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Youth Sports Roundup: Standout Weekend for Field Hockey and Soccer; ‘Sticks Against Ticks’ Success

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The following write-ups and photos came in from New Canaan Youth Field Hockey and the New Canaan Soccer Association. If you have game summaries and photos to share, please email mike@newcanaanite.com. Field Hockey

8th Grade Red Shuts Out Fairfield 1-0

On an unseasonably hot late September day, 8th grade Red took on an aggressive Fairfield field hockey team. The offense of Brielle Connelly, Katie Cutler and Sadie Seelert applied pressure throughout the entire first half. Megan Mitchell and Sarah Murphy helped with keeping the ball from getting past the mid field line.

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Launched: Dedicated Website for All New Canaan High School Soccer Teams Goes Live

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New Canaan High School soccer can claim many of the accolades and plusses associated with celebrated varsity programs such as football and lacrosse: strong coaches, integrated youth organization, beautiful fields to practice and play, championships, pedigree, scores of alumni and even All-Americans. For Nick Williams—known to many as a selectman, but also a soccer dad who has coached Rec and whose three kids all played in the New Canaan Soccer Association, with one son now on junior varsity and one playing varsity (tri-captain Chase)—one important piece still has been missing for the wider NCHS soccer family, on all levels, boy and girls both, is a continuously updated website. “I think it’s time has come,” Williams, the driving force behind the new NCHS Soccer website, ncramsoccer.com, said on a recent afternoon from the sideline at Conner Field during a New Canaan-Norwalk match. “This is a World Cup year. A lot of interest in soccer.

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New Canaan Soccer Association Roundup: Convincing Wins for Boys and Girls over Fairfield, Westport, Newtown, Shelton & Trumbull

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[Editor’s Note: What follows are write-ups of recent New Canaan Soccer Association games. Thank-you to the authors and to the NCSA. Please send your youth sports write-ups and photos to mike@newcanaanite.com for inclusion in our website, daily newsletter and social media channels.]

New Canaan Soccer Girls U10 Red Defeats Newtown Blue

The New Canaan Soccer Girls U10 Red Team added another victory to its season record by defeating Newtown at home on Sunday afternoon. Under threat of rain, the game began with most of the action in the New Canaan zone. The strong Newtown Blue Team’s offense was unrelenting with the pressure they applied but the New Canaan defense was not to be overcome.

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Expanding, Popular Youth Sports Programs Vie for Time on Lighted Fields

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So many sports teams in New Canaan use the town’s playing fields—including increasingly diversified and popular rec, private and multi-town travel programs—that it’s hard to accommodate every group seeking time under the lights in the evening, officials say. The difficulty is exacerbated with shorter days in the fall, according to members of a Board of Selectmen-appointed panel responsible for oversight of youth sports in town. For example, the dads who coach in the youth football and flag football programs often can’t get to New Canaan High School’s fields until after work, about 6 p.m., less than one hour before sunset, Recreation Director Steve Benko said during Monday’s meeting of the Youth Sports Committee. That its coaches are dads gives a football program less flexibility than, say, the New Canaan Soccer Association teams, which are coached by professionals with more availability earlier in the day, Benko said. “We cannot accommodate their [the NCSA’s] whole program” after dark, Benko said during the meeting, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department.

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Rec Soccer in New Canaan Sees a Welcome Uptick in Registrants

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Michael Rau’s kids had played a little soccer in New York City prior to the family’s move up to New Canaan last July, when he started in the position of assistant rector at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. The father of three—daughters Talie, 14, and Kay, 10, and son Peyton, 8—decided on moving to New Canaan that his younger kids should try out the fall soccer program run through the town’s Recreation Department. It’s a decision that Rau says immediately helped pave the way for his kids to get to know the New Canaan community and its residents. “And it was great as a parent, too, because we got to meet new people, as well.