A look back at 2019
Connecticut sports drew national attention this past year
The stories originated in our tiny corner of the Connecticut sports world, yet they resonated all over the country.
There was the halftime protest at The Game, there were coaches embroiled in scandal, there was Nutmeg presence on the World Cup stage, and there was a high school football championship that tugged at the heart of the nation.
Meanwhile, our State U. is chasing history as it steps back to its former conference home and one of our few premier sporting events departed for China. Hello Big East, goodbye Connecticut Open.
The No. 1 Connecticut sports story of 2019? We’ll start our list with Newtown’s unforgettable Class LL football title, but we offer the state’s top stories in no particular order:
NEWTOWN MAGIC
The touchdown pass, captured on video by Hearst Connecticut Media Group’s Pete Paguaga, was seen all over the country. The story went viral, the players made a national TV appearance, the town rejoiced.
On the seventh anniversary of the horrific school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Newtown football team won a state title in the most dramatic fashion. With three seconds left in the game, on a foggy December night, Newtown’s Jack Street threw a 36yard touchdown pass to Riley Ward to lift the Nighthawks t a win over Darien in the Class LL title game.
It was Newtown’s first football title since 1992, yet it was more than just a championship. The team include an older sibling of a child killed at Sandy Hook. Street was a fourth grader at Sandy Hook on Dec. 14, 2012. To
experience such euphoria on Dec. 14, 2019 was magical.
There would be an appearance on NBC’s Sunday Night Football, a visit to ESPN, a visit from Gov. Ned Lamont, celebrations, and honors. Hearst Connecticut columnist Jeff Jacobs called it “The greatest play in the history of Connecticut high school sports, a play great enough to capture both a state championship and hearts across the nation.”
A GAME FOR THE AGES
The Yale football team had pulled off a miraculous victory earlier in the season, using a late touchdown and onside kick recovery to overcome a 20point deficit with 9 seconds remaining. But the 2827 win at Richmond, a turning point of the season, was seen by relatively few.
On Nov. 23, with a crowd of nearly 45,000 at the Yale Bowl struggling to follow the live action due to the rapidly setting sun, linebacker Ryan Burke’s fourthdown tackle preserved the Bulldogs improbable 5043 doubleovertime win over Harvard, clinching a share of their second Ivy League championship in the last three years.
A halftime protest at midfield that drew national attention caused nearly an hour delay and made daylight a major issue as Yale began to rally from a 17point fourth quarter deficit. The Harvard lead was still 14 when freshman Mason Tipton caught a touchdown pass from Kurt Rawlings with a minute, 28 seconds remaining in regulation. An onsides kick recovery by Reed Klubnick set up the tying touchdown, a
RawlingstoJ.P. Shohfi score with 18 seconds to go.
The teams traded touchdowns in the initial overtime before Zane Dudek’s 4yard scoring run gave Yale a 5043 lead. The Bulldogs defense came up with the crucial stop on Harvard’s ensuing possession to end one of the most memorable games in the ancient rivalry.
UCONN HOMECOMING
OK, it’s technically not a homecoming. UConn’s announced move to the Big East is like relocating back to your childhood home only to find the place gutted and redesigned. Yes, there’s nostalgia and familiarity … but, it’s different.
But UConn fans are quibbling with the details. After losing so many familiar rivals in the aftermath of conference realignment that left the school in the American Athletic Conference, UConn defining itself as a “basketball school” and moving to the Big East was met with excitement.
The move — announced last summer — will leave the school’s struggling football program without a conference home. When UConn officially departs the AAC for the Big East in the summer of 2020, Randy Edsall’s team will embark on life as an independent.
But aside from the hockey program that’s already a member of Hockey East, the school’s other sports will operate under the Big East banner. That means, most importantly for fans, a men’s basketball tournament at Madison Square Garden.
Let the nostalgia begin.
END OF A TENNIS ERA
Consider what the Volvo International, Pilot Pen and Connecticut Open meant for the state: John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Ivan Lendl, Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova, Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport, James Blake, and Carolina Wozniacki graced the court at Yale’s Connecticut Tennis Center over the past three decades.
The professional tournaments in New Haven gave Connecticut a major league event and brought some of the biggest names in the sport to Yale. But the economics of the sport shifted — prize money rose as corporate sponsorship evaporated — the tournament sputtered, despite the best efforts of director Anne Worcester. With no title sponsor in sight, the stateowned tournament could not survive.
