December 2013

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PRINT EDITIONSouth Edition Serving the Glastonbury area

WHAT’S INSIDE

Glastonbury bas-ketball squads set for big year

Pages 4, 6

GHS wrestling could do some damage in 2013-14

Page 5

Out of reachErika Studer | Staff

Glastonbury wide receiver Joseph Nuzzolo dives for a Jalen Ollie pass during the Tomahawks 33-23 loss in the Class LL state tournament on December 3.

Tomahawks’ seniors truly one of a kindBy Evan Macy and Tom PowersStaff Writers

GLASTONBURY — The Tomahawks football team got a No. 2 seed in the Class LL tournament and had high hopes for a deep tournament run. But after a 33-23 loss to Fairfield Prep on December 3, the talented senior class that propelled the squad to a 10-1 regular season walked off the field together for the final time.

“I’m proud of every single kid on the team,” Glaston-bury head coach Scott Daniels said. “They worked hard in the offseason and all year long, it’s a great group of kids.”

The senior class is too vast to mention each player by name, but their contributions on both sides of the ball, and in the locker room were enough to make this one of the most outstanding teams coach Daniels has

ever coached.“They are awesome guys,” he said. “We have 24

graduating seniors, they are a great group of kids. I have never been around a group that has had so much

chemistry. They all get along, they are great in the lock-er room, great in the community, great in school. I feel for them, they thought we could go pretty far.”

The Tomahawks lost in Week One, a nailbiting 16-9 defeat at the hands of Southington. But then, Glaston-bury strung together 10 wins in a row, working its way into the No. 2 seed in yet another playoff appearance for the football powerhouse.

“We’ve been here,” Daniels said. “We have been to the playoffs for six years and it sets the bar when you go the playoffs and play good teams. Everything is a learning experience. You learn from your wins, learn from your losses, and I told our younger kids to remem-ber this. They will take it into the offseason and we will get better.”

See ‘FOOTBALL,’ continued on PAGE 7

Erika Studer | StaffGlastonbury’s Ethan Ericson had 1,024 receiving yards in 2013.

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The Sports DepartmentP.O. Box 746, Ellington, CT 06029

860-872-0TSD (0873) • 860-614-5866 • thesportsdept.comPublisher: Kevin Hayes • kevin@thesportsdept.com

Editor: Evan Macy • Production Manager: Patty HunterContributing Writers: Jon Buzby • Tom Ainsworth • Steve Smith • Reid L

Walmark • Danny Atkinson • Brian Mazzone • Nate Owen • Amy Locandro • Bob Tedford • Brendon Willis • Julie Dutton • Melissa Green-Maltese • Bruce

Watt, David Wrabel • Amy Saada • Alison Alberghini-Durler • Lori TitusPhotography: Steve Palmer • Andre Dumais • Rich Tanguay

Erika Studer• Alan Bastarache • Steve Smith • Andre Garant • Melanie Oliveira

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All you have to do is step foot in the lo-cal mall or drive around the neighborhood to realize the holidays are just around the corner. Kids especially are looking for-ward to the more than week-long break that stretches from just before Christmas until after the New Year.

If your child is currently playing on a youth sports team, no matter how com-petitive a league it is, the question of whether or not to practice the week be-tween Christmas and New Year’s Day is going to be raised. (If the team is par-ticipating in a holiday tournament, then practicing over the break is almost nec-essary.)

I’m not suggesting that the team needs to gather Christmas Eve morning or in the late afternoon on New Year’s Eve, but I’ve found through the years as a youth sports coach that my team’s parents are more than happy to have somewhere to take their kids during the break. And during the few holidays when I haven’t coached, I certainly shared that same opinion as a parent. There’s nothing bet-

ter than having your kid be able to blow off some energy in a gym or rink or, for that matter, any indoor venue.

The kids love it too. There’s nothing better for a basketball junkie than a warm gymnasium on a cold winter night with no alarm set to go off the next morning.

The key is making sure everyone is on the same page about the purpose of any practices held over the holidays. Basical-ly -- is it mandatory or just optional?

My suggestion in this regard is to make it completely optional. Undoubtedly you already have a player whose family is fly-ing somewhere and isn’t going to change their holiday plans to attend practice.

Should teams practice over the break?So before Santa even comes down the chimney, if you make the practice man-datory you’ll have to enforce the missed practice rule for the first game of 2014.

