Sheer stupidity.
That's the only way to describe the vandalism in East Lyme which grounded the bus fleet and grounded the East Lyme athletic schedule at the same time.
The administration of the school decided that since school had to be closed due to the incident, sports had to be postponed too.
That wasn't all that big a deal for the East Lyme girls basketball team who just had their state tournament game with Bunnell pushed back to tonight.
It was a much bigger deal for the Fitch/East Lyme/Ledyard cooperative hockey team which was scheduled to play St. Bernard in the Eastern Connecticut Conference semifinals.
Without the East Lyme players, the cooperative could not put a team on the ice and the league was forced to declare St. Bernard the winner.
A couple of reasons for that.
Ice time tends to be a valuable commodity, miss your appointed time and you're out of luck.
NFA had already booked the ice today for a re-scheduled game with Rocky Hill, the winner of that game advances to state tournament play.
It won't go down as a forfeit, it just is listed as the cooperative not being available to play all because of vandalism.
Let's hope those who did the damage are caught and prosecuted.

It was a highlight for Dana Cooke and his Griswold Wolverines wrestlers.
They had hopes of finishing better than the fifth place finish of last year in the State Open wrestling championship but I don't think there's any question they exceeded their wildest dreams on Saturday.
Today in the Norwich Bulletin and Bulletin online, you can read more about those wrestling exploits from Saturday as we bring you the stories of the four local wrestlers who brought home Open titles from New Haven, Ledyard's T.J.Hepburn, Griswold's Tyler Banks, Fitch's Adrian Gonzalez and Nick Murphy from NFA. Plus, we'll bring you more of what the Griswold athletes were thinking and feeling after finishing second only to wrestling powerhouse, Danbury, in the Open.
Later this week, look for the New England preview as we set the stage for the final wrestling championship of the season which will take place this weekend at the New Haven Athletic Center at Hillhouse High School.

It was my first chance to take in a cheerleading championship and, yes, I learned some things on Saturday.
I was fortunate enough to sit by Jackie Sullivan, who is only one of the gurus in the state when it comes to cheerleading, and she taught me a few things as the Eastern Connecticut Conference cheerleading championships progressed.
Like, what the difference is between a stunt group and a pyramid. The answer, a pyramid has to have all of it's members joined together in some fashion, a stunt group does not.
She pointed out to me that the Plainfield Panthers (and others) were all wearing fake hairpieces so as to look more uniform to the judges.
I had to ask Plainfield coach Terry Foss if she was just happy that none of them fell out.
"This is the first year that we've had them (the hairpieces) and every second they're out there, I'm praying," Foss said.
If a hairpiece were to fall out and someone stepped on it (a safety hazard) points would be deducted. Points would also be deducted in a sign was stepped on, it can stay on the mat and it's OK, as long as no one steps on it.
You also have to be pretty good on your timing. The cheerleaders have 2 1/2 minutes to perform, go over that and pay the price. One ECC team went 23 seconds over and lost 10 points.
Two and a half minutes may not seem like much but talk to some of the cheerleaders afterwards who were trying to catch their breath or worse after their routine.
The Wheeler Lions and Woodstock Centaurs successfully defended their ECC titles, Wheeler for a fourth time, while Montville won the Medium Division for the first time since 2003.

I guess it's true that offense wins you games and defense wins you championships.
The Norwich Free Academy defense suffocated the Waterford Lancers Friday night in Norwich as Courtney Long and Kastine Evans held Jodie Plikus and Karli Spera, players who average over 26 points a game between them, to a combined five points in the 48-35 win.
"No, not at all," Waterford center Kerrianne Dugan said when asked if she thought a team could hold Plikus and Spera down in that manner.
"They did a really good job on us, we didn't execute as well as we had hoped but did what we could," Dugan added as she was the only offensive option for the Lancers Friday night scoring 22 points in the loss.
Waterford coach Rob Von Achen simply said he never thought anyone would be able to hold down Plikus and Spera like NFA did.
"Does anti-climactic come to mind?," Von Achen mused when asked if the Stonington semifinal took some of the air out of his team's effort in the championship game.
"I don't know, I certainly wouldn't want to say that's why we lost because they were sharper tonight and that would take away from their effort. They played well, they played better than we did," Von Achen said.
On another matter, it was a great turnout for the championship game as some 1200 looked on Friday night at Alumni Hall at NFA.

