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Award Winner
Woodstock Academy senior Braiden Saucier, right, who received the Inspiration Award from the Walter Camp Foundation this past weekend, is looking dapper alongside a fellow quarterback, 2022 Heisman Trophy Award winner Caleb Williams. The two met prior to the foundation awards dinner where Williams was named the College Football Player of the Year. Photo by Sean Saucier.

Takes 2nd
The Sprint Medley Relay team and  alternates prior to the New Balance Indoor Nationals Rising Star competition. he team broke its own school record. Photo by Josh Welch/Woodstock Academy.


Woodstock Academy sophomore Olivia Aleman put together a strong individual performance at the New England Gymnastics championship Saturday.
She finished sixth in the All-Around with fifth-place finishes in the vault and in the floor exercise.
“She was a little nervous going into the competition, though. She was a little shaky to start. Bars wasn’t her normal but, overall, she did great and had such a great season,” said coach Kasey Tocchio. “She has to be proud of herself. I think she is ready to come back and be a leader next year. It was a good ending.”
Another good sign was that Aleman was able to stay, for the most part, injury free.
“She has those overuse and aches and pains like most gymnasts at this time of year but we really tried to balance her training this season and I think she did a really good job of listening to her body to get through it,” Tocchio said.
Freshman Julia Kerr was also scheduled to take part in the New England championship but an ankle injury suffered in practice following the State Open championship the week before sidelined her.
But Aleman wasn’t alone.
“It was a lot of fun (Saturday). There were five of them (from Deary’s Gymnastics), all wearing the same leotard in different colors. We had four of them competing in the All-Around which was kind of cool. They were a very good group so they got to hang out and cheer each other on and cheer on other kids from the state. Connecticut was like its own little team,” Tocchio said.
Indoor Track
Several members of the Woodstock boys’ indoor track program put together some fine performances this past weekend.
They just did so hundreds of miles apart.
Sunday senior Jared Eaton competed in the Nike Indoor Track Emerging Elite Nationals at the Armory in New York City.
Eaton put together a personal best 51-feet, 11 ¾-inches to medal in the shotput event as he brought home a fifth-place finish out of 32 competitors in the division.
“That was awesome, I had no idea that he would get that far up there.” said coach Josh Welch. “The improvement since the New England’s is really pretty impressive.”
Welch said Eaton fell about 6 inches shy of a school record.
“Just a little while ago, we were hoping he would just get near the 50-feet mark, qualifying for Nationals was a big leap, and he’s added a distance of four-to-five feet in the past couple of weeks alone. He’s had some throws in practice that, we didn’t measure, but we were sure were over 50 feet. To be able to deliver that, under pressure, at the Armory, with all those people and the competition that was there- he responded very well,” Welch said.
Earlier in the weekend, the sprint medley quartet of Braedon Emerson, Jeff Phongsa, Vince Bastura and Christian Menounos competed in Boston at the New Balance Indoor Nationals Rising Star competition.
The Centaurs bettered their own school record by more than 4 seconds on Friday, finishing the 1600m event in 3 minutes, 42.06 seconds, to place second in their heat and 25th out of the 55 teams who competed in the event. They were less than five seconds off the first-place finisher. Welch said it was a standing-room only crowd with people standing in the hallways and any area they could find but it didn’t faze his team.
Emerson started the Centaurs off on the right foot and Menounos put together an equally impressive finishing performance.
He flew through the first 200 meters in 22.8 seconds, well below the Woodstock Academy outdoor track school record, something Welch feels will be Emerson’s before the end of the spring season.
Menounos is likely to do the same in the 800-meter.
He finished the anchor leg in 1 minute, 59 seconds, which would also be an outdoor track record for the school.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy

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