The Ridgefield boys volleyball team held off a pair of strong challenges and is this week’s winner of the Overtime FCIAC Team of the Week award.
The Tigers will receive T-shirts courtesy of BlueStreak Sports Training, Garden Catering, Karl Chevrolet, Innovative Health & Rehabilitation, Chelsea Piers, New Balance of New Canaan and the Stamford Advocate.
Ridgefield finished with 2,203 votes to win a good battle with the Westhill boys track and the Stamford girls lacrosse teams. The Darien boys volleyball, Staples girls golf, Greenwich baseball, New Canaan girls lacrosse, Trumbull baseball and Brien McMahon baseball teams followed.
We will pick a new set of finalists for this week’s award, with the vote starting Sunday.
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Stamford's Lauren Schapiro makes a run in a game against Westhill.
David Engel of the Westhill boys lacrosse team and Lauren Schapiro of the Stamford girls lacrosse team are this week’s BlueStreak-Overtime FCIAC Players of the Week.
Engel and Schapiro will each receive T-shirts and plaques from BlueStreak Sports Training.
Engel, a defenseman for the Vikings, finished with 32 ground balls, 10 knockdowns and 8 intercepted passes in three games last week.
Schapiro had 5 goals and 1 assist in a 10-7 win over Trumbull and 3 goals and 2 assists in a 10-5 win over Bethel as the Black Knights finished the best regular season in team history.
Nominations are open now until Tuesday at 10 a.m. for this week’s winners.
To nominate an athlete, click on this linkand email in the name of the person you are nominating.
Please include all of the player’s statistics for the week as well as the team results.
The award will be judged on games/matches/meets played Monday through Saturday of each week. Please wait until an athlete is done competing for the week to submit your nomination.
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Paschal Chukwu Chidiebere, the rapidly emerging 7-foot center on the Trinity Catholic boys basketball team, will be transferring from Trinity Catholic High School at the end of the academic year. Chukwu will be leaving along with the freshman son of his legal guardian, according to a source close to the family.
The source said that both boys are in the middle of the application process for next year.
Chukwu will be leaving for personal, non-basketball related reasons, said the family source, who also stated that a report in a previous blog post here, that has since been removed, about Chukwu wanting to stay at Trinity, was erroneous.
Chukwu, who has been drawing the attention of major Division I programs, averaged 6 points and 8 rebounds for the Crusaders last year. He ended up at Trinity after coming over to the United States from Nigeria. After getting sparse playing time as a freshman, Chukwu was the team’s starting center a year ago.
Tony Pavia, the principal at Trinity Catholic, and Mike Walsh, the school’s boys basketball coach, each declined to comment on the situation, citing confidentiality reasons.
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With the FCIAC regular season over and the playoffs beginning, we have a wide variety of choices for you to select from for this week’s Overtime FCIAC Team of the Week vote.
The finalists: The Stamford girls lacrosse, New Canaan girls lacrosse, Darien boys volleyball, Staples girls golf, Westhill boys track, Ridgefield boys volleyball, Brien McMahon baseball, Trumbull baseball and Greenwich baseball teams.
The winner will get T-shirts with our logo courtesy of BlueStreak Sports Training, Garden Catering, the Stamford Advocate, Karl Chevrolet, Innovative Health and Rehabilitation, Chelsea Piers and New Balance of New Canaan.
The Black Knights won both their games to finish 11-5, the best record in the program’s three-year history.
The Rams swept their games, including a season-ending showdown with Wilton, to enter the playoffs undefeated, then won their quarterfinal contest.
The Blue Wave defeated St. Joseph and rival New Canaan to improve their record to 14-2.
The Wreckers won a big match with Greenwich and defeated Fairfield Ludlowe to up its record to 13-2.
The Vikings won their city championship with a 99-51 victory over Stamford.
The Tigers swept Danbury, St. Joseph and Masuk to take a 16-2 record into the postseason.
The Senators finished the regular season 14-6 by going 3-0 against Fairfield Ludlowe, Staples and Bridgeport Central.
