It looks like the saga of Turner Baty is coming to an end. Baty, the quarterback who helped lead New Canaan to the state championship, is moving back to Florida tomorrow morning. Baty just confirmed this in a text message.
New Canaan coach Lou Marinelli said this morning he has not yet spoken to directly to Baty, but that Baty has told him he wanted to sit down and talk with him.
“If he’s going I feel bad for him because it’s a sad situation with him having to move around so much,” Marinelli said. “He’s a good kid and I wish him well.”
Baty moved from California to Florida to start the past football season, then transferred to New Canaan the week before the Rams’ opener.
The news is sure to open the floodgates of criticism of Baty and Marinelli, with the perception that the quarterback was a hired gun brought in to win games.
Based on Marinelli’s track record and my dealings with him, call me naive but I don’t think it’s true.
There is more to this very complex story, however. Baty was never warmly received by a number of New Canaan players, mostly seniors, who supported their friend Willie Ouellette, who lost his job to Baty. There was a lot of internal strife during the season, which Marinelli will admit was one of his toughest as coach.
The word is that the relationship between Baty and the other seniors has remained frosty since the season ended, and that many of the Rams have remained cruel toward the quarterback.
Marinelli did not deny this.
“There are some players who probably could have treated him a little better,” Marinelli said.
I’m not sure if Baty is going to want to comment, but I am supposed to talk to him after school today and will post any updates.
We usually keep the conversation here limited to the FCIAC, but Hillhouse boys basketball coach Kermit Carolina is fondly remembered at Trinity Catholic High School.
In one of the most memorable playoff games in CIAC history, the Crusaders won a dramatic triple overtime game over Hillhouse, 75-73, in the semifinal round of the CIAC Division I Tournament in 2005.
Future UConn starter Craig Austrie made a game-tying 3-point shot at the end of the second overtime and blocked a shot by De’arie Allick of Hillhouse at the buzzer of the third overtime to preserve the win. Austrie finished with 22 shots and Chris Skrelja, in the best game of his career before heading to play at Brown, scored 30 points.
Carolina played a pivotal part in the outcome. His team had a 12-point lead at the start of the final quarter, but Carolina inexplicably kept substituting repeatedly, for no apparent reason, often removing his hottest players from the game. Many observers — this one included — felt Carolina cost Hillhouse the game.
It also happened to be Trinity coach Mike Walsh’s 400th career win.
So perhaps it was somewhat ironic that on the night Trinity coach Mike Walsh got his 500th career win, yesterday Carolina provided the most controversial moment of the season with a tirade following his team’s 74-68 win over Xavier.
Carolina harshly criticizes the referees and accuses them of having a bias toward Xavier, a private Catholic school. Different boards handle Hillhouse’s and Xavier’s home games.
Rarely has a coach ever been so outspoken about officiating. I wonder what Carolina would have said had Hillhouse lost.
It will be interesting to see if Hillhouse, the SCC or even the CIAC takes any actions toward Carolina, who certainly didn’t win any fans. Even if everything Carolina said were true, it is hard to see what his motivation was. He has everything to lose and nothing to gain from the outburst.
Carolina is certain to get a lot of attention in the days ahead, which will bring back pleasant memories at Trinity Catholic.
The first win came in the consolation game of the Darien Tip-Off Tournament. Stamford Catholic star John Smyth fouled out, but Mike Robustelli scored 33 points, going 19-for-19 from the foul line, to help give Mike Walsh his first career coaching victory.
“You don’t forget the first one,” Walsh said.
Thirty years and two months later, Walsh will go for his 500th win tomorrow night when the Crusaders — now Trinity Catholic — travel to play Fairfield Ludlowe.
“It means I’ve been involved with a lot of good players and met a lot of good people and had a lot of support from my family and the school,” Walsh said. “To put it in perspective, it’s really a number and obviously I am proud of it, but a lot of good people contributed to it.”
