Williston Observer

Athletes heading to Conn. for New England meet

By Mal Boright
Observer correspondent

The girls finished sixth and the boys seventh in Saturday’s Division 1 State Track and Field Meet at Burlington High School, leaving Champlain Valley Union High coach Eli Enman pleased and looking ahead to next season.

Before that, however, as many as 10 athletes will participate in the New England meet this weekend in Connecticut after qualifying at the Essex Invitational.

Enman said there were good performances by his athletes Saturday, which resulted in one first and two second place finishes. There were 18 sixth or better places for the Redhawks.

The victory went to James Pieper-Lococo in the 110 hurdles with a time of 15.96 seconds.

Pieper-Lococo was closing in on a possible win in the 300 hurdles when he crashed into the final hurdle and had to be rushed to the hospital with a fractured arm.

“He (Pieper-Lococo) had come from behind with a 100 percent effort. A hurdler next to him fell and he went down also,” Enman said.

The coach said he saw Pieper-Lococo in the hospital after the injury was operated on and said, “He was in good spirits.”

Before the spill, the CVU runner had a great day going. Along with his win in the 100 hurdles, he was sixth in the 100 dash and anchored a fourth place finish for the 100 relay team.

A second place finish in the pole vault was claimed by Sam Chevalier with a height of 12 feet even. It was the same as winner Edward Simon of Bellows Free Academy of St. Albans but Chevalier had more misses in earlier tries.

Third place in the vault went to Redhawk Josh Campagna.

Anthony Jordick was prominent with a fifth in the 400 run plus roles in the fourth place marks by the 100 and 400 relay teams.

Best finish among the girls was by Haleigh Smith with a second in the triple jump. She also captured a fourth in the long jump and anchored the 100 relay team’s fifth place.

It was also a busy day for Summer Spillane, who ran to fourth place finishes in the 1,500 and 3,000 tours, led a sixth place effort by the 800 relay team and notched a sixth in the pole vault.

The numbers going to the New Englands would be nine or 10 depending on whether Enman will be allowed to name a replacement for the injured Pieper-Lococo on the relay team, which was qualified for the trip.

Enman said several members of his relatively youthful team were close to qualifying for the finals and, while a few solid performers will be lost to graduation, the overall prospects for next year look very good.

Mal Boright
Observer correspondent

Only third-seeded Burlington High (15-1) and Vermont individual champion Madison Hartley of Charlotte stand between the Champlain Valley Union High girls tennis team and a second straight Division 1 championship.

The Redhawks and Seahorses will meet to decide the issue at 3 p.m. Thursday on the courts in Shelburne.

CVU earned the appearance in the finals Tuesday with a home victory over fifth-seeded South Burlington High, 5-2. Burlington popped seventh-seeded Rice Memorial High, 6-1 at Leddy Park.

The Redhawks’ number one player, senior Kylie deGroot, set the stage for the defeat of South Burlington with a tough 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 victory over the Rebels’ Samantha Wulfson.

CVU’s AnnaClare Smith breezed to 6-0 and 6-1 sets over South Burlington’s Anna Young while Colleen McCarthy and Andrea Joseph also earned wins for the Redhawks.

The duo of Kristen Donalson and Christina Parker triumphed in doubles.

CVU’s boys team was knocked out of its Division 1 tournament last Thursday, 6-1, by South Burlington. Liam Kelley had the Redhawks’ lone win.

CVU girls lax team one goal short in playoff loss

As usual, the Champlain Valley Union High girls lacrosse squad gave a team with a better record all sorts of trouble.

After a seesaw battle last Wednesday in Brattleboro, the 10th-seeded Redhawks bowed to the Colonels 8-7 on two goals in the final eight minutes of the game.

The Colonels’ Kelsey Guarino scored two of her five goals late in the game to pull her team from behind.

Michaela Kiley and Amanda Kinneston scored two goals each for the Redhawks, while Devan Wilkins, Abby Owens and Erika Gobeille also notched tallies.

Goalie Sophia Steinhoff had eight stops in the CVU cage.

The Redhawks closed out the season with a 3-11 mark. Brattleboro moved into the quarterfinals with an 11-5-1 record, where it lost Friday to second-seeded Middlebury Union High.

