all-Herald section

The Spring All-Herald teams were announced on Monday in a special section. I'd like to thank a large number of people who made the section possible, especially the athletes who took time off during their busy schedules to come in for a photo or send us one.
As usual, it is truly a pleasure to watch all the top athletes come into our office. We get to chat casually with them and get to know their personalities a bit. I won't say who our favorites are, but suffice it to say every time a group of 100 high schoolers spend some time in the office, there are some funny stories to go along with it. This year, a couple of them spent so much time chatting, they might be invited to our photographer's wedding in a couple of years. It's like they are close friends.
I was very happy to announce Sarah Sideranko and Andrew Perbeck as our athletes of the season. I've followed both for three years now and they are truly gracious and deserving. Wethersfield baseball coach Mark Bagdasarian was a worthy winner on the coach's side of things, in what was the most difficult decision for the staff in the nine award selections we made this past year.
We are always looking for ways to expand the All-Herald program, so if you have any ideas please pass them along. There may be better ways for us to honor the top athletes and coaches in our area and we are certainly open to exploring them. I can say that the first thing we must seek to do next year is honor our lacrosse players. When the All-Herald program began, lacrosse was a new sport at the high school level, and we had only a few small programs. Now, there are several veteran programs and the top players deserve to be honored.

In recap, here are our player and coach of the season award winners from the fall to the spring.
Fall 2007
Male athlete - Nate Pagan (Newington football)
Female athlete - Desiree Pina (Plainville soccer)
Coach - Sal Penta (Southington girls soccer)
Winter 2007-2008
Male athlete - Spencer Noon (Farmington basketball)
Female athlete - Symone Roberts (New Britain basketball)
Coach - Lisa Mandeville (Plainville girls basketball)
Spring 2008
Male athlete - Andrew Perbeck (Plainville baseball)
Female athlete - Sarah Sideranko (New Britain golf)
Coach - Mark Bagdasarian (Wethersfield baseball)

Good luck to all graduated seniors who will be starting at the next level. Off the top of my head, Nate Pagan, Dan Carducci, Des Pina, Allie Munson, Katie Matthews, Athalia Smith, Chantaul Smith, Kevin Josephson, David Soltis, Alex Bulger, Hami Kara, Lena Cantone, Jaime Rasmussen, Brendan McGourn, Mariusz Kurzatkowski, Molly McKinnon and a bunch of others have bright college careers ahead of them. We'll miss watching all of them.

summer vacation

OK, so apparently I was influenced by the typically school-aged athletes I cover and decided to take two-plus months off after a school-year well done. Maybe this blog just slipped my mind. Or, there's always option "C" which is that I have a plethora of weddings to attend this summer, and I am slightly distracted.
If you chose, D) all of the above, you win. In either case, I've been relaxing a bit this summer when it comes to my blogging. I'm going to continue to write relatively infrequently, mostly because the busier parts of my year are scholastic in nature. But, I will be writing once in a while just so you all know I'm still alive.
Let me recap some of the more exciting moments of my summer (from a sports perspective only) so far.
The Rocky Hill football golf tournament was truly a treat. Thank you to Bill MacDonald and the booster club for comping my entry fee, so that I got to play a free 18 holes and hang out with some really fun people.
It is interesting to note the close relationship between the Rocky Hill program and the Newington Knights youth program, mostly because Rocky Hill def-coordinator Jeff Perillo is a Newington coach as well. I was in a foursome with Newington coach Lewis Austin, and a kinder, funnier, man you have never met (and he's also a pretty good coach, apparently in multiple sports as his golf lessons aided more than one person taking their hacks that day).
Anyways, nice to see the Terriers program growing.
I'm sad to say there was no sectional run for any of our 11-12 Little League teams this year. That's something I've covered each of the past three years, following Farmington in their well-documented run to the Eastern Regional in 2005, Berlin's loss in the Section 1 final in 2006 and Farmington's solid run in Section 1 again last year, as well as Newington's loss in the Section 2 final. I had gotten to think these things happen every year, but alas they don't, so I have had to look for some other things to cover.
I've found several sectional runs for teams in other divisions. Currently, our new staffer Andrew Lovell is keeping tabs on the Plainville 13-14 year-olds playing in Tolland. I saw them last year, and it looks like the Blue Devils will have the next batch of state title contenders coming real soon.
And in between those weddings, of which I have six to attend this year if you were wondering (it's becoming the running joke of the office that if I'm not there I must be at a wedding for the night), I am squeezing in time for my own competition. I have been playing in the CTUltimate summer ultimate frisbee league in Wethersfield, and my team has been doing quite well so far (with little help from me).
Currently we are 4-2, with our next game on Wednesday night. We are ranked fifth in a league of 18 teams, and we were leading another game 7-1 when rains came and the result was completely erased.
As for me, I serve mostly as a way for better (read faster) players to get some rest for a point or two. If I could gain some speed in these legs I might be a weapon. But alas, I was not blessed with swiftness.
So, it's good to be back, but don't expect to see too much of me until late August or September, when high school sports will be back in action.