News

‘Our Defense Won For Us Today’: New Canaan Outlasts Greenwich 24-14 in Inaugural ‘Marinelli Bowl’

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It wasn’t something he was looking forward to: When Greenwich showed up on New Canaan’s schedule, Head Football Coach Lou Marinelli knew the Rams would face a Cardinals team led by his own son, John, named GHS head coach in the spring. Thanks to two early Ram touchdown passes by Mike Collins, and outstanding defense, New Canaan (5-0) was able to make a first-half lead holdup and survive a Greenwich (2-3) comeback attempt. “It was hard,” Marinelli told NewCanaanite.com after the 24-14 win, describing what it felt like to see John on the opposite sideline. “And I think he [John] did a tremendous job. I think those kids from Greenwich did a tremendous job.

Sports

New Canaan Girls Cross Country 6th, Boys 10th at FCIAC Championships

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After training in weather that felt more like fall–and over this past weekend, winter–during the days leading up to Wednesday’s FCIAC Cross Country Championships; on race day it resembled late-summer with the sun shining brightly on Waveny and a temperature near 75 degrees. So is the byproduct of running cross country in New England. And in what is arguably the best high school cross country conference in all of New England, the New Canaan girls team finished sixth while the New Canaan boys team finished tenth in Wednesday afternoon’s FCIAC Championships. “I’m really, really pleased,” girls head coach Art Brown told NewCanaanite.com. “Going in, I thought we had a shot at [defeating] Ludlowe and Darien and we beat them today, which was very satisfying.

News

New Canaan Boys Soccer Erases Deficit To Tie Central 2-2

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Coming into the 2015 season, the New Canaan Boys Soccer team was a squad with only a handful or so players who were varsity-tested. Which left both the Rams coaching staff and fans intrigued to find out what type of performance the team was exactly capable of. Through the first 12 games of the regular season, it’s been evident that the boys can certainly play defense as they had only allowed 16 goals coming into Friday afternoon’s contest against the Hilltoppers of Bridgeport Central. And stellar defense always keeps a game within reach. So even after the Rams (3-5-5) fell behind by two goals early, efforts on the defensive end from a host of players kept the deficit there.

News

4 First-Half Goals Hurt New Canaan Girls Soccer in 6-2 Loss vs. Undefeated St. Joe’s

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The injury bug has taken a sizable bite out of the New Canaan girls soccer squad in 2015. After starting the year 4-0 and relatively injury free, the girls entered Thursday’s showdown against the undefeated Cadets of St. Joe’s having lost six of their previous seven games with eight players missing some amount of game time during that stretch— including senior starters Ellie Aliapoulios (wrist) and Schuyler O’Mahony (torn MCL), who are not expected to return to play. And while the recent return of a couple starters from injury for the Rams (5-7), junior forward Madison Starr and senior forward and co-captain Sami Stewart, gave them some well-desired firepower to have a chance to upset the Cadets (12-0) for the second time in two seasons after last year’s FCIAC tournament win — St. Joe’s put up four goals in a 10:07 span in the middle portion of the first half and never looked back on their way to a 6-2 victory.

News

New Canaan Boys Soccer Stymies Trumbull in 3-0 Victory

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Early on this season for New Canaan boys’ soccer, getting a lead has not been a problem, as they have been in front in each of their first four games—the problem had been keeping them. But after Vinny Altamura put the Rams on the board early in the first half, strong defense helped New Canaan (2-2-1) hold onto its lead. Then the boys of Conner Field added to it by scoring twice off of two spectacularly executed corners in the second half to defeat the Trumbull Golden Eagles (2-2-1) 3-0 in a pivotal early contest in the FCIAC standings. “I thought we were brilliant for the way we set up,” head coach Rich Sutherland told NewCanaanite.com. “We frustrated Trumbull, who probably had close to 80 percent of the possession and I thought were very good, probably the best team that we’ve played so far.