Walsh has built over the last decade the best high school basketball program in the state. Trinity has won six FCIAC titles and been to the final seven straight times, and in eight of the past nine years. It has five state championships and reached the final seven times since 2000.
“The wins are nice and the championships are nice, but even more important is that in one way or another I’ve been able to touch a lot of student-athletes,” he said.
The 62-year-old Walsh is without a doubt one of the most polarizing sports personalities in the area. He can be brash and speaks his mind. There is a lot of jealousy because Trinity, along with St. Joseph, are private schools and thus can attract players from a wider geographical area. Walsh has taken full advantage of it.
But Walsh has never fully received the credit for being an excellent bench coach, for the loyalty he has showed his players and for helping them get into good colleges, both for basketball and academics. There is a reason Trinity has served as a pipeline for good talent because aspiring athletes know doors will be opened. And many of Walsh’s former players are now giving back, working with kids.
One of them is Rashamel Jones, whose arrival in 1991 marked the turnaround of the Crusaders’ program. He led the team to its first FCIAC title and state championship appearance, and the year after he graduated Trinity won its first CIAC crown.
“Pre-Rash there was a lot of Princeton-type offense and a lot of zones,” Walsh said. “You do what you have to do to get better. As we got better players we played a more open game. You adjust to your talent.”
While Jones went on to win a national championship at UConn, players like Earl Johnson, Dave McClure, Craig Austrie, Chris Skrelja, Mike Trimboli and Tevin Baskin followed and helped maintain the level of excellence.
Asked if he became a better coach after Jones arrived or got more acclaim as he had more talent to work with, Walsh said, “I probably worked harder pre-Rash. You did what you had to, to survive. You put in a lot of time and effort.”
Ironically, Walsh’s milestone win will come during one of the Crusaders’ weakest seasons in years. They are 7-7 and have had to deal with a lot of turmoil. They will need a late surge in the final six games just to qualify for the FCIAC Tournament.
Walsh said while this has been a frustrating winter, it has not diminished his desire to continue coaching.
“I’ll keep doing it as long as I keep enjoying it,” he said. “And I’m still enjoying it.”
Stamford High School boys basketball coach Jim Moriarty spent 15 minutes in the locker room last night chastising his players following their puzzling performance in a 76-70 overtime loss to Staples.
Four days after a head-scratching 21-point defeat to Greenwich, the Black Knights blew a 10-point fourth-quarter lead against Staples. A team that prides itself on defense, Stamford gave up 18 points in overtime to fall to 9-4 overall and 7-4 in league play.
With the regular season now two-thirds over, you can make one of two arguments about the Black Knights: they are doing less with more, or just are not as good as we all thought.
The biggest winner in all of this is former Stamford guard Chris Evans, who is now taking a post-grad year at The Taft School before heading next season to play at Sacred Heart on a scholarship. Given the splendid versatility and leadership he provided, it is now even more evident that in leading the Black Knights to the FCIAC title and the semifinals of the state tournament a year ago, Evans was arguably the most valuable high school player in Connecticut.
Stamford came into this season with what was supposed to be one of the best trios in the area: returning starters Mark Ellis, Jethro Anilus and Marc Guirand.
The Black Knights’ biggest question mark was supposed to be at point guard.
The backcourt play has indeed been a weakness. Stamford has consistently been careless with the ball, a flaw that cost it what could have been a big road win last month at Harding and last night’s game against Staples. The Black Knights lost the ball three times in the final minute against the Presidents and 11 times in the final quarter and overtime against the Wreckers.
Last night’s mistakes were most puzzling because the Wreckers spent most of their time sitting back in a 1-3-1 zone. That should have allowed Stamford the chance to be more patient running a half-court offense and to take advantage of its strong perimeter play. While Anilus made six 3-pointers and scored 26 points, too often Stamford threw ill-advised passes right into the middle of the Staples defense.
The lack of reliable backcourt play has had a domino effect, neutralizing the effectiveness of Ellis, Guirand and Anilus. Ellis, who came on strong in the second half of last season, does not get the ball in the middle like he used to. And Anilus has been forced into being a playmaker at times, which is not his strength.
