As I mentioned earlier, tomorrow afternoon will bring about a fiery, apocalyptic 6/6/06 battle of traditional archrivals: Newington vs. Southington, in the boys volleyball state semifinals. This is, I believe, the first time Newington has played Southington in a state tournament game since the softball quarterfinals in 1999 (my senior year), and it’s the deepest into a state tournament that the two schools have met since the girls basketball state title game in 1993 (before my time).

I say “traditional archrivals,” but I’m referring to the schools generally, not these particular teams; I have no idea whether the Indians and the Blue Knights have ever really been rivals in volleyball particularly. (I was never a big boys volleyball fan.) Moreover, the NHS-SHS rivalry has definitely lessened in recent years, thanks to the realignment of the CCC, which moved Southington to the CCC North while keeping Newington in the CCC South. If you ask a current Newington student who their “archrival” is, they very well might not say “Southington.”

But for me, as a proud member of the NHS Class of ‘99 who still “can’t hide that Newington pride,” it will always, always be Southington.

That I still harbor a grudge against the Knights might seem odd, considering 1) I’ve been out of high school for seven years, and 2) I never played sports. But you don’t understand what Southington, with all its mystique and aura, its banners on the walls, and its G*ddamn tendency to always f***ing win, did to my psyche. :) Southington was my personal nemesis. When the girls basketball team beat a weaker-than-usual Southington squad my senior year, the first and only time that happened in my four years at NHS, they congratulated me. It meant more to me than it did to them. You see, I was the school journalist and camera boy, so I attended a lot of sporting events, especially in the postseason, and I got very emotionally invested in the teams. Indeed, that’s largely what made it all so intense: it was personal. I knew people on those teams. They were my friends and classmates. And, year after year, Southington always found a way to destroy our dreams.

So for me, any day Newington beats Southington is always a very, very good day. And thus, while I don’t know a single person on the 2006 NHS boys volleyball team (the current seniors were fifth-graders when I graduated), I’ll be fervently hoping that tomorrow turns out to be a very, very good day.

Why, exactly, do I hate Southington so? Let me count the ways…

My first introduction to the dream-crushing menace that is Southington High School sports came in 1997, my sophomore year, when one of the most exciting girls basketball games I ever saw, played in front of a packed house at Newington’s home court, came down to the wire… and Southington ripped our hearts from our throats. (In addition to being Journalist Boy, I was also the girls basketball team manager.) Here, courtesy of Lexis-Nexis, is the Hartford Courant article about that game:

MARINELLI’S SHOT LIFTS NO. 1 SOUTHINGTON;
BEATS NO. 5 NEWINGTON IN LAST MINUTE
By Bohdan Kolinsky, February 4, 1997

NEWINGTON — Lisa Marinelli is one of several players Southington coach Joe Daddio has asked to raise their game to another level.

Being one of the shortest players on the team, Marinelli doesn’t score much, but she is a scrappy, heads- up player. When she saw the opportunity Monday night with 11 seconds left and the score tied against CCC South rival Newington, Marinelli took it.

A head fake helped her slip past a defender for an open 15-foot jump shot from left ofthe lane to break a 51-51 tie as No. 1 and unbeaten Southington defeated No. 5 Newington 55-51 before 1,500 at Rogalski Gymnasium.

“I was surprised it went in. I really thought they were going to call me for traveling,” said Marinelli, a 5- foot-3 senior guard who finished with four points.

“Definitely, it was the biggest moment of my career.”

Said Daddio: “We didn’t diagram anything special. We just wanted to spread the floor and maybe get a screen because we were having trouble getting the ball inside to [Jen Gombotz].”

Because of a knee injury to starting guard Colleen Klopp, who averages 16.7 points, Daddio has asked others to step it up.

“Players like Lisa and others like Megan [Burava] and Amanda Forcucci have been asked to step up a little. They’ve paid their dues and have done a nice job while Colleen is sidelined. Even if they score a basket and free throw more each game, every bit helps.”

Newington missed its final shot with 3 seconds remaining. Burava (15 points) got the rebound, was fouled and made two free throws with 1 second left.

The loss overshadowed a 26-point performance by Newington’s 5-11 senior forward Ela Lapciuk, who also held Gombotzto 16 points, five below her average.

“The one thing coach told us was not to get into a 1-on-5 game. He wanted an equal effort from everybody,” said Lapciuk, who averages 18.4 points and will attend the University of Rhode Island. “We had to play 32 minutes of good basketball. We just came up a little bit short. We’ll be ready for them next time.”

