This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Sports

Winning Streak Leads To State Tournament Clincher

A weekly recap of high school girls sports action in north central Connecticut.

A four-game winning streak, which started Monday, has propelled the Tolland softball team into the state tournament. The clincher came in an 11-1 victory over Fermi Wednesday but the Eagles outscored opponents 52-8 during the week and were challenged only by E.O. Smith.

Tolland (9-6) was well equipped to handle four games in four days, which is a workload too demanding even for softball pitchers, because of its use of multiple hurlers.

Jess Olson picked up two wins during the week as did Alex D’Aloisio, one of them a no-hitter against RHAM-Hebron.

Find out what's happening in Windsorwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The Eagles continue to get key offensive contributions from Katie Akerley, Allison Whitlock, Kelsey Kaplan and Jacqui Foreman.

The schedule takes a more difficult turn but now that they are in the tournament the Eagles can simply relax and play for a better seed.

Find out what's happening in Windsorwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

E.O. Smith will look to a return meeting with Tolland one week from Monday to gain some measure of revenge. The Panthers (10-6) lost three games last week, including a 1-0 heartbreaker to Rocky Hill. The Panthers offense has struggled during the losing streak, although Rachel Gagnon has delivered some key hits, but they will look to turn things around this week in games against RHAM, Hartford Public and Fermi. The Panthers have beaten each of those three already this season.

Cheney Tech, which rolled to a 12-game winning streak that spread over April and May, has resumed its winning ways after a brief two-game losing streak. The Beavers lost in extra innings to Norwich Tech on Tuesday and didn’t recover in time to play Wilcox Tech-Meriden on Wednesday. The Beavers committed 12 errors in the loss, which coach Al Hovasse tried to banish from memory as soon as it was over. Cheney Tech (13-2) still has Paige Marshall, Tiffany Bonilla, Jackie Ellis, Kristen Charest and Paige Parker, so don’t expect the two-game losing streak to bleed into the remainder of the season.

Winning and losing streaks are one thing but East Catholic (12-4) hasn’t allowed a run since April 27. The Eagles have outscored opponents 59-0 in the six-game streak, which is largely the responsibility of the incomparable Allyson Fournier.

Somers has started a two-game winning streak after losing to rival Ellington 8-1 on Tuesday. The Ellington-Somers outcome muddles the already murky NCCC standings, though some clarity should emerge this week when Somers meets Suffield and Canton, while Ellington has three games, including a crucial game with Granby on Thursday. There is no mystery to the two Somers’ loses. The Spartans (14-2) scored a combined two runs in the two loses while JoJo Meunier had wobbly outings in the pitching circle. Ellington’s Morgan McPartland allowed the Sparants just three hits.

Rockville has won three straight to improve to 12-4. As usual the Rams, with Emily Burg, Kaitlyn Lajoie, Courtney Oliva and Michelle Correia, seem to be getting better as late May approaches. Don’t be surprised if they close the regular-season with three more wins and a seven-game winning streak…Windsor (5-11) still has a chance to reach the state tournament but the Warriors need to avenge some earlier losses to do it. The Warriors have Wethersfield, East Catholic, East Hartford and Weaver remaining on the schedule. They already have wins against Wethersfield and Weaver but will need a third for Molly Parker, Jessica Coffey and Sierra Shemanskis to reach states.

Another team looking to reach states with a late closing win streak is East Windsor. The Panthers were 5-10 heading into the weekend but have games with East Granby, O’Brien Tech, Bullard Havens and Windsor Locks and Avon remaining. Three of those should be winnable for Brianna Matteson.

AROUND AND ABOUT

The Windsor girls track team will be at the Randy Smith Journal Inquirer meet this Saturday, yet another chance to tune up for the state meet and the State Open after that. Look for Brianna Allen, Sydnee Over, Nastasya Rodriques, Chalsea Clark, Janae Wilson, Courtney Kearse, Ashley Graves, Keniece Walker and Madinah Nabadduka, to be working out the last wrinkles in their respective relays.

Meets like the one in Manchester are often more difficult than the state meets because runners from different size schools are there. Two athletes to watch in the meet are Suffield’s Brianna Bishop, who has one of the best qualifying times in the 1,600 meters for Class M runners and her teammate Gabriella Attanasio, who has the third best qualifying height in Class M in the pole vault. Also look for Enfield’s Tiara Johnson in the high jump.

Julie Gage had seven goals and four assists as Ellington defeated Somers 13-12 in girls lacrosse earlier this week. The two teams will meet again Tuesday. Neither side has a winning record but it won’t matter when they take the field against each other.

The Suffield girls lacrosse team has lost games this season by a total of two goals. The second of those losses, a 15-14 heartbreaker to Hall-West Hartford, came against a team that has one loss and has routed most of the teams it has played. The Wildcats followed the loss with a tidy 13-8 victory over downstate Branford. Suffield has proven it can score against anyone and a pick-your-poison attack headed by Molly Clark but also consisting of Katie Shute, Brenna Lowe, Emily Sweeney, Nicole Gagnon, Nur Hamideh, Natalie Glynn and Paige Anderson, is certain to be a factor in the state tournament.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?