In February, word came that the tournament’s sanction was being sold to a group from China. But in June, the Tennis Foundation of Connecticut announced a new, lowerlevel professional tournament would be staged in 2019. The Oracle Challenger Series event, which was free to attend, was played on the Yale courts during the first week of September, and the event included men’s legends matches featuring Blake and Andy Roddick.
THE YEAR IN YALE WOMEN’S SOCCER
The Yale women’s soccer program found itself attached to two major stories in 2019. In March, former coach Rudy Meredith was implicated in the sweeping national college admission scandal. Meredith, who coached at Yale for 24 years, resigned in November 2018, but his name surfaced in the national story four months later as he pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Meredith’s replacement was former Stony Brook coach Brendan Faherty, a Guilford native who seemingly had strong ties to the region as the former coach at New Haven. Yale was 1141 in Faherty’s first season, but he was removed from the job in November when the Yale Daily News reported on allegations of misconduct with his former players during his tenure at UNH.
The story gained national attention as Faherty denied the allegations wrongdoing through his lawyer and UNH vowed to investigate the allegations.
In December, Yale promoted assistant Sarah Martinez to the head coaching job.
WORLD CUP HERO
As the U.S. women’s soccer team marched to the World Cup, a Connecticut native served as the team’s backbone. Alyssia Naeher, who grew up in Seymour and Stratford, played every minute of every World Cup game, allowing just three goals in seven games and notching three consecutive shutouts in the group stage of the tournament.
Naeher, playing in her second World Cup, entered as Team USA’s starting keeper and there were questions about whether she was up for the task. She answered, game after game, most notably in the 21 semifinal win over England that included a memorable save on a penalty kick in the 83rd minute.
Back at home, she was cheered at her alma mater, Heritage Christain School, and she was honored by Gov. Ned Lamont. She also returned to Heritage Christain in November, answering questions and talking about her World Cup run.
NO TITLE FOR GENO
After losing in consecutive Final Fours on buzzer beaters, the UConn women’s basketball team returned to the national semifinals in search of No. 12.
Geno Auriemma’s program, measured by national championships, matched up with rival Notre Dame in April. This time, though, there would be no lastsecond heroics to beat the Huskies — Notre Dame simply overmatched UConn down the stretch, en route to an 8176 victory.
The loss marked the end of a glorious era in UConn basketball history, as Katie Lou Samuelson and Naphessa Collier ended their careers as two of the greats in the history of a historic program.
TREMONT’S NBA RISE
New Haven native Tremont Waters considered entering the NBA draft following an outstanding freshman season at LSU, but chose to return to college to continue his development. He averaged 15.1 points per game to help the Tigers reach the NCAA tournament, where the first round opponent would be Yale, a school where he spent considerable time honing his game as a young player.
Waters scored 15 points with seven assists in the win over Yale, adding 12 two days later in a victory over Maryland to get LSU to the Sweet 16. His gamehigh 23 points wasn’t enough as the Tigers lost to Michigan State and were eliminated. It would be his final college game. Waters entered the NBA draft and was taken by the Celtics with the 51st overall pick.
Yet before his pro career officially began, Waters learned of the unexpected death of his father, Ed, just a couple of weeks following the June draft. Waters has spent most of this season with Maine of the NBA G League, but had a threegame stint with Boston when Kemba Walker was sidelined with an injury last month.
STAGS GO YOUNG
Jay Young had long aspired to be a Division I head basketball coach. He’s run the show at Division III Newbury College in the 1990s and from 200005 coached Division II New Haven to a pair of NCAA tournament appearances.
But after 14 seasons as an assistant to Steve Pikiell, the first 11 at Stony Brook and the past three at Rutgers, Young was practically itching for his shot. It came in April when Fairfield fired Sydney Johnson and hired Young, a Fitchburg, Massachusetts native.
Young’s appointment also allows him to reunite with Fairfield athletic director Paul Schlickmann. The two became acquainted at Stony Brook, where Schlickmann spent seven years as an administrator before moving on to Central Connecticut State.
Fairfield, 47, opens its Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference schedule on Friday at Niagara.
INTRODUCING THE HAT TRICKS
Danbury has a long and colorful history of hockey, yet the city has always had thirst for the sport. Since 2004, Danbury hockey fans have watched six professional franchises skate through the city.
The latest? The Hat Trick arrived in 2019, bringing a Federal Prospect Hockey Leage team to the Danbury Ice Arena. From the Whalers and Titans and Thrashers through the Hat Tricks, there’s always hockey at the Ice Arena.
And they’re not alone — the amateur Danbury Colonials also play at the arena, along with the National Women’s Hockey League’s Connecticut Whale.