It doesn't really matter what sport you're into, there's probably a local team playing it this weekend.
Basketball, gymnastics and wrestling all have some big events taking place tonight. The Eastern Connecticut Conference girls basketball championship takes place beginning at 7 p.m. tonight at Norwich Free Academy. Host NFA, the second seed, will play Waterford for the title once again. Check out a complete preview of tonight's game in the Norwich Bulletin or online.
There are still two boys playdown games left as last night's snow forced a pair of postponements. The Plainfield Panthers will visit Stonington and Montville hosts Woodstock.
The Killingly Redgals gymnastics team are the favorites to win the Class S state championship at Jonathan Law High School at 4 p.m.
The State Open wrestling championships also begin tonight down in New Haven at Hillhouse High School.
There is yet more tomorrow as Saturday features a day full of basketball at Plainfield High with the boys quarterfinals.
New London will play Waterford at noon followed by Wheeler vs. Windham at 2 p.m. The next two games are a little up in the air, if Plainfield is involved they would play at 6 p.m. vs. St. Bernard. If Stonington wins, they play at 4 p.m. vs St. Bernard. The other 4 or 6 p.m. game would be NFA vs. either Woodstock or Montville.
The State Open wrestling championships wrap up tomorrow with the finals scheduled for 6 p.m. and there could be a good representation from the ECC once again in those finals.
The ECC Cheerleading championships take place at 2 p.m. tomorrow in Waterford, all 19 league teams are scheduled to compete, each team has 2 1/2 minutes to show what it can do.
There is more gymnastics tomorrow with NFA and Fitch/Waterford competing in the Class L state championship meet at Jonathan Law in Milford at 10:30 a.m.
All of this and then the girls basketball state tournament begins on Monday.

It was one of the more intense girls basketball games I've seen in a while and the fans appreciated the two teams efforts.
A standing ovation was given by many as both Waterford and Stonington left the floor after a 53-52 overtime win for the Lancers.
"We never have easy games!" Waterford coach Rob Von Achen repeated to me twice after the game just for a little emphasis.
"The kids make it fun whether you win or lose. They come over into the time outs and they're fired up, they're drained, they have nothing left but they're fired up. That, to me, is the most exciting part of coaching is when kids just reach down and that's what both teams did tonight."
I can't say that I disagree with that statement as the Lancers sent the kitchen sink at Heather Buck and she still dropped 34 points on them despite being double, triple and sometimes even quadruple teamed by capable basketball players.
"They do that to her all the time," Stonington coach Paulla Solar said of the attention paid to her six-foot-four junior center, "but she held her own. 34 points is a pretty good number when you're playing a team like Waterford."
Will a Waterford-NFA final match the intensity of the Waterford semifinal with Stonington? It will be difficult to accomplish but both teams know each other well having split their two games this season and both play aggressive defensively. Look for another close one on Friday night in Norwich.
There will be the all-star awards ceremony at 6:30 p.m. preceding Friday night's 7 p.m. final between the Wildcats and Lancers at NFA.

Any meeting between Norwich Free Academy and New London is always much anticipated and tonight will be no exception.
The Wildcats may be the ones who head into the final regular season game for both undefeated but the Whalers are more than capable of stopping that streak.
New London is back to full strength now that Allan Chaney is back with the team and DeJohn Joseph-Exum continues to pick up his game. The Wildcats, though, are looking pretty formidable especially in their past several games.
There is something on the line tonight as a New London win and a Windham victory over Fitch would knock the Wildcats from the top spot in the ECC tournament which begins Thursday. NFA may have beaten Windham this season but it was in a non-league scheduled game and, thus, does not count towards tournament records.
There will be other games tonight that will have plenty to say about the ECC tournament. Woodstock takes on St. Bernard with the Saints having a precarious hold on the fourth spot right now. Waterford, which plays Griswold, and Stonington, which hosts Lyman, could win and move up.

Montville coach Gary Wilcox came over to me after the Class M state wrestling championships were over with a large smile on his face.
"So what do you think about the ECC now", Wilcox laughed.
I have to agree.
The conference looked more than good in one of the toughest classes in the CIAC as they took five out of the top six slots and had Platt not snuck past Killingly late, it would have taken all five top spots.
The Ledyard Colonels, of course, lined up smart and wrestled smart. They moved Matt Baker up to 152 from 145 and he brought home a state title. T.J. Hepburn was T.J. Hepburn and that's all you need to know at 140. Julian Hightower walked away with a title at 189 and both C.J.Satti and Nick Morales finished as runners up.
Windham, the defending champs, gave up their title to the Colonels thanks to a tough semifinal round but still finished second with Jon Torres and Addison Fleming coming out winners.
Montville wrestlers gave cause for Wilcox's glow afterwards as Josh Go captured a 125 crown and Pat Ryan was best at 135, Nick Perry gave it a run at 103 and finished second as Montville placed third as a team.
Bacon had to move up a class from last year but didn't waver as they finished fourth overall and had two champs of their own in Sean Burgess at 171 and Matt Chalmers at 285.
All of these wrestlers had a story to tell and you're going to be able to read some of those stories in the Norwich Bulletin and Bulletin online Tuesday. Look for that and our high school basketball notebooks which will be out tomorrow.