Said Newington coach Sandy Pilz: “There was one stretch where it looked like the Ela vs. Jen show. Both are great players and showed it.” [He was right about that. I remember that stretch vividly. For 4 or 5 consecutive possessions, Ela and Jen traded awesome shot for awesome shot. The flurry ended, as I recall, with Ela hitting a fadeaway 3-pointer from the corner. I remember, the next day in gym class, standing on the spot where she took the shot, thinking back to the night before, and feeling like I was standing on hallowed ground at Fenway Park or something. The game was that cool, it had that much energy and excitement. And watching Ela and Jen was like watching two heavyweights go at it. They were both just so good. -ed.]

The game was close throughout with Southington enjoying the biggest lead (five) midway through the second quarter. Newington led 10-9 after the first quarter. Southington outscored Newington 16-14 in the second for a 25-24 halftime lead, and each team scored 15 points in the third quarter, giving Southington a 40-39 lead going to the fourth.

Newington’s biggest lead was four, the last time at 51-47 on Kate Strong’s three-point basket with 2 1/2 minutes to play and two free throws by Lapciuk with 2 minutes, 18 seconds left.

But Southington pulled even after a basket by Forcucci (10 points) and a steal at midcourt and layup by Gombotz with 1:12 left. That set up the last-minute heroics.

Junior guard Kim Milardo scored 10 points for Newington (11-3); 6-4 George Washington-bound center Leslie Carlson had eight.

Daddio said Klopp, who sat on the bench in street clothes, hopes to resume practice in the next few days.

Southington (15-0), which has been No. 1 in The Courant’s coaches poll all season, won its 37th in a row in CCC South play.

Southington is 9-0 in the CCC South; Newington 7-1. The two- time defending champion Blue Knights were 14-0 the past two seasons; their last CCC South loss was 56-45 to Newington on Feb. 25, 1994. The rematch is Feb. 20 at Southington.

Newington lost badly in the rematch, then faced Southington again in the CCC Tournament championship… and lost again. (The Indians ended up losing in the quarterfinals to eventual state champion Norwich Free Academy in an absolutely incredible triple-overtime game. NFA beat Southington for the title.) To this day, I feel like a win against SHS that day could have turned the tide of the season, and instead of a memorable but ultimately disappointing quarterfinal run, the Indians could have been state champs. They certainly had the talent. But Southington always, always had our number.

So yeah, that’s how it all started for me. But the institutional memory went back further. Although I wasn’t yet following high-school sports in 1993, many times in my years at NHS I would hear about that year’s legendary girls basketball season. Newington and Southington were #1 and #2 in the state all through the season. The Indians snatched the top spot away when they beat the Knights — for the first time in school history — at home on Feb. 2. They then proceeded to stun Southington at Southington on Senior Night, as freshman reserve Joannalyn Bayot, playing in her first possession of the game, hit an improbable game-winning three-pointer that NHS coach Sandy Pilz would later call the “kiss of death.” Why? Because it’s hard to beat a team three times in one season, as Newington later learned when they earned a rematch with Southington in the state title game:

ALL IN THE TIMING FOR SOUTHINGTON
By Mark Pukalo, March 18, 1993

Southington only beat Newington once in three tries this season, but the Blue Knights picked the right time to do it.

With a 59-47 victory over Newington Monday in the CIAC Class LL championship game, Southington not only won its seventh state title in 12 years, it earned the top spot in The Courant’s final girls basketball coaches poll.

Newington (21-1) finished second with one first-place vote, followed by Class L champion Sacred Heart-Hamden (24-2), Shelton (24-1) and Bridgeport Central (21-3). Class M champion Seymour (21-5) finished sixth and Class S champion Thomaston ninth.

In the eight years The Courant has conducted the final poll, Southington has never been ranked lower than fourth. The Knights have finished at No. 1 in 1988, 1992 and 1993. In 1988 and 1992, the Knights were 24-0.

“These girls had a lot of pride in our tradition,” Southington coach Joe Daddio said. “They wanted to keep it going and made a tremendous effort. They deserved this.”

Southington (22-2) lost to Newington 51-44 on Feb. 2. On Feb. 24, Southington had a two-point lead, 38-36, over Newington before late substitute Joannalyn Bayot, a freshman, made a three-pointer with 10 seconds left to win it for Newington, 39-38.

Monday, Southington left no doubt, taking an 18-6 lead after one quarter and answering a Newington rally by outscoring the Indians 18-6 in the final 6 minutes.

“We feel great,” said Southington senior Jen Kelland, who scored 10 points in the final. “We won the game that was most important to prove that we were the better team.”

Senior center Bridget Buist scored 24 points and had six rebounds to lead Southington to its sixth title in nine consecutive finals.

“Newington is one heck of a team,” Daddio said. “But I think we proved that if you have some heart, play good defense and execute a game plan, you can do anything.”

