New Canaan’s Lou Marinelli, Wilky Gilmore To Headline Fairfield County Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2016

Two New Canaanites who have made indelible marks on the town will be honored as inductees into the Fairfield County Sports Hall of Fame, officials said Wednesday afternoon. New Canaan High School head football coach Lou Marinelli and former New Canaan High School basketball student-athlete Wilky Gilmore headline the class of 2016, officials with theFairfield County Sports Commission announced at the University of Connecticut’s Stamford campus. “It means I’m getting old,” a smiling Marinelli told NewCanaanite.com when asked what the honor meant to him. “When you turn around and see the people who are in this [Hall of Fame], it’s humbling and I’m honored. I’ll be the first one to tell you, though, we couldn’t have built the program that we have without help from the assistant coaches that I’ve had, the administration, and more importantly the kids at New Canaan High.

VIDEO: New Canaan High School Class of 2016 Graduates

NCHS graduation 2016
Uploaded by Michael Dinan on 2016-06-16. After graduating, magna cum laude, with a bachelor’s degree in both History and Political Science from the University of Connecticut, Robert Stevenson felt driven to become a teacher. So he went and got his master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction, also from UConn. And the teaching profession has taken him not just across the state of Connecticut but halfway across the globe to the country of Cyprus, where he taught history, social studies and computers at the American International School, Stevenson said Wednesday. His experiences there, and during excursions to the Middle East, Africa and Asia, fed an eagerness to learn about other cultures and communities, he said.

Champions Once Again: NC Boys Lax Defeats Daniel Hand for 2nd Consecutive Year to Defend CIAC Class M Title

Going into this season, New Canaan head coach Chip Buzzeo knew that despite graduating an incredibly talented class of 23 seniors the prior year—a class whose final victory as Rams was a Class M state championship—that his squad, led by its 15 seniors, could put together a repeat performance and cap its season off with another title win. And on Saturday afternoon at Jack Casagrande Field in Norwalk, the top-seeded Rams (17-4) made their coach’s belief in them come to fruition when they defeated the No. 6 seed Daniel Hand Tigers (10-6 regular season) for the second consecutive year in the finals, 13-2, to retain the Class M title. “This is my fourth year with this senior class,” Buzzeo told NewCanaanite.com. “It’s the first time that I’ve had four years with a group.

NC Baseball Falls To New Fairfield, 6-0, in Possible Season Finale

After a convincing 7-1 victory Wednesday at Greenwich, ranked second in the FCIAC, the New Canaan Rams took to the field at Mead Park on Thursday afternoon needing a win over New Fairfield to clinch a spot in this year’s CIAC Class L Tournament field. It would not come. Though the Rams (7-13, 6-10 FCIAC) had one of their more reliable arms starting on the mound in Zach Lopez, who just last Wednesday notched a complete game victory, two three-run innings from New Fairfield (11-9) combined with the New Canaan bats just not coming alive proved to be too much for them to overcome as they were defeated, 6-0. When head coach Mitch Hoffman took his team out to left field after the game for possibly the final time this season, the seventh-year coach did so with a distinct message in mind. “I said to them that I learned as much about coaching and myself that they could ever imagine,” Hoffman told NewCanaanite.com.

Lopez’s Complete Game Propels NC Baseball to 6-1 Victory over Central

Coming into Wednesday’s contest against the Bridgeport Central Hilltoppers, New Canaan baseball had been struggling to find any offense. In their most recent four games, the team was only able to score two runs, combined. So a well-pitched game from starting pitcher Zach Lopez was needed to give the offense a chance to rediscover their punch—and Lopez delivered. The junior threw a complete-game, allowing just one run and striking out six in seven innings of work on the mound, while the offense provided him with more than enough support by plating six runs on nine hits to propel the Rams (6-10, 5-8 FCIAC) to victory over Bridgeport Central (1-14, 0-13 FCIAC), 6-1. “Zach’s been doing a great job all year,” head coach Mitch Hoffman told NewCanaanite.com.