There is a little more in the way of parity starting to develop in the Eastern Connecticut Conference in girls basketball.
It's true that no Small Division team will be involved in Saturday's quarterfinal games at Plainfield High but it doesn't mean they didn't give the larger schools a work out in the play down games on Thursday night.
Montville had to survive a game of tempo against Tourtellotte as the Tigers had things going exactly the way they had wanted until halfway through the third quarter. Nikkia Smith went on a six point roll and two 3-pointers by Caitlin Quinn and Nichole Delaney essentially shut the door on the Tigers who had tied the game at 11 at the beginning of the third quarter.
The Putnam Clippers had lost by 23 points in their first meeting with East Lyme at the beginning of the season. No Carly Thibault on the Viking side changed the equation a bit on Thursday night as the Clippers rallied to make it close, losing 36-31, after trailing 18-9 at the half.
St. Bernard hung in with Bacon until the final quarter when the Bobcats went on an 11-2 run to post a 15-point victory. Lyman, the sixth seed, did have their troubles with a very athletic Fitch team which is better than their 11th seed implies. Aubrey Latham put down 32 points, countering a 33-point effort by Lyman's Kailee Grasso, as the Falcons outscored the Bulldogs 72-60.
That does leave some interesting matchups for Saturday.
Fitch will need all the athleticism it can muster as Windham has plenty of that commodity as well. The two meet at noon.
Bacon gets a match up against Norwich Free Academy at 2 p.m. while Montville and Stonington clash in what could be a very entertaining game at 4 p.m.
East Lyme and Waterford, who have got to know each other pretty well over the past couple of weeks, meet again at 6 p.m. tomorrow.

Not bad.
The first winter storm of the season came after the last day of the regular season in girls high school basketball.
Let's just hope the last winter storm comes before Memorial Day now.
The post season is upon us in girls hoops and it starts tomorrow night (Thursday) with six games thanks to the fact that 14 teams qualified.
Unfortunately, the match ups don't look good for those fans in the Northeast as Woodstock, Killingly and Plainfield are all going to sit out the post-season.
The Putnam Clippers have a tough match up tomorrow night when they have to play at East Lyme, the Vikings handled them easily in their first match up early this season. Tourtellotte has a better chance of suprising Montville but don't expect that to happen.
When the quarterfinals take place on Saturday in Plainfield, no one north of Norwich likely will be involved. That will leave a little drive for some of the fans from the Southeast portion of the state to make to Plainfield.
The NFA Wildcats will host the semifinal and championship games next Wednesday and Friday.

The Ledyard Colonels and T.J.Hepburn were certainly the kings of the mat on Saturday as they Colonels easily swept to victory at the Eastern Connecticut Conference wrestling championships at Fitch High School.
But there were so many other stories.
We're going to present some of those stories to you on Tuesday in a special High School wrestling notebook feature.
I had a chance to talk to all of the winners of each weight class as well as some of those who may not have come out on top but certainly gave it their all. Take Woodstock's Henry Nickerson for instance, only a freshman and thrown in to the ring, so to speak, with a talented senior like Hepburn in the championship match.
There was Omar Diaz from New London, one of only two Whaler wrestlers, but he too made it to a title tilt and Fitch's Adrien Gonzalez who was the only member of the host school in a championship match.
Those are just some of the stories you will read about tomorrow on the high school page of the Norwich Bulletin and, of course, online too.

I have now seen two coaches reach 500 wins in their career and the two could never be more different.
Putnam's Tony Falzarano, who has 533 wins to his credit, has always welcomed the spotlight, always been comfortable around microphones and reporters, and has never been shy about placing himself in the middle of a situation..on the court..off the court..in the community.
Griswold's Gary Kinel has been just the opposite of Falzarano.
Kinel is a very intense man on the court, a great strategist, always trying to out think you but he has always tried to avoid the attention. Low key is the best description I have of Gary Kinel. When he told me last week at the Montville game that if he didn't reach 500 wins this season and decided to retire after this season is over with 499 victories, he wouldn't have a problem with that- I believed him.
As he put it to me recently, "I have lived a good life, a simple life."
And, if I may add, what appears to be a very satisfying one.
If there is one burning desire this man has, it is to win a state championship for Griswold. He has done so in baseball and has come close in basketball. He made it to the state semifinals twice and the state championship game once, unfortunately, all three of those adventures ended in losses.
That is Gary Kinel's true quest, will he accomplish it remains to be seen.
Right now, Kinel is more concerned about getting his team into the state tournament, they need to win two of their last three games to do it.
At least for Kinel, those last three games will be played without the distraction of the number 500.
Just as an aside, although there were no ceremonies last night at Bacon Academy, Griswold does plan a small ceremony to honor their head coach and his accomplishments this Tuesday night.