Redhawks close softball season with 6-11 record

A tense pitchers’ duel was the finale for the Champlain Valley Union High softball season last Wednesday.

The 11th-seeded Redhawks got nipped 2-0 on June 2 by the sixth-seeded Rutland High Red Raiders at the Raiders’ diamond in an opening playoff round. CVU finished 6-11 while Rutland advanced to the quarterfinals with a 12-5 mark.

CVU got a solid pitching performance from junior Cayla McCarthy, who limited the winners to four hits while striking out five and allowing only one walk.

The Redhawks, while reaching Rutland’s Taylor Kresconko for six hits, had 11 batters go down on strikes. Kresconko did not give up a walk.

The Redhawks lose six seniors including Emily Himberg, Cassidy Maglaris, Heather McLaughlin, Melissa Miller, Sarah Patten and Anna Supple.

Far Post notches tournament wins

Vermont’s Far Post Soccer Club had multiple teams compete in the Needham (Mass.) Memorial Day tournament late last month, with three teams winning in the top divisions of each age group.

The Far Post U13 Boys Premier team won its division with a 2-0 victory in the championship, helped by Williston players Patrick McCue, Chris Reiss and Christian Sakshaug.

The Far Post U15 Girls Premier team competed in the College Showcase bracket, which it won 1-0 in the division’s title game. Ferne Arsenault and Anne Spector of Williston play on the team.

The Far Post U16 Boys Premier team posted the third win, going undefeated and un-tied over the weekend in the U16 Boys College Showcase and capping off the run with a 1-0 win in the championship. Williston players include Parker Cornbrooks, Bennett Hadley, Elliot Schneider and Jonathan Slimovitch.

By Mal Boright
Observer correspondent

“We try to get better with every game.”

Those were the words of Champlain Valley Union High boys lacrosse head coach Dave Trevithick after his Redhawks rolled past fourth-seeded Rutland High 13-1 Tuesday afternoon in a Division 1 semifinal contest in Hinesburg.

Trevithick’s focus on each game rather than the journey’s end is working.

After taking out eighth-seeded Spaulding High of Barre 14-4 last Friday, the Redhawks have outscored two playoff foes by a 27-5 margin in storming their way to the 2010 championship on Burlington High’s artificial turf either Friday or Saturday.

(The Vermont Principals Association was to determine title game time on Wednesday, after press deadline.)

The foe would be either third-seeded Essex High (15-2) or seventh-seeded South Burlington High (11-6). The two met in a semifinal Wednesday at Essex.

Essex handed the 17-1 Redhawks their lone loss of the season two weeks ago in the Junction Town; CVU scored an early season overtime win over the Hornets in Hinesburg. Both games were decided by a single goal.

Rutland left town with a 14-4 mark and perhaps wondering what was that red and white lacrosse tornado that came across its path.

It took little time for CVU to lay down its first marker. Jake Marston won the opening face off and just 43 seconds later Lawrence Dee scampered from behind the Raider net and fired the initial score.

A little more than two minutes later, with 9:01 left in the period, Robbie Dobrowski took a pass from Nick Hart and made it 2-0.

Hart (from Dee) hiked the lead to 3-0 before the end of the period and the Redhawks went on for a 6-0 edge at halftime, getting a slick score with six seconds to go in the half after defenseman Ben Teasdale intercepted a Rutland pass in the CVU zone.

After a timeout to organize a late offensive effort, Nick Spencer blitzed his way into the offensive zone and connected with a well-positioned Nathan Gingras in front of the Rutland net. Gingras flicked the ball into the cage for the score.

Gingras led CVU scorers with four goals and three assists. Nathaniel Wells pocketed three scores while Dee and Marston each notched a pair of tallies, Dee adding an assist.

Rutland’s lone goal came with 5:07 left in the third quarter and CVU up 8-0. Raider midfielder David Krauss unloaded a bouncer from 25 feet out on the right side that slipped into the net past Redhawks goalie Eric Palmer, who was solid with 11 saves. Sean Keenan took over midway through the fourth reel and had one stop.

“The team has really come together and is playing well now,” said Palmer, who also praised the defense and the work of the offense, which kept Rutland defending at its end of the field most of the afternoon.

Deep defenders Teasdale and Cully Milikin made life difficult for Rutland attackers, who had difficulty negotiating into position for open shots at Palmer.

