Roundup
Centaurs have a perfect week
Nothing has come easy. But the Woodstock Academy girls; volleyball team continues to put victories on the board.
The Centaurs raised their record to 5-1 overall and 3-0 in Div. I of the ECC with a 3-0 win over Norwich Free Academy Friday.
That followed a pair of five-set victories over Griswold and Fitch earlier in the week which left coach Adam Bottone just shaking his head about his team’s up-and-down style of play which has so far been pretty successful.
“I don’t know how,” Bottone said. “I will take it for now.”
The Centaurs fortunately made life a little easier on their coach on Friday as they traveled to Norwich and posted a straight-set victory, 25-19, 25-16, 25-19.
Kaylee Bundy had 17 kills for the Centaurs against the Wildcats while Kennedy McCooey added 11 kills and 11 service points and Giana Musumeci had 18 digs.
Things were not as easy in their new home, the South Campus gym, earlier in the week.
Woodstock had to fight back against the Falcons on Wednesday for the 3-2 victory.
Fitch captured the first and third sets, but the Centaurs forced a fifth by winning the second and fourth and then took the fifth, 15-8, for the win.
“We have lots of ups and downs this year. We’ve been working on trying to stay consistent. I think we’re still trying to get to know one another on the floor and when we get that consistency, it will help us out,” said senior Vivian Bibeau.
Bibeau was one of the keys in the fifth set.
She picked up three of her 11 kills in that set early to help the Centaurs build a 4-0 lead. Musumeci then capped off the win with an ace from behind the service line and followed that up with a nice dig that led to a Lily Morgis kill to end the match.
“It’s been a challenge,” Bottone said. “We work on so many things and the transfer from practice to the games doesn’t always happen and we play scattered, a lot less disciplined and that’s where we struggle.”
The Centaurs had beaten the Falcons 3-0 in Groton just the week before.
But there was to be no repeat performance as the Falcons captured the first set, 25-17.
Woodstock did rally for a 25-19 win in the second to tie the match but the Falcons repeated the 25-17 effort in the third.
“We lost one of our middles so it’s been a little different lineup which may have messed us up but I don’t think we can use that as an excuse. I think we just had some ups and downs which we need to recover from,” Bibeau said.
McCooey led the Centaurs with 14 kills while Kaylee Bundy added 13. Musumeci contributed 15 points from behind the service line and 12 digs from her Libero position.
“Any time you can come back and win a match, you have to be happy. There is something there to take a positive out of. We had some fight in us and battled when the match was on the line,” Bottone said.
It was the opposite against Griswold.
The Centaurs captured the first two games in that 3-2 victory only to see the Wolverines rally to win the next two and force a fifth set that the Centaurs won, 15-9.
“That concerned me because we started off pretty well and then, I don’t know, went into cruise control. I had to make some adjustments in the lineup because of injuries and I don’t know if that negatively impacted us, it shouldn’t have, but I don’t know what happened there,” Bottone said.
Musumeci had 20 digs and 11 service points including six aces against the Wolverines. Bundy had 14 kills while Bibeau had 10 service points and nine kills and Morgis finished with 23 assists.
Boys’ Soccer
It was a match that was decided early, shortly after Stonington got off the bus in fact.
Just two minutes into the match. Sean Lord curled one to the far corner of the net that gave Stonington the 1-0 lead over the boys’ soccer team.
It turned out to be the final score as well.
“They have a play where they have a guy in front and a guy on the side, we practiced against it but they snuck it inside the front post. We will get better,” coach Dave St. Jean said of the set corner play.
The Centaurs (2-1-1), who suffered their first loss of the season, played pretty well as the defense held Stonington (3-1) at bay for the next 78 minutes.
Unfortunately, the Centaurs could not score either.
“Give them credit,” St. Jean said. “They had the great corner kick to start and whenever you are playing from behind, you tend to press more than you have to as we had plenty of time to get it back. Hats off to them but our boys played great too. I have never seen Zach Armbruster play that well so we will take some positives out of it as well.”
The Centaurs were coming off a 1-1 tie against New London earlier in the week.
Woodstock had to come from behind against the Whalers.
New London took the lead about 10 minutes into the second half, breaking a scoreless tie.
It took 20 minutes for the Centaurs to respond. Brayden De Oliveira got to the rebound off a shot from Armbruster first and was able to redirect it into the net to give Woodstock the equalizer.
It was De Oliveira’s third goal of the season.
“He has been a great new addition,” St. Jean said of De Oliveira. “We brought him up a bit last year at the end of the season and he did really well. I’m excited to see him get off to a good start this year.”
Football
Even first-year head coach Connor Elliott had to admit it was a bit ironic that the state’s football alliance decided to schedule Woodstock against East Lyme in the first game of the season.
For one, both teams are members of the ECC and the football alliance generally schedules interconference games.
For two, Elliott happens to be a graduate of East Lyme.
“I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a chuckle when I saw the schedule come out.” Elliott said with a smile prior to the game with the Vikings. “Knowing them a little having played there and there are some coaches on the staff that were there when I was playing there.”
Unfortunately, Elliott and the Centaurs were not smiling as much after the season opener as the Vikings won, 23-14.
The Centaurs were locked into a battle with East Lyme going into the fourth quarter, tied at 14.
Woodstock stopped the Vikings at the Centaurs 12-yard line as they turned the ball over on downs.
The Centaurs moved the ball out to their own 34-yard line on a pass from new junior quarterback Elijah Poh to Alec Nunes that went 17 yards.
But they were facing third-and-12 two plays later and Poh was again forced to drop back.