Let's give credit where credit is due.
The Eastern Connecticut Conference voted last month to designate a portion of the gate proceeds from every league game played this weekend (Thursday-Friday-Saturday) to the Coaches vs. Cancer charity.
It's a noble gesture by the league as it is the first in Connecticut to step up as a group and offer to donate money for the cause. Some other schools, such as Farmington High, have done so on an individual basis.
The cause, especially, hits home at Fitch High School where two assistant coaches succumbed to the disease in the past year.
Thursday night, Fitch decided not only to donate one dollar from each of the admissions but rather the entire admission to the cause for their game against Ledyard. Fitch coach Dave Huber and Ledyard's Allison Macca also celebrated the occasion by wearing sneakers.
A tip of the ole sports hat to the ECC for a fine gesture, not only of sportsmanship, but of care for the community as a whole.

The Woodstock Centaurs have to be given some credit for the season they're having.
They wear blue and they're a blue-collar team.
Coach Rob Mileski lost players like Bryan Lowry, Jay McNally and Chris Dunn, just three of the names who helped the Centaurs to a state semifinal appearance last year, but still has his team in second place in the ECC Large Division.
"Maybe we've overachieved but I'm not concerned about that," Mileski said after his team gave NFA one of their tougher tests this season before losing 49-42.
"We're 16 games in, we're just trying to stay in the hunt and work on our (tournament) seed here. We just look at each game and try to figure how to win," he added.
They're doing a pretty good job of it as they won 11 of their first 16 games and they've won because of their defense and ability to play and score as a unit. The Centaurs frustrated the Wildcats a bit on Tuesday and got some help from NFA as both R.J.Evans and Mike Mailhot had uncommonly quiet nights.
Unfortunately for Woodstock, Evans got hot when he had to and that led to the Centaurs downfall.
The win also clinched a tie for the ECC Large Division title for NFA.

They haven't won since the 2002-03 season.
Can they do so tonight?
The Parish Hill Pirates boys basketball team certainly have that chance tonight as they play at Norwich Tech. The Warriors have had some shakes ups in their line up recently and barely nipped the Pirates in Chaplin.
That's just one of the story lines that are out there tonight in high school boys basketball. Gary Kinel seeks win number 488 as coach of the Griswold Wolverines and 500th in all as his team travels to Windham to play the Whippets. It will be a tough assignment for Griswold tonight as the Whippets have been playing some good ball. Jovon Williams just went over the 1000 point mark in his career last week.
There's also the chance that NFA will clinch a tie for the Eastern Connecticut Conference Large Division championship. They need a win at home over Woodstock to accomplish that.

Griswold boys basketball coach Gary Kinel is approaching basketball immortality in this state anyway.
Kinel is on the verge of becoming one of the rare few to have 500 coaching victories in the sport of high school boys basketball.
Kinel will become the 9th coach to reach the historic mark, two of them on the list also hail from Eastern Connecticut. Former Tourtellotte head coach Jim Canty just crossed the line with 501 while Putnam's Tony Falzarano is at 533 and still counting.
Kinel is a unique individual, however, as he has tried to stay out of the limelight. I spoke with him following his team's loss to Montville Friday night and he said his only concern was to see his team get to eight wins and make both the ECC and state tournaments. 500, he said, is just an arbitrary number cooked up from somewhere that held very little meaning to him- personally.
Earlier in the season when I spoke with Griswold player Kyle Genereux, he admitted the team definitely wanted to get their coach his 500th career victory. In fact, they were disappointed because they hadn't done so last year.
After Griswold's win over Plainfield Saturday, Kinel needs just one more victory. It probably won't come vs. Windham on Tuesday but could very easily happen against Bacon Academy this Friday.

They've won their first 15 games and here comes the bad news for the rest of the Eastern Connecticut Conference and state as a whole- they may just be beginning to peak.
The Norwich Free Academy Wildcats boys basketball team just about dismantled the Fitch Falcons Thursday night as they outscored them by 32 points and even had a 21-0 blitz in the third quarter.
"What we're looking for is the killer instinct from the beginning of the game," NFA coach Neal Curland said, "Get to that intensity level and play it for every minute you're on the floor and the last two games- we've come pretty close."
Curland did add the obligatory "We can still get better line" and that's possibly true but it would be hard to sell that to the Falcons.
R.J.Evans was just immense inside with 25 points, many of those points coming off his eight offensive boards, he had 12 rebounds in total. NFA center Jon Merjuste added 10 boards, six on the defensive glass while Garvin McAlister chipped in with 14 points, 12 of those coming on 3-pointers.
Now the only task for the Wildcats is to keep up this kind of intensity for the next dozen games or so.