Likewise, even if a family isn’t going away the entire week, my guess is there are day trips planned. My family is al-ready scheduled to make two day trips to visit family during that week off. So as much as I’d want to take my kids to a practice, if it falls on either day, it’s just not going to happen.

As a coach, I always make sure the holiday practices are fun — mostly scrim-maging and their favorite drills — and let the players know that ahead of time,

knowing they will then want to attend and will do everything in their power to get there.

As a parent, I give my kids the choice to attend optional practices or not that are held over the holiday. After all, it’s their vacation too. Typically, if we are in town, they — like me — are more than happy to get out of the house.

Holiday practices can be a wonderful distraction from the hustle and bustle of the season. That is, if they are scheduled with the spirit of the season in mind.

Contact Jon Buzby at JonBuzby@hot-mail.com and follow him @YouthSports-Buzz on Twitter.

GLASTONBURYStudent Athlete of the Month

GLASTONBURYStudent Athlete of the Month

Ethan is one of Glastonbury quarterback Jalen Ollie’s favorite targets, and during a great 2013 season with the Tomahawks football team, Ericson surpassed 1,000 yards receiving He is an honor role stu-dent as well as an All-Conference player.How Ethan prepares for a game: Listen to music, relax and think about the game and visualize what I need to do to make big plays in the game.Ethan’s most memorable moment as a Tomahawk: The win we had against NFA at home early in the season. It had all the hype and was a statement game for us. Ethan’s favorite pro athlete: Calvin Johnson, WR Detroit LionsEthan’s college plans: Attend Penn State University – The Smeal College of Busi-ness

Ethan Ericson, Football, Lacrosse

Cameron is both a conference champion, a member of high honor roll at GHS, a two sport varsity athlete an an all-academic team member for both volleyball and bas-ketball.How Cameron prepares for a game: Be-

fore a game, I listen to music to relax.Why Cameron is excited for the win-ter season: I’m most excited for our new coach. I’m also excited for the season to start because I love being with my team-mates and playing with them. Cameron’s most memorable moment as a Tomahawk: My memorable moment in a high school uniform was winning basketball CCC Championship last year against Southington and defeating Ridge-field to advance in the volleyball state tournament this year. Cameron’s expectations for the winter season: I hope to accomplish winning the CCC Championship again and making it far into the state tournament. I also hope to build a strong team for future years. Cameron’s favorite pro athlete: Diana Taurasi. Cameron’s college plans: I am undecided on a major, but I want to play basketball at the next level.

Cameron HendricksBasketball, Volleyball

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By Tom PowersStaff Writer

The Glastonbury Boys basketball team has some big shoes to fill this season. The Tomahawks lost All-State center Jordan Butler and two-year starter Luke McNabb to graduation.

In 2012-2013, Glastonbury finished with an 18-7 record and was runner up in the CCC tournament, losing to back-to-back-to-back CCC Conference Tournament champions Windsor by a score of 74-67 in a game where Windsor led by double digits in the first half.The Tomahawks were able to come within one point of Windsor late in the game in a bitter de-feat.

The Tomahawks earned a twelve-seed in the Class LL state tournament, but fell to 21 New London 59-58 in the first round. It was the second straight year in which Glastonbury failed to make it out of the first round of the tournament. In 2011, The Tomahawks advanced to the semifinals as a fourteen seed only to lose to eventual state champion St. Joseph.

Despite talented teams over the years, the Glaston-

bury boys have only played in one state champion-ship game in school history, a 1940 Class S loss to Ellsworth.

James Vaughan, in his fourteenth season as head coach of the Tomahawks expects this year’s team to contend in the CCC North and improve throughout the season.

Vaughan’s team will be led by senior guards Jalen Ollie (15ppg) and John Russell (8ppg, 4rpg, 2 steals). Filling out the senior class for the Tomahawks boys basketball team are guards Joe Wiedemann, Connor Leahy, and Justin Eaddy.

The Tomahawks also expect juniors Chika Chuk-wu, Maxwell Hummel, and Christian Porydzy to be solid contributors, as all have prior varsity experi-ence.

Glastonbury will have to find a way to make it work with a team heavy on guards and light on size. Fortu-nately for the Tomahawks, the guards are quick and athletic.