The Eagles won three games and rallied in the season finale against Trinity Catholic to clinch an FCIAC playoff berth.
The Cardinals swept through their games to finish the regular season undefeated at 20-0.
The voting is open until noon on Wednesday. So vote below and check back to find out who is this week’s Overtime FCIAC Team of the Week.
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Our Overtime FCIAC Team of the Week vote usually begins on Sunday mornings. But my group of college friends have convinced me to attend our milestone reunion this weekend.
I won’t be back until Sunday early afternoon so this week we will start the vote Sunday evening. I possibly will extend the hours of the vote.
Right now we have seven confirmed finalists: The Stamford girls lacrosse, New Canaan girls lacrosse, Darien boys volleyball, Ridgefield boys volleyball, Staples girls golf, Westhill boys track and Brien McMahon baseball teams. We will probably add one or two more pending results today and tomorrow.
Please check back Sunday night and be ready to vote!
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The Staples baseball team will try to win an unprecedented fourth FCIAC title in five years.
The FCIAC Baseball Tournament begins next week, and in a sport where lower seeds have won as often as not, this figures to be one of the most wide-open races in recent memory.
Sure, Greenwich is currently unbeaten. If it stays that way, given the strength of the conference, it will have to go down as one of the best regular seasons ever by an FCIAC team.
Staples will attempt to win an unprecedented fourth title in five years, but as of today has lost three straight games to possible contenders. Ridgefield, under the radar in the preseason, and St. Joseph would be top seeds most years. Wilton, with a deep pitching staff, has recovered from a slow start and sits today as a 7th seed. Who wants to meet the Warriors in the first round?
Quarterfinal games are often the most difficult because almost every team has a good No. 1 pitcher. The Cardinals, with a deep rotation, might find it easier to win a semifinal or final game, even though presumably the quality of the opposition will grow more difficult.
So now is the time to ask: which team is going to win the FCIAC baseball championship? We gave the softball teams a head start with the first part of this week’s Extra Base Hits. Today it is the guys’ turn, and we will hold the vote an extra day, until Monday at noon.
We will include the top 8 seeds going into today, as well as an “Other” category for Fairfield Warde, Stamford and Fairfield Ludlowe, which is each mathematically still in the hunt for a playoff spot.
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Danbury's Hannah Keiser is congratulated after homering against Trumbull.
The surging Danbury High School softball team held off a pair of strong challenges and is this week’s winner of the Overtime FCIAC Team of the Week award.
The Hatters will receive T-shirts courtesy of BlueStreak Sports Training, Garden Catering, Karl Chevrolet, Innovative Health & Rehabilitation, Chelsea Piers, New Balance of New Canaan and the Stamford Advocate.
Danbury finished with 1,690 votes to win a good battle with the St. Joseph softball and Staples girls lacrosse teams. The New Canaan girls tennis, Greenwich boys tennis, Wilton boys lacrosse, Ridgefield baseball and Bridgeport Central boys volleyball teams followed.
We will pick a new set of finalists for this week’s award, with the vote starting Sunday.
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The Darien High School softball team will attempt next week to defend its FCIAC championship.
The FCIAC Softball Tournament begins next week, and if you set up betting odds, the smart money would be on Darien and Westhill to meet for the title.
That would also have been the case a year ago, and the Vikings were stunned by Fairfield Ludlowe, which advanced all the way to the championship game, in the first round.
Is there another Ludlowe out there this season? Danbury and Stamford would be the 6th and 7th seeds if the season ended today, and both teams, though not without flaws, are capable of winning a couple of games. Perhaps Ludlowe will reprise that role again. Or maybe Norwalk, which has hit a late-season slump but played everyone tough (witness Monday’s 1-0 loss to Westhill).
And we have not even mentioned St. Joseph, which is riding a hot streak and will be the No. 3 seed behind Westhill and Darien.
So for part one of this week’s Extra Base Hits (we will get to baseball tomorrow), we are asking you: which team do you think will win the FCIAC softball title?
We are including all of the current top 8 seeds, and Greenwich, which still has a chance of earning a spot.
The vote will run until Sunday at noon.
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