Roundup
Girls’ track finishes 2nd
in ECC championship
The girls’ track team started well, winning both the 4x800 and 4x100-meter relays, but Norwich Free Academy caught up and passed the Centaurs by putting up 29 points in the pole vault alone.
The Wildcats went on to post a 161-149 win over the second-place Centaurs at the ECC Div. I-II championship.  
“Sort of OK with it,” Woodstock Academy coach Josh Welch said. “It was a good day. It’s one of those things where everyone really performed really well but if things had gone better this way or that way (the result may have been different).”
The problem for the Centaurs was numbers.
The championship meet is scored through eight places.
It means teams with a higher volume of athletes, could amass more points.
“Like the pole vault where they could pack it and they took five out of the eight places which racked up those 29 points and makes it hard to catch up. Even if we did not have pole vaulters to break them up, had the rest of the league had more, it would have helped us but they just dominated there.”
Plus, athletes were limited participating in just three events.
“That’s a big difference for us, too, because of a lot of our kids are primed for four and we’re able to use that in the dual meets,” Welch said.
But not in a championship meet. For example, the Centaurs had to run their second 4x400m relay team.
“If we had our ‘A’ team, we would have dominated that event again,” coach said. “It makes it tougher to scratch together some of the relays and Juliet (Allard) would have probably won the 100m but we had to pick and choose.”
Talia Tremblay, Julia Coyle, Olivia Tracy and Isabel D’Alleva-Bochain got things started in the right direction when the quartet finished in 10 minutes, 2.66 seconds to capture the 4x800m by almost two seconds over Ledyard.
The 4x100m relay team of Allard, Elise Coyle, Ella Lidonde and Emma Weitknecht followed suit with a 50.61 effort to hold off Fitch by 2/10’s of a second.
“Juliet continues to kill it, she is just so consistent. They had an amazing 4x100, they had great handoffs and matched their best ever as a group which was cool. (Juliet) finished with three firsts which was fantastic,” Welch said.
Lily Morgis added a second-place finish in the discus with a personal best 110-foot effort. Elise Coyle and Reegan Reynolds finished inches apart and placed third and fourth, respectively, in the long jump.
Those early efforts pushed Woodstock into the lead after four events.
But Norwich Free Academy was lurking.
Despite a third-place finish by Julia Coyle in the 1600m, the Wildcats sprinted ahead.
Jillian Edwards made it closer as she captured a second in both the 100-meter hurdles and high jump where she tied for first but lost to Fitch in a jump off.
“She had a fantastic day in hurdles and was doing great in the high jump but it just came down to the jump off. She was doing well, hanging in there because it went up-and-down a couple of times but just got nabbed at the end,” Welch said.
Reynolds won the triple jump; Allard took the 200m, D’Alleva-Bochain added a fourth in the javelin and a fifth in the 800m and Avery Plouffe finished third in the shotput.
But NFA still maintained a 135-120 lead with just two events remaining.
Julia Coyle took a second in the 3200m and the 4x400m team of Greysen Dery, Elise Coyle, Reynolds and Tremblay placed second but it was not enough for the Centaurs to catch the Wildcats.
“Talia (Tremblay) was a big part of our point scoring. She had an amazing leg in the 4x800 so we were able to hold out there. She also ran a solid 400,” Welch said. “Julia Coyle didn’t get a first but she hit three personal bests in the 800, 1600 and 3200 and really was just on fire. That helped boost our points over where we would have been. She had a phenomenal day.”
The Centaurs did have a host of ECC All-Stars with Allard (4x100m, 200m, 300m Hurdles); Reynolds (triple jump, 4x400); Tracy (4x800), D’Alleva-Bochain (4x800, javelin); Tremblay (4x400); Lidonde (4x100); Elise Coyle (4x100, 4x400); Julia Coyle (4x800); Greysen Dery (4x400) and Emma Weitknecht (4x100) getting All-Star honors.
Honorable mention recipients included Julia Coyle (3200m); Edwards (100m hurdles, high jump) and Lily Morgis (discus).
Corinne LaMontagne is the team’s ECC Scholar-Athlete and Reynolds was the recipient of the ECC Sportsmanship Award.
Woodstock gets a week to rest before competing in the CIAC Class MM state championship on Tuesday.
“States is interesting because, once again, we will have to run our 4x400m ‘B’ team otherwise, I think we would be a solid favorite to win. I think we still have a shot at it,” Welch said. “Going through the scoring, I think we will be neck-and-neck with the leaders. Hillhouse (New Haven) will be really tough but I think we have a shot. We’re going to go head-to-head with their 4x100 team, we’re running the same times. We have 60-plus potential points at a state meet and I’ve seen them won with less and some with more but I think we will be in the mix.”
Boys’ Track
Junior Christian Menounos had a personal highlight at the ECC  Div. I-II boys’ track championship early last week.
Menounos finished second in the 800m in a school record time of 1:56.59.
Colton Sallum finished sixth in the 1600m in a personal best 4:29.45.
Charlie Caggiano qualified to compete in the Class MM state championship in the 800m in a time of 2:05.59.
The boys finished eighth as a team. Menounos earned ECC Honorable Mention All-Star for the second-place finish. The ECC Scholar-Athlete for the team is Caggiano with Joel Koleszar getting the ECC Sportsmanship nod.
Boys’ Volleyball
The boys’ volleyball team played its inaugural varsity match against Wolcott Tech at the beginning of the season and Wolcott Tech posted a shutout victory.
Early last week, the Centaurs repaid the favor by making the long bus ride to Wolcott Tech for a Connecticut Volleyball League tournament semifinal match.
The result, much to the chagrin of the boys’ volleyball team, was the same.
