It's bad enough to lose five or 10 or 15 games in a row, now imagine losing 77 straight.
That has been the fate of the Parish Hill Pirates boys basketball team as their struggles continue this season in a brand new conference, the Constitution State Conference.
I had a chance to speak with coach Mario Arriaga over the weekend and the good thing about this (if there's a good side to all this) is that he seems to be genuinely pleased with how his players continue to persevere despite the adversity and it's not only the losses. It's the blows the team has experienced along the way such as Brandon LaChappelle's broken leg last season which shelved one of the team's top scorers.
The Pirates were never much of a force in the Quinebaug Valley Conference and it didn't get any better when they were forced to join the Charter Oak Conference when the QVC broke up after the 1999-2000 season. Arriaga and company are hoping for better in the CSC, another move necessitated by a league's break up as the Charter Oak Conference is no longer in business as of this fall.
You can read more about Arriaga and the Pirates as well as stories from Stonington and NFA in the high school boys basketball notebook in the Norwich Bulletin. The updated scoring leaders are also in today's edition.