East Lyme defensive back Dyson Cryer stepped in front of the pass at the Woodstock 45 and took it to the house for the pick-6.
“That pick-6 was tough. It was a missed assignment really is what it comes down to. It was a good thrown ball but it was a mixture of guys playing together for a first time and young guys in roles that are stepping up. They are still going to make mistakes,” Elliott said.
The Centaurs could not move the ball following the East Lyme defensive score and were forced to punt.
The kick was blocked by the Vikings who took over possession at the Woodstock 28.
Three plays later, they had only managed to get to the Woodstock 21 but they trotted out kicker Finn Bruno.
Bruno had just had his extra-point attempt blocked following the touchdown but he was ready for the 38-yard field goal attempt as he sent it through the uprights with ease to account for the final score.
“I thought our defense played well all day. We have to be a lot better offensively,” Elliott said. “(The defense) hung in all day. We’re generally going to be smaller than our opponents but we rely on our speed and bring as much physicality as we can and I thought we did that (Friday), holding them to really 17 points in a first game where you don’t really know what the (opponent’s) offense will do.”
The Centaurs came out of the gates looking pretty good.
Poh, a transfer from Killingly, engineered an eight-play drive on the first series of the game.
Elijah Laprade got the Centaurs excellent field position with a kickoff return to the Centaurs 42.
Cooper Harris (13 carries, 55 yards) exploded up the middle for 23 yards and Poh hit Nunes with a 14-yard pass that got Woodstock to the East Lyme 10.
Two plays later, Poh lofted one over the East Lyme defense into the waiting arms of Aidan Soukaloun who ran it down the sidelines for the 10-yard score.
“I thought Eli threw the ball well all day. He’s hard on himself and we have stuff to clean up. He knows it. We all know it. He created on schedule and created off schedule and a couple of those I probably wouldn’t have coached him to throw but I’m not going to tell him not to if it works out,” Elliott said.
East Lyme took the lead in the second quarter. The Vikings first series lasted 13 plays and took 9 ½ minutes to complete.
It started in the first quarter and ended three minutes into the second when Kai Duprey rallied the Vikings who had been hit with two consecutive penalties with a 30-yard touchdown run.
The Centaurs were forced to punt on their next possession and Duprey, who finished with 177 yards on 16 carries, did it again.
On the first play from scrimmage following the punt, he found a hole and galloped 78 yards to the end zone.
The Centaurs tied the game with an eight-play drive early in the third quarter that ended when Poh, once again, tossed it over the top of three defenders and into the arms of Nunes who scored from 37 yards out.
The senior, who finished the season with 114 yards a year ago in receiving yards, caught six passes for 90 yards on Friday.
“That was one of the game plans this week was to go after their safeties. Alec is our slot guy, a do-it-all kid with screens and end arounds and all we asked him to do was find an open space and catch the ball. He’s a gutsy kid, all of 150 pounds, playing both ways and he played really well. He’s a true football player,” Elliott said.
The Centaurs return to the field on the road on Thursday as they travel to New London to play the Whalers in another matinee contest at 5 p.m.
Girls’ Soccer
Dominant. The girls’ soccer team was just that against Somers.
The only place the Centaurs were not dominant was on the scoreboard.
The Spartans managed to put one into the net early in the second half and it stood up as Somers left the pitch with a 1-0 victory.
"As I told the girls, that was the best game they had played all season," said coach Andrea Danforth. "I know we're only three games in but that also includes the scrimmages. We looked amazing. We played the ball fantastic. The movement was great. Everything was there. It's just that final third. We can't put the ball in the back of the net."
The Centaurs followed that up with a pair of solid efforts against East Lyme and Morgan later in the week but could not find the back of the net. They finished in a scoreless tie with the Vikings in an ECC Div. I matchup on Wednesday and lost on the road in Clinton to Morgan School, 1-0, on Friday.
Ellary Sampson made 14 saves against the Vikings for the Centaurs and turned aside five shots on Friday.
The two losses and one tie means the Centaurs are now 0-2-3 overall and 0-0-3 in Div. I of the ECC but there is plenty of time for a turnaround and also time to make some changes if necessary.
"We went to the formation we're using because we had to plug up space in the middle and it's working in that sense but we're losing the attack. It's early in the season so we have time to figure it out, experiment a little," Danforth said.
The Centaurs had plenty of opportunities to score against Somers and did get one to go in but an offsides call resulted in the goal being disallowed.
They also had an indirect kick call inside the box, but the Spartans were up to the challenge and kept the ball out of the net from close range.
"Some of those were just unfortunate that we couldn't finish on them and others it's just about that final push and we have talked about finding someone who can get that final push," Danforth said.
Somers made the most of one of their few opportunities.
Sophomore Mackenzie Smith lofted one over the head of Sampson and into the opposite corner of the net just 2 1/2 minutes into the second half to give the Spartans the win.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
captions:
IMG 2718: Woodstock Academy junior Maggie Beams elevates for a kill against Griswold.
IMG 2741: Senior setter Lily Morgis (17) looks to get the ball to a teammate in a match against Griswold.
IMG 2744: Senior Lily Morgis and junior Kennedy McCooey go up to attempt a block at the net for the girls’ volleyball match against Griswold inside.
IMG 2705: Senior Libero Gianna Musumeci sends the ball to the front line.
IMG 2767: Junior Tyler Odorski battles a Stonington opponent for the ball last week.
IMG 2776: Senior keeper Nate Faucher (0) goes to the ground to stop a shot by Stonington’s Sean Lord. Photos by Marc Allard/Woodstock Academy.