Top-seeded Wolcott Tech put together a 3-0 victory over the Centaurs, posting wins of 25-19, 25-13, and 25-15 in the three sets to advance to the championship match.
“Each set was neck-and-neck early, like the first third of the set, but we just hit a point where we were not executing, making too many errors and that’s what made the difference,” said coach Adam Bottone.
Aiden Finch led Woodstock Academy (10-11) with 10 kills while Christian Hart added 13 digs and Jake Henderson had 21 assists.
Earlier in the week, the Centaurs lost the first set to SMSA but rallied to win the next three in a Connecticut Volleyball League tournament quarterfinal match.
The Tigers took the first set, 25-23, but Woodstock paid no heed.
The Centaurs evened it up at one with a 25-21 victory in the second set. They took control with a 25-20 win in the third and outlasted their visitors, 25-23, in the fourth to advance.
“That was not a pretty game on either side,” Bottone said. “There were tons of service errors. I think we had 20 and they had just as many if not more. That’s always a struggle when it happens and it makes you think as a coach when it happens, ‘What are we missing?’ ‘What do we need to go back and fix?’”
The nice thing was, in the first meeting between the two, SMSA took the first two sets before Woodstock rallied.
At least, this time, it was only one.
Finch had 13 kills, Owen Budd added nine and Henderson had 22 assists.
Bottone was just grateful for the first-time tournament experience.
“It definitely was good experience, we need the playoff experience especially for the younger guys,” Bottone said.
Both Finch and freshman Brayden Bottone were named CVL All-Stars.
Woodstock will likely have to travel to Newtown to play a second-round state tournament match as only 15 teams qualified for the Class M state tournament.
“Honestly, I would love to get that first state tournament win for the program. Just to get to the quarterfinal with that one win would be great for the seniors and really good for the program as a whole as it would show the guys that we can play,” Bottone said.
Girls’ Tennis
The one thing coach Siana Green was hoping to avoid was a long trek to get to a state tournament match.
If she was only coaching the boys, her wish would have been granted as the Centaurs failed to make the state tournament.
But the girls did and Green has been coaching both.
So on Friday, it was on to the bus for a wonderful trip to Milford for the 19th-seeded Centaurs.
Woodstock ran into 14th-seeded Jonathan Law for a Class L state tournament qualifying round match and the Centaurs saw the season come to a close with a 5-2 loss.
Wynter Worth and Emma Massey scored the only wins for Woodstock in singles play.
The Centaurs had a short stay at the ECC individual tournament earlier in the week at Stonington High School.
The two singles players and one doubles team all suffered first-round, pro-set losses and were knocked out of the tournament.
Gianna Musumeci and Kerrigan Reynolds were seeded eighth in the doubles tournament and had to play the No. 9 doubles team of Veronica Castro and Jessica Feng from East Lyme.
The Vikings players posted an 8-4 win.
Ellie Bishop-Klee was also an eighth seed and fell to No. 9 Misha Lewandowski from an undefeated Stonington team, 8-3.
Worth had it a bit worse. She was the 16th seed and had to play the top seed and eventual champion, Sarah Hage of Waterford, in the first round.
Worth didn’t walk away empty-handed as she did win a couple of games, but eventually lost 8-2.
Bishop-Klee, Musumeci and Reynolds were named ECC Div. II All-Stars.
Delilah Kesselman, Kate McArthur and Worth received Division II honorable mention.
The Scholar-Athlete for the team was Massey with Peyton Bentley getting the Sportsmanship Award.
Boys’ Tennis
The competition was stiff for the boys’ tennis team which had three players representing it at the ECC boys’ individual tournament at East Lyme.
Junior Owen Rigney was downed in singles by Colton Murch of Waterford in a pro-set match, 8-5.
The doubles team of Ryan Chabot and Steven Shen also suffered a first-round loss as they were upended by Montville’s Jack Bowman and Ryan Hochdorfer, 8-2.
But several of the Centaurs will be recognized as ECC Div. II All-Stars.
Rigney and Tyler Chamberlin who were named as such in singles with Chabot and Shen receiving the All-Star nod in doubles.
Ethan Staples was named honorable mention in singles with Cang Nguyen named the team’s Scholar-Athlete and Leo Larkin getting the ECC Sportsmanship award.
Girls’ Golf
The girls’ golf team started last week in a good way with a pair of victories but things went downhill from there.
The Centaurs downed Suffield 236-240 and also bested Canton 236-285.
Reagan Scheck led the Centaurs with a 51 while Lily Moran added a 57.
“Lily has been hitting some good shots. She just tends to lose her focus, a little bit sometimes, in the short game. If she could take off the one or two big scores she puts on the card, she would be shooting in the 40’s,” coach Earl Semmelrock said.
The Centaurs didn’t have as much success later in the week.
Woodstock hosted NFA and Coventry last Wednesday and fell to both.
The Wildcats dropped the Centaurs 201-231 and the Patriots also upended Woodstock, 203-231.
Scheck paced the Centaurs with a 48.
Woodstock was missing some key ingredients when it traveled to Manchester on Thursday and to Bacon Academy on Friday.
Scheck led the Centaurs with a 53 but for a second day in a row was the only player to score under 60.
Manchester walked away with the 208-274 win over Woodstock.
Scheck was the medalist on Friday  when she posted a 44. Moran followed with a 59 but the Centaurs had little experience behind them and lost to the Bobcats, 227-241.
Woodstock finished the week with a 5-10 overall record and a 2-7 mark in the ECC.
The Centaurs have one more league match to play with Killingly on Tuesday and then host the ECC girls’ championship match on Wednesday at Quinnatisset.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy

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