Great Senior Day win for Griswold softball; ECC tourney back at Dodd
Just thought I’d empty out my reporter’s notebook while wondering what I'm going to wear to Sunday night's Taylor Swift show at Gillette Stadium ....
*It was great to see the Griswold softball team get a win on Senior Day. The Wolverines edged Windham, 4-3, behind the pitching of sophomore Abby Matheson.
“Winning on Senior Night is always fun for the kids,” Griswold coach Rick Arremony said.
The Wolverines (6-12) missed the state tournament for the second straight year, which happens to be only the second time during Arremony’s over 20-year tenure that Griswold won’t be playing in the tournament. The Wolverines won just two games a year ago.
The future, however, is bright.
“It’s been a huge improvement from last year,” Griswold senior Makayla Neilson said. “The big thing about our team is definitely perseverance and working together. For a lot of different reasons we’re not as successful as the program has been in the past but we’re just trying to get better at every practice and every game and work hard and just have fun together.”
Neilson was thrilled that she and classmate Adrianna Morabito, the team’s only two seniors, celebrated their Senior Day with a win. The two have been teammates since grammar school, both playing on Preston’s legendary all-star teams.
Morabito also ran cross country and played basketball at Griswold. She is attending Three Rivers Community College in the fall and is keeping an option open to join the Air Force. Neilson, who also played volleyball, will attend Boston University in the fall. She plans on studying psychology.
“We really wanted to win today,” Neilson said. “It’s very exciting.”
*Great move by the Eastern Connecticut Conference to have its baseball tournament returning to Norwich’s Dodd Stadium. The ECC tourney was held at Dodd years ago before college baseball arrived during the third week in May. But with the Division I Northeast Conference tournament taking place at Dutchess Stadium (Wappingers, New York) on May 24 to 28, the folks at Dodd welcomed back the ECC.
I’m looking forward to seeing some great baseball at Dodd on Wednesday, May 24, during the four quarterfinal round games. The semifinals are Thursday, May 25, followed by the championship game on Friday, May 26.
*Boston Mayor John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, whose daughter Rose gave birth to a future president (John Kennedy), threw out the first pitch at Fenway Park’s inaugural game on April 20, 1912.
It took until last Monday night during the Seattle Mariners’ 10-1 win over the Red Sox for a switch-hitting catcher to hit a home run from both sides of the plate at Fenway.
Yup, Cal Raleigh is now the answer to a great trivia question. (I was surprised that former Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek never homered from both sides of the plate during his amazing career).
*Trivia question: Red Sox legend Jason Varitek is the only catcher in MLB history to catch four no-hitters from four different pitchers. Name the pitchers. (Answer below).
*The Connecticut Sports Media Alliance has announced that four more award recipients will be honored at the 81st annual Gold Key Dinner this fall. Kudos to Robert “Jiggs” Cecchini (Hal Levy High School Achievement Award), Ann and Paul Dagle (Bob Casey Courage Award), Rand Pecknold (Bo Kolinsky Special Recognition Award), and Vickie Fulkerson (Art McGinley Media Award).
Cecchini is a retired Suffield High School coach and administrator. Longtime chairman of the CIAC boys basketball committee, he was the driving force behind moving Connecticut’s high school basketball state championships to the Mohegan Sun Arena in 2009. The Jiggs Cecchini Holiday Basketball Challenge, pitting four high school teams from Connecticut against Rhode Island, debuted in 2022.
After their 19-year-old son took his own life in 2011, Ann and Paul Dagle of East Lyme formed the Brian Dagle Foundation, which annually addresses hundreds of male and female student-athletes about their loss, as well as the importance of mental health, suicide awareness and prevention. They also opened Brian’s Healing Hearts Center for Hope and Healing in Niantic in 2018.
Pecknold, longtime Quinnipiac University men’s ice hockey coach, guided the Bobcats to their first Division I NCAA championship in program history. Quinnipiac upended Minnesota 3-2 in overtime on April 8. Quinnipiac finished with a 34-4-3 record, giving Pecknold 615 victories since taking over behind the bench in 1994.
Fulkerson has provided thorough coverage of high school, college and professional sports for more than three decades for the New London Day. She was recently inducted into the Connecticut High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame. She serves on the CSMA Gold Key Award nominating committee and as Connecticut Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame program biographer.
*Trivia answer: Varitek caught no-hitters from Hideo Nomo, Derek Lowe, Clay Bucholz and Jon Lester.
*STUCK IN THE '70s: On May 23, 1976, the Boston Celtics defeated the Phoenix Suns, 98-87, in Game 1 of the NBA Finals before 15,320 fans at Boston Garden. Dave Cowens led the Celts with a triple-double of 25 points, 21 rebounds, and 10 assists, Jo Jo White added 22 points, while John Havlicek came off the bench and scored 16 points while dishing out six assists.
Fourteen years later, Cowens sank a memorable shot at the buzzer to win my brother Eddie’s memorial basketball game at Everett High School (Mass.).
Jimmy Zanor can be reached at jzanor@norwichbulletin.com.
This article originally appeared on The Bulletin: Zanor column: A great Senior Day win, and other thoughts