As I said, I wasn’t there to experience that particular heartbreak; I only lived it vicariously after the fact. But then my senior year, I basically got to watch the rerun. This time, Southington’s victim was the NHS softball team. And that experience cemented my hatred of Southington for all-time.

After suffering through so many heartbreaking postseason losses (not always to Southington) by NHS teams that had the potential to win it all, the spring semester of my senior year brought about my best chance yet to finally, finally see (and report on) a Newington state championship. The softball team entered the state tournament 20-0, ranked #1 in the state, #2 in New England and #25 in the country. They did that by, among other things, beating Southington twice, once at home and once on the road — despite the fact that they had never beaten Southington before in school history. Sound familiar? It should, because it’s the exact same scenario that played out with the girls basketball team in 1993. And of course, it ended the same way:

HEADLINE: SOUTHINGTON RALLIES IN SIXTH;
ENDS NEWINGTON’S UNBEATEN STREAK
By Matt Eagan, June 5, 1999

NEW HAVEN — The church bells were ringing six o’clock Friday afternoon, a full 50 minutes after the game had ended, but the Newington softball players were still sitting on their bench gazing forlornly at the field.

About 45 minutes before, Southington’s Heather Brousseau had thrown her arms around her best friend, Newington’s Jenn Castelhano, and listened to her cry after Southington defeated previously unbeaten Newington 3-2 in a CIAC Class LL softball quarterfinal game at Southern Connecticut State University.

“It’s the worst thing in the world,” Brousseau said. “I hate playing against her because I want to win so bad and I know she’s the same way. I just hate it.”

Newington had defeated Southington twice during the regular season.

Southington, the No. 9 seed (19-4), strung together four consecutive two-out singles in the top of the sixth inning to score three runs and erase the 1-0 lead Newington had clung to since the third inning.

Nicole de Fau started it with a single to center. Stacey Shreder followed with an infield single to push de Fau to second. Jess Salvatore tied the game with a single through short, aided in part by de Fau’s breaking with the pitch, which cost the Newington infielders a half-step. Shreder, who had stopped at second on Salvatore’s single, went to third while Salvatore took second on a wild pitch.

Gretchen Anderson then untied the game with a line single to right that landed fair by inches.

“I don’t even know what the pitch was that I hit,” Anderson said. “I was just hoping it would stay fair.”

Newington, the No. 1 seed (21-1), rallied in the bottom of the sixth when Sandy Ramos singled with one out and took second on a Lisa Rivard single. Pitcher Lindsay Windish grounded to first and Ramos came home when Anderson threw to second to try to get Rivard, who had rounded the bag. The throw was wide of Brousseau allowing Ramos to score.

The Indians threatened again in the seventh when Bengston, who had knocked three deep balls in the game (double, triple) batted with a runner at first and none out.

“I just thought ‘Oh my God’ ” said Southington pitcher Wendy Urso. “I just tried to keep it down on her.”

Bengston rapped a knee high pitch straight up the middle on the ground, but Brousseau ranged from shortstop to snare it and start the double play that ended Newington’s hopes.

“I know what [Newington] feels like and there is no feeling worse than that,” Southington coach Joe Piazza said. “I don’t think we could’ve played better.”

Both teams got their leadoff hitters to third with none out in the first but failed to score.

Bengston led off Newington’s first with a triple but was stranded at third. Brousseau made the best play to keep her there, taking a Castelhano grounder to the left of second base and freezing Bengston before throwing to first.

“She’s so smart she knew that with Jenn running she had that extra second to freeze [Bengston],” Newington coach Anne McKernan said.

Newington took a 1-0 lead in the third when Bengston doubled and came home two outs later on a double by Jessica Fortuna.

Now do you understand why I hate Southington?

Newington hasn’t won a state championship since 1994, and hasn’t won a CIAC-sponsored state championship since 1982. A win over the Blue Knights tomorrow would give the Indians a spot in the title game. But really, forget about all that — I just want them to beat Southington. Newington has, to my knowledge, never beaten Southington in a state tournament, in any sport, ever. And, make no mistake, this one would be sweet: the Blue Knights are the #1 seed, with a 19-0 record. Newington, seeded #4, is no slouch at 17-2, but the Indians are certainly the underdogs, just as Southington was the underdog in 1993 and 1999. So it would be poetic justice if NHS pulls the stunner. It also might just be a sign of the apocalypse: Newington actually beating Southington in a game that matters! But if ever an apocalyptic surprise is going to occur, 6/6/06 seems like the perfect day, doesn’t it?

God, I hope it happens. GOOOOO INDIANS!!! BEEEEEAT BLUE KNIGHTS!!!