Look for Russell and Ollie to have big senior sea-sons if the Tomahawks plan on advancing beyond the first round of the state tournament in 2013-2014.

Ollie, Russell, GHS boys basketball expects success

E.B. Taylor PhotographyGlastonbury’s Jalen Ollie elevates for a rebound last season.

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Cavanna leads talented GHS wrestling squad

By Brian MazzoneStaff Writer

The winter sports season is in full gear. Most wrestling teams hit the mats for the first time on the Monday after Thanks-giving, and they will all be in action this week.

The area boasts some strong wrestlers to return this year. Glastonbury is always tough and is all coming off excellent sea-sons from last year.

Again, Glastonbury will look for Andrew Cavanna to lead them to the state finals.

The Glastonbury Tomahawks should be a top contender as usual. They are coming off of a season that is hard to top. Last season they won the CCC North, and came in the top ten at the State Open. There should be no drop off from last season, as they return an extremely strong core of wrestlers.

Their ace in the hole is senior Andrew

Cavanna. On top of being a stud lineman in foot-

ball, Cavanna is one of the best wrestlers in the state. Last season he compiled a record of 54-0.

He was last year’s New England Champion at 220, Class LL Champion, and an all-conference selection last sea-son.

He helped lead the charge to a 20 win regular season.

The team also finished 7th overall in the Class LL Tournament.

They also return Josh Jones, Nick Ya-covone, Andy Bedard, Reese Turovac, Klint Drici, Jamie Tow, Steven Rost, Alex Fahey, and Tom Reardon. They begin their season against Farmington on De-cember 18th.

Glastonbury will miss Joe Rosetti, a freshman who was a state champion last year, he has transferred to a private school.

However, the team has enough depth and strong numbers in multiple weight

classes in order to make up for the loss of his points.

E.B. Taylor PhotographyGlastonbury’s Andrew Cavanna will return to the mat looking to dominate once again in 2013-14.

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Girls basketball looks to replace key talent

By Tom PowersStaff Writer

The Tomahawks girls basketball team may have lost a bulk of their start-ing core, but they gained a new coach who believes that Glastonbury still has enough talent to be competitive once again this season.

Kate Susat will have a lot of work to do in her first season as Glastonbury’s head coach to keep the Tomahawks program competitive in Class LL.

The Tomahawks finished last season 24-3 and 16-2 in the CCC led by Court-ney Latham, who now plays at Boston University. Glastonbury would go on to win the CCC Tournament, and earn a four-seed in the Class LL State Tour-nament. In the tournament, the Toma-hawks advanced to the semifinals with wins over Fairfield-Warde, Norwich Free Academy, and South Windsor,

before falling to eventual State Cham-pions Mercy in an exciting 46-43 game.

A win over Mercy would have sent the Tomahawks to the State finals for the first time since 1992, a time before any of the Tomahawk players were even born.

Returning for Glastonbury in 2013-2014 are seniors Briana Brown (guard), Lauren Patton (forward), Ga-briella Dombek (forward), Jennifer Hogan (guard), and Kerstan Mahland (forward).

Although the Tomahawks will return only one starter, Glastonbury has plen-ty of players returning with varsity ex-perience.

Susat does not expect the lack of re-turning starters to be an issue for the Tomahawks this season. Size may be an issue for Glastonbury, but this team should make up for that with athleti-cism and talent.

Susat, although in her first season as Glastonbury’s head coach, has no expectations that the transition to a new coach will slow this Tomahwaks team down. In addition to challenging for the CCC regular season title, Su-sat expects her team to make the CCC

tournament and make a deep run in the 2014 Class LL State Tournament.

The bar has been set high for the Tomahwaks, but their eyes are set on a prize that is not unrealistic for this tal-ented group.

E.B Taylor PhotographyGlastonbury’s Gabby Dombek puts up a shot against East Hartford last season.

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Tomahawks proud of solid season in 2013Continued from PAGE 1

The Tomahawks drew the 9-2 Jesuits from Fairfield Prep, and after coughing up two turnovers in the first few min-utes, were behind 13-0. But as they al-ways have, the team, led by Jalen Ollie, mounted a comeback that eventually had the team within three points.

“We were 10-1 for a reason in the reg-ular season, and Jalen was outstanding for us,” the coach said.

