caption:
Competing
Woodstock Academy junior Taylor Markley, right, competes on the balance beam. Photo by Sean Saucier/The Woodstock Academy.
Injuries were a problem early in the season for the Woodstock gymnastics team. Junior Taylor Markley was bothered by back problems, had to have ankle surgery and also had to overcome illness. Freshman Olivia Aleman was also beset by back issues.
That was then. This is now.
Markley competed in her first ECC championship meet Feb. 12 and captured her first individual title with a 37.9 All-Around total.
“Her comeback has been really awesome,” said coach Kasey Tocchio. “She deserves everything about this.”
And she wasn’t the only one. Aleman finished third in the All-Around with a 36.0 total.
“I’m super-proud of her,” Tocchio said. “She is still making her comeback and working through the injury. We have minimal numbers with her, working on a strict plan, and she is coming out and giving us big scores. She is just doing great. I’m excited to see where she goes. They are both healthy, on the mend, and we’re going to stay that way.”
The two individual performances led to the best team performance of the season as the Centaurs posted a 140.55 total to easily outscore NFA (129.45), Stonington (128.45) and Killingly (128.25).
It was the Centaurs 12th consecutive ECC championship.
Markley She opened with a 9.5 on the vault where she wanted to hit a full, but had to settle for a layout vault.
Markley hadn’t practiced her bar routine much due to some work that she had to put in for her USA gymnastics routine. Markley finished with a 9.7.
“Her second vault was great, not the one we were going to do, we were trying to upgrade but she came back and nailed bars,” Tocchio said. “Mentally and physically, she’s there. She’s all in now.”
She had a fall on beam and finished second with a 9.0 but scored another 9.7 in her floor routine.
Freshman Aleman also started well, getting a 9.1 on the vault, good for second-best overall behind her teammate, Markley. She was third in her second routine, scoring a 9.05 on the bars.
She, too, had a fall on the beam but walked away with an 8.3 and then finished with flair, scoring a 9.55 on the floor.
Senior Lindsey Gillies finished with a 34.4 total including a third-place in the vault (8.85) and a fourth in bars (8.9).
The Centaurs will take on NFA Feb. 21 in their final regular season meet at 11:45 a.m. on Presidents’ Day.
The state championship meet is still to come and the Centaurs have won a state title in each of the last 10 times it has been held dating back to 2011. It’s Feb. 26.
“I think we’re ready,” Tocchio said. “We get a little breathing time which is nice. We’ve been back-to-back with meets and not a lot of practice time so it will give us some time to come together as a team.”
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
caption, page 3:
The Champs!
The Woodstock Middle School Wildcats won the Quinebaug Valley Junior Conference girls’ basketball Large Division championship recently with a win over Brooklyn. The team was coached by Brad Favreau and Kalianna Dingui. Photo contributed by Brad Favreau.
Wildcats
finish perfect,
girls take
QVJC crown
Late in the Quinebaug Valley Junior Conference Large Division girls’ basketball championship game with Brooklyn, Woodstock Middle School girls’ basketball coach Brad Favreau turned around. Several players on his bench were crying.
He looked at the scoreboard just to reassure himself that the team was winning.
“I was like, we’re winning, and they told me that they just didn’t want it to be over,” Favreau said. “This is, arguably, one of my favorite groups that I ever coached. They worked hard every day, but yet, we laughed. There were some tears at times and everything else in between.”
Woodstock Middle School won its QVJC Large Division tournament championship game with Brooklyn to finish off a perfect season.
The Wildcats went 10-0 in the regular season and won both tournament games.
The Wildcats have been to the QVJC finals in each of the last three years that have been played and have finished undefeated in the last two regular seasons.
“That’s a pretty good run,” Favreau said. “There are some good programs out there. Griswold is always a tough opponent, Plainfield and Killingly are tough and Brooklyn does a great job. Thompson, when we played them the second time, was way better than the first time.”
For a lot of his current team, it’s on to bigger and, hopefully, better things. Nine members of his team - Gabby Brown, Avery Danis, Campbell Favreau, Emma Forcier, Payton Leite, Gianna Musumeci, Kerrigan Reynolds, Kaylee Saucier and Wynter Worth – are headed to the high school ranks.
“Hopefully, they all play in high school. They have a lot of potential, but things change when they get to high school and, sometimes, they do other things. I’m hoping they all continue to play,” Favreau said.
There were two 7th-graders on the team, Charlotte Caisse and Rita Rawcliffe.
Saucier led the Wildcats in the championship game win with 20 points while Brown added 17 and Leite 14.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
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Oct. 6
Arthur W. Hubert, 46, Pearl Street, Webster; breach of peace.
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The pipeline is open and as strong as ever. Barry Evans, a postgrad player on Putnam Science Academy’s Prep team, announced last week that he was committing to St. Bonaventure University, making him the third Mustangs in the last four years to join the A-10 power. Kyle Lofton and Osun Osunniyi are seniors at the small Olean, N.Y., school.
“I talked to Kyle and I talked to Osun when I was up there,” said Evans, who visited the campus just days before his commitment. “They said that St. Bonaventure is built around underrated people and I felt that I was underrated, too.
“When I got there it felt like a family and where I belonged. I glued with the guys real well. We connected and it felt like I knew them, same as with here at Putnam. I just felt it, really. My mom felt it, my dad felt it. They’re the closest people to me and if I’m feeling it, too, why not make that decision.”
It’s a decision that the 6-foot, 8-inch 8 wing, who figures to be one of the most versatile players PSA has ever had, wasn’t planning to make. He had originally thought he would play through the season and wait until the spring to commit, once he had more offers to choose from. But the visit changed everything.
“I like small places,” the Baltimore native said, acknowledging the discrepancy between his hometown and his new future home. “I like small towns. I didn’t want a big school. If I’m in school and there’s 2,000 people, that means I can get more help when I need it.”
The recruiting process had become a long and stressful one, he said. But St. Bonaventure was different, and not just because they had only been talking for a little more than a month.
“The first day we had open gyms up here (Sept. 9) was when we started,” Evans said. “But we built a good relationship quickly, and I felt like I just had to do this. It feels good, really, to have all that pressure off my back. I just felt like I had to do this. Now I can just go out and play my game, play free.”
That could be trouble then for PSA opponents.
“Barry can do a lot of things really, really well,” said Mustangs coach Tom Espinosa. “He can play anywhere on the wing, and I can see him playing the 5-spot for us when we go small. He can defend any position. He can rebound, push it up the floor himself, and pull up and hit a 3-pointer. He can get to the rim and find the open man. We haven’t had many guys like Barry.”
By Stephen Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy
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