hey, Khaya Skene is thrilled with the way things have worked out.
Skene, a postgrad student on Putnam Science Academy’s girls basketball team, was originally recruited to the school by former coach Devin Hill. At the time a senior at Ethel Walker School, she visited PSA last season, taking in a game and a practice before committing for this year.
Then Hill resigned and took a job closer to home. Skene decided to take a shot and stay with PSA, and felt good about it when Bria Holmes, a former WNBA player, was named as the new coach. But when that fell through in late summer, Skene really had no other choice but to stay and hope for the best with new coach Greg Canzater.
“Honestly, I completely love it here,” said Skene, who is from Cromwell. “My favorite thing is playing with all these international girls. I’ve never experienced that before, and it has taught me so much. I feel like my communication skills have developed so much. They know what we’re talking about but just breaking things down to them in our way, whether basketball or whatever. I give them my point of view and it’s like, ‘Oh we get it!’ but it’s something that goes both ways. All the time, both ways.”
Her two months at PSA have been the classic case of “you get out of it what you put into it.”
She said that some of the conversations she had with her dad before getting to the school revolved around her focusing only on herself as a basketball player. She wasn’t going to talk to any of the guys at the school, she wasn’t going to be too friendly with the other girls. She was just going to worry about getting a college scholarship and getting out.
“That didn’t last. I have just fallen in love with everybody here,” said Skene, who had a team-high 24 points in last Wednesday’s 65-62 loss to Busche Academy in PSA’s season opener. “My teammates, other students, the teachers…everyone is just calm, cool, and collected. People here have a real appreciation for a lot of things.”
The plan is to still earn scholarship offers and to do so she is putting her faith in Canzater to help her but also “trusting the process of having so much fun with my teammates now that I’ve gotten here and experienced everything.”
Kate Lipatova, from Russia added eight points, 17 rebounds, two blocks, and two steals, while Spaniard Carlota Lopez finished with 15 points and four steals.
PSA’s Helin Yoztyurk, from Turkey, had a good look at a potential game-tying 3-pointer in the final seconds, but it wouldn’t go down. Tatiana Bell, like Skene a Connecticut native, grabbed 10 rebounds for PSA, which trailed 65-55 with four minutes to go.
“I liked our fight, I liked that we didn’t give up,” Canzater said. “We just continued to make the same mistakes that eventually cost us the game. But we’ll be OK.”
PSA played its second game on Nov. 15. The Mustangs are currently scheduled to be off until Nov. 27 and has its next home game slated for Nov. 29.
Stephen Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy

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