While the guard play has been no secret, Moriarty raised another important point to his players after yesterday’s game. While Evans made all around him better, he, along with Michael Tiscia, was a vocal and headstrong leader. Ellis, Guirand and Anilus are much more laid-back and less demonstrative. Moriarty challenged all three to step up on and off the court the rest of the season.
While a frustrated Moriarty said last night that his team is at a crossroads, the situation is far from hopeless. The Black Knights are still positioned to get a high seed in the FCIAC Tournament. There is still a lot of talent on the roster. And, perhaps most importantly, no one can remember the FCIAC being as weak as it has been this season. Bridgeport Central easily has the most talent in the league, and then there is a dropoff, with a pool of teams capable of knocking each other off on any given night.
Stamford’s personnel is not going to change, but smart decision-making will help to minimize the turnovers. And some displays of passion from the seniors will likely prove infectious.
In a down year, Stamford has the capability to be a top three or four team. The question is which road Moriarty’s players choose to take over the final seven regular season games….and beyond.
Greg Langston of the St. Joseph boys basketball team and Charlotte Spitzfaden of the New Canaan girls hockey team have been named the winners of the BlueStreak-Overtime FCIAC Player of the Week award.
Langston and Spitzfaden will be presented with plaques and T-shirts from BlueStreak.
Langston had a big week for the surging Cadets. He finished with 39 points, six rebounds and five assists in a win over Bassick, and followed that up with 19 points, seven rebounds and four assists in a victory over New Canaan.
Spitzfaden makes the Rams the first team to have two players win player of the week honors. In three games last week, Spitzfaden shutout Simsbury and Staples, then followed that up with a 3-2 victory — which included a spectacular game-saving save with eight seconds left — against a Greenwich team that was unbeaten in league play.
Nominations for next week’s award will be accepted starting at noon today and run until noon next Tuesday.
With another strong pool of candidates, there are six finalists for the BlueStreak-Overtime FCIAC Player of the Week award.
They are:
On the boys side: Greg Langston of the St. Joseph basketball team, Fred Reisch of the Norwalk wrestling team and Tyler Schwarz of the Fairfield Ludlowe track team.
On the girls side: Michelle Gibbons of the Ridgefield basketball team, Charlotte Spitzfaden of the New Canaan hockey team and McKenzie Collins of the Trumbull gymnastics team.
The winner, who will be given a plaque and T-shirt from BlueStreak, will be announced tomorrow morning.
As news of Brien McMahon hiring A.J. Albano as its football coach started to spread yesterday, among the factors discussed was that Albano is 26 years old, extremely young to be taking on such a demanding job.
If Albano were 10 years older, the fact that he has served as an assistant coach at Darien for five years, the last three as defensive coordinator, would make everyone view him as battle tested.
So is Albano’s age a liability?
Seven years ago, Trinity Catholic made what appeared to be a bold move by hiring Bryan Fox, who was 27 at the time. Like Albano, Fox had played for the school he was taking over and had served his apprenticeship as an assistant.
The Crusaders went 24-27 during five seasons under Fox, who stepped down at the end of the 2008 season.
Perhaps no one has a better perspective on what Albano is going through, and what he can expect, than the person who helped rebuild the Crusaders’ program and led it to a pair of seven-win seasons.
“It’s got to be super exciting for him,” Fox said. “I know it was for me. To go back to your alma mater. I don’t know him, but everyone I’ve spoken to has said he’s a good coach and well respected.”
Asked if he faced any kind of immediate backlash because of his age, Fox said, “I didn’t, and he won’t to his face, though I’m sure it happened behind the scenes, especially after I went 2-8 that first season. I’m sure his expectations are going to be through the roof. He’s going to be shooting for the stars, and that’s the way it should be. He’s looking to succeed at the highest level.”
Fox said he had one simple bit of advice for Albano: “Find the best staff possible. The first thing I did was surround myself with good people. I was lucky.”