“We talk to each other a lot,” said Teasdale, who along with Milikin and sophomore Christian Williford had several takeaways and conversions to offense from around the CVU cage.

Once again, a sizeable crowd was looking on from Happy Hawk Hill alongside the road that runs past the CVU lacrosse foundry.

Offense and defense click in quarterfinal victory

Spaulding had proven to be a problem for the Redhawks in their two regular season meetings; a 12-8 win at the Hinesburg field and a 10-9 squeaker in mid-May in Barre.

But CVU had its game together at both ends of the field Friday and laid that 14-4 licking on the Crimson Tide.

On the offense, seven players scored, led by midfielder Hart with four goals and two assists and Gingras with four scores and a helper. Wells chipped in with two goals plus an assist, while Dobrowski, Justin Beaudry, Spencer and Quinn Kropf also potted tallies.

Dee was his usual pass master self with four assists.

Hart and Gingras made sure the Redhawks were not wanting for early scores. Each got four goals in the first half as CVU bolted to a 9-1 advantage by halftime.

Gingras, with Dee assisting, scored with just over 1:30 gone in the first quarter. Hart made it 2-0 less than a minute later and the Hawks were winging.

Spaulding has firepower of its own, but on this day the CVU defense was a steady presence in front of goalies Palmer (13 stops) and Keenan (3).

“Everybody on defense played well today,” said co-captain Milikin, who was outstanding along the back line along with Teasdale.

CVU’s foxy coaching staff also put in a wrinkle that blunted Spaulding from mounting the kind of late game comeback that had caused some anxious moments in previous meetings.

The Tide’s primary offensive threat, speedy Tory Chouinard, found himself sharing space with the Redhawks’ Konnor Fleming for much of the afternoon. Chouinard popped five goals in Spaulding’s previous appearance here and Trevithick wanted to keep the swiftie under control.

Fleming, with occasional relief from Dobrowski, was up to the task. Chouinard got just one goal, a long shot off a loose ball in the second period and perhaps no more than two half-decent shots on the CVU cage.

“I think I got into his head a little,” Fleming said after shadowing the Spaulding star.

The visitors’ only rally came in the third quarter. With CVU up 10-1, junior Torrey Kelty scored at 8:43 on a long sidewinder shot and again at 3:47 to get Spaulding within seven points.

With 46 second left in the period, however, Dobrowski scored on an assist from Dee.

Beaudry then added his goal with less than two minutes gone in the final reel to put the Redhawks up 12-3 and pretty much chill Crimson Tide comeback hopes.

By Stewart Cohen

It is hard to not react to the current catastrophe in the Gulf with a desire to reject all future offshore oil drilling. However, I believe that we have learned two critical things from this event that will enable us to proceed more capably in the future.

The first is that there is plenty of oil if we look for it. The second is that the real cost of an accident like this is almost incomprehensible and therefore one must never happen again. It is not enough to point out how little these accidents have happened; there have been others and we simply cannot allow more. Just as the Exxon-Valdez grounding forced the move to double hulled tankers (and we still haven’t finished cleaning up that mess), it would seem that this fiasco points to several options that can ensure our safety.

I like the fact that the Mineral Management Service is now being broken up to separate regulation and inspection from contracts and leases. It is a good first step. However, we also need to implement and enforce very strict standards for the production, operation, retirement, replacement or recertification of all critical operating parts involved in the drilling and extraction process. It is already clear that shortcuts were taken by BP in operations that contributed to the sequence of events in this disaster. Given that the ultimate solution for the leak is completing a relief well (which will take a total of three months to finish), I would propose the following idea: All offshore drilling from now on will include the simultaneous construction of primary and secondary wells into each oil source. Current offshore wells should be supplemented with secondary relief sites to offer the immediate potential to “relieve” any accident.

These kinds of fail-safes may actually offer up more security than statistics do and will indeed cost boatloads of money. The oil profits are there to support this, but let’s face it — this will raise the price of oil extraction and gas at the pump. The benefits of this will be true security about the safety of oil extraction as well as stepping up the drive to increase fuel efficiency and the availability of non-combustive energy sources, which will ultimately improve our energy independence and environment.

This is not a political or partisan issue; these are things we as Americans need to urge our government to do for us to keep us safe here at home.

Stewart Cohen lives in Williston.