Overtime

He has won six FCIAC and five state titles and built what many believe is the state’s premier boys basketball program over the past decade.

Tonight, Trinity Catholic High School coach Mike Walsh added another distinction to his resume: 500 wins.

I caught up with Walsh following the Crusaders’ 56-46 victory at Fairfield Ludlowe, when he discussed the significance of the milestone.

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.

Here again are the instructions for nominating an athlete.

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.