The Berlin Citizen | theberlincitizen.com
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Sports
A21
Coats’ Notes
Wrestlers continue to impress; Girls track finish second in CCC South Berlin’s Brendon Vessichio works a Plainville player last week. Vessichio netted 18 points that night to help the Redcoats notch a 58-50 victory. (Photo by Matt Leidemer)
By Nate Brown The Berlin Citizen
Indoor track The boys and girls teams competed in the CCC championship meet at the Floyd Little Athletic Center in New Haven. The girls finished second in the CCC South division with 26 points, while the boys finished in sixth place, scoring one point. The girls were led by their strong relay performances, highlighted by the 4x800 meter team comprised of sophomores Jodi DiCicco and Michelle Grieco, and juniors Kristen Madeia and Sarah Hagen. The team finished sixth overall with a time of 10:17.27, and scored three points for Berlin. The girls’ 1,600 sprint medley team and 200 relay team also had successful afternoons. Both squads finished eighth in their respective heats. The 1,600 team, comprised of senior Tess Repaci, Madeia, DiCicco, and freshman Sarah 200 team of Repaci, senior clocked a time of 1:55.21. Daddario finished with a Sam Carbonell, sophomore Th e g i rl s we re a l s o time of 4:40.28, while the Taylor Budney, and Daddario well-represented in the 3,200,
as Grieco finished 10th with a time of 12:00.15. Freshman Lisa Grieco was 18th with a time of 12:31.68. For the boys, senior Darren Grabowski competed in both the 300 and 55. He finished 16th in the 300 with a time of 39.28, and 25th in the 55, clocking a 7.20. Boys swimming The Redcoats clinched their first victory of the regular season with a 93-90 victory over Newington. After not competing since the first week of January, the boys performed well in a well-fought meet by both teams. “It’s always fun swimming against Newington. They always have a really good swimming program over there, and they’re always a class act as a team,” BHS coach Dan Thurston said. “The last couple of years, they’ve had our number a little bit, but we were really excited to get
back in the water for a meet. The team was really ready to go. “I feel like we had a lot of the guys step up. We had a couple of really tough swims in the meet.” The Redcoats got off to a hot start thanks in part to their 200 medley relay. The team, comprised of seniors Luke Switzer and Brian Kennure, and freshmen Kevin Klotz and Thomas Wejda, took first place in the event. Berlin’s secondary 200 medley relay team finished third. “I thought that the guys, top to bottom, really stepped up and did what we asked them to do, which was give everything they had in the water, and give their teammates everything they had (for support) out of the water. I thought they did a really good job with that,” said Thurston. See Notes / Page 22
Commentary
Time for a shot clock By Nate Brown The Berlin Citizen
Did you know that there are 86,400 seconds in a day? Quite a large number of seconds, if you ask me. So what exactly does 90 seconds equate to? Answer: 0.1 percent of the day. In other words, a really short amount of time. Unless, of course, you’re playing defense in a high school basketball game. I recently attended a CCC South Division Berlin-Maloney boys basketball matchup during which the game
really slowed down for me. I don’t mean that I had an epiphany, and I suddenly understood all the ins and outs of the sport. I’ve been playing the game for years; I think my knowledge of the sport is just fine, thank you very much. But the game itself literally slowed to a screeching halt. Let me give you the scenario: After building upon a 10-point halftime lead over the opening minutes of the third quarter, the Spartans of Maloney walked the ball up the court with 1:30 left in the frame. The Redcoats were back on defense, packed into their impressive 2-3
zone that had helped to keep most of Maloney’s quick athletes out of the lane for much of the night. For the next 90 seconds, Maloney passed the ball around the perimeter in the hopes of getting a good shot off to extend its lead heading into the final quarter. But it never happened. Berlin’s defense was too strong for the Spartans to do anything. While this series of events was unfolding, my thought process went through a rather drastic progression through those 90 seconds that went something like this: “Berlin’s going to need to play
some strong defense here to keep them from scoring again.” “Wow, the Redcoats are playing really good defense this possession; I’m impressed!” “Maloney has been completely shut down! They can’t make anything happen on offense! Berlin’s going to force a shot-clock violation pretty soon if they can keep this intensity up.” “... hold on a second ...where’s the buzzer? Where’s the whistle? Where’s the shot clock violation?” Yet, to my amazement (and quite See Time / Page 22