Ollie was 23-for-42 in the game, tal-lying 376 yards and three touchdowns. His yardage total was just 23 yards shy of 3,000 for the season, an average of nearly 250 yards per game.

One of his favorite targets in the game was Ericson, whose performance in the big game gave him an impressive sea-son total of 1,024 yards.

Led by the two senior standouts, the Tomahawks were able to outscore their opponents 376-109 in their ten wins and reach the state tournament for the sixth straight year.

Glastonbury would get off to a rough start in this year’s tournament.

After completing his first pass, Ollie was picked on the second play of the game by Fairfield Prep’s Brett Ste-venson who returned the interception 45-yards for the score, giving Prep a 7-0 lead just seconds into the game.

On the following possession, a fumble by Ollie was recovered by the Jesuits, which set up a 20-yard touchdown run for junior quarterback Colton Smith on the ensuing possession. After a missed PAT, Fairfield Prep had a 13-0 lead with 7:27 left to play in the first quarter.

“We dug ourselves into a hole with a couple turnovers,” Daniels said. “We

gave them 13 points and we were trying to claw back from that the whole game.”

After a Glastonbury field goal, Smith had another touchdown run for the Je-suits, this time a 46-yard run. At the end of the first quarter Fairfield Prep had a controlling 19-3 lead over Glastonbury.

But the Tomahawks were not going to be embarrassed at home.

With 7:00 left in the first half, Ethan Erickson recovered a Jesuit fumble. Ol-lie then led his team 66-yards downfield, capped by a 4-yard touchdown pass to Ericson to cut the Fairfield Prep lead to 19-10 at the half.

After another Smith touchdown to open up the second half to give Fair-field Prep a 26-10 lead, it seemed that Glastonbury was primed for a come-back.

Ollie threw a quick 61-yard touch-down pass to Erickson, who finished with 7 receptions for 141 yards and 2 touchdowns, to make the score 26-16,

and then followed that up with a 29-yard touchdown pass to Anthony Anisimov on the next possession to cut Prep’s lead to 3.

“They are explosive and they have the ability to make plays,” Fairfield Prep head coach Tom Shea said of Glaston-bury. “They are as good as advertised.”

Smith, who finished with 22 carries for 266 yards and 4 touchdowns, ran the ball 77-yards to the house on Prep’s next possession to give the Jesuits a 33-23 lead with 3:15 remaining in the third quarter.

“When they scored, we had answers,” Shea said of his Fairfield Prep squad. “Colton Smith and our offensive line did a great job.”

Down by ten in the fourth, Glaston-bury seemed to be engineering a scor-ing drive led by Ollie and Ericson. With the game in the balance, Ollie’s fourth and eighteen pass to Ericson fell just short, and the Jesuits were able to re-claim possession and hold their 33-23 lead for the final.

Erika Studer | StaffGlastonbury’s Jalen Ollie looks for an open man during the Tomahawks 33-23 loss against the Jesuits.

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Evan Macy | Staff Glastonbury 6th grader Christina Stone with the jumper from the free throw line, (left), and teammate Ali D’errico with a layup against Farmington on December 8.

Evan Macy | Staff Glastonbury’s Olivia Lloyd take the pull-up ‘J’, (above), and Becca McCarthy dribbles and pac-es the offense in the 38-35 loss to Farmington.

Evan Macy | Staff Glastonbury 7th grader Sydney Tennyson tosses a pass, (left), Cheyanne Marimon controls the ball, (above), and Sam Petow brings the ball up court.

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GHS Hockey hopes for improvementBy Evan MacySports Editor

With a bitter taste in the Tomahawks’ mouth after a first round exit in the CIAC Division I state tournament last season, Glastonbury’s hockey squad returns tough, and as one of the top teams in the CCC.

Three senior defensemen will power the blueline, led by captain Phil DiSalvo. Head coach Ken Barse describes the senior as a “smart defender with scoring potential.

The other 12th grade defensemen to watch out for are Spencer Hosack, a smart player, solid athlete and co-cap-tain, and Isaac Ward who has a fierce shot to go along with toughness along the boards.

Offensively, captains Pat Conley and Jack Pizzo lead the attack. Barse says Conley is a “playmaker who is good on the boards,” and Pizzo is a “gritty forward with scoring potential.

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E.B. Taylor PhotographyGlastonbury forward Isaac Ward controls the puck in a game last season against the Generals.

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