Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

Housatonic volleyball takes on Wolcott Tech

Housatonic volleyball takes on Wolcott Tech

Housatonic’s Sydney Howe and Madelyn Doherty compete.

Riley Klein

TORRINGTON ­­— Housatonic Valley Regional High School’s junior varsity and varsity volleyball teams traveled to Oliver Wolcott Technical High School for matches Wednesday, Oct. 14.

The afternoon of volleyball began with the junior varsity teams and was followed by the varsity squads.

In the JV match, the two sides were even at 1-1 after splitting the first two sets. Then HVRHS clinched a decisive 25-17 victory in the third set to win the match 2-1.

For varsity, Wolcott Tech entered the gym with a record of 13-1 and the Wildcats were ranked 2nd in the state’s Class S division. HVRHS came in as the underdogs with a record of 4-7 and the team battled through three hardfought sets in a best-of-five series.

Wolcott Tech took an early lead in the first set but HVRHS tied it up at 10-10. After six ties and six lead changes the score remained even at 19-19.

Each team’s middle blockers — Sydney Howe for HVRHS and Leah Sterling for Wolcott Tech — were dueling at center net. The Wildcats went on a short run to put away the first set 25-21.

The second set began the same way until HVRHS pulled ahead on a serving run by Avya Fenn. Lily Danforth Gold found success at the service line as well and helped HVRHS go up 14-10.

Wolcott Tech responded to tie the set at 20-20. Another late surge propelled the Wildcats to a 25-23 win in set two.

The trend continued in the third set with repeated ties and lead changes up to 10-10. Then Wolcott Tech’s libero Chiara Ladonna caught fire while serving and the Wildcats took a 20-11 lead.

Strong defensive efforts by Kenszi Watson, Lydia Fleming, Kellie Eisermann, Taylen Leonard and Mia Belter helped HVRHS extend the third set, but ultimately Wolcott Tech won 25-16.

After the 3-0 match result, Wolcott Tech’s record advanced to 14-1 and HVRHS moved to 4-8. Just a handful of regular season games remain before the first round of Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference tournaments begin Nov. 7.

Housatonic’s Avya Fenn spikes the ball.Riley Klein

Latest News

Cornwall Historical Society celebrates Connecticut’s Black patriots

John Mills at the birthplace of Connecticut abolitionist John Brown.

Courtesy the Alex Breanne Corporation

On Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Cornwall Historical Society, author and genealogist John Mills will breathe new life into the stories of some of Connecticut’s more underappreciated patriots. The reason these heroes were forgotten? They were Black.

At a time when white colonists were fighting for their own liberty and political independence, many Black men who fought alongside them remained enslaved. Some risked their lives only to return to bondage. Though enslaved people were promised freedom from both sides of the Revolutionary War in exchange for their service, Great Britain, too, was still deeply dependent on slavery. For Black people in America, the war presented both extraordinary risks and uncertain paths to the freedom that white colonists were demanding for themselves.

Keep ReadingShow less

A sanctuary for second chances

A sanctuary for second chances

Stephanie Saetta runs Charlie Chicken Bones, a sanctuary in Salisbury.

Madi Long
You only get one or two of these soul connection dogs, so I do this in his honor.
— Stephanie Saetta

Stephanie Saetta has spent much of her life caring for others. A physician at White Plains Hospital, she has another calling at home in Salisbury — one that has four legs and a wagging tail. She runs Charlie Chicken Bone Sanctuary, a nonprofit dog rescue that brings dogs from overcrowded pounds and the streets of Texas to foster homes in northwestern Connecticut, where they can begin again.

The sanctuary is named for Charlie, the dog who taught her how special a bond between a person and rescue animal can be.

Keep ReadingShow less
Big ideas come to Lenox for inaugural field festival

Hunter Runnette, founder and board chair of field, has spent years fostering arts and cultural programming in the Berkshires.

Provided

What do joy, gardening, artificial intelligence, the American experiment and the creative process have in common? Quite a lot, as it turns out, at least when some of the world’s most compelling thinkers get together to talk about them.

From Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 25, Lenox, Massachusetts, will host the inaugural field festival, a three-day gathering of writers, artists, scholars and cultural figures at Shakespeare & Company. Billed as a festival of ideas, entertainment, learning and discovery, field brings together an impressive roster of voices to explore everything from the deeply personal to the profoundly political.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

The Pink House AM is serving up community

Mare Rubin and Maggie Levine of the Pink House AM.

Madi Long

It all started with a yoga class. Mare Rubin was working on her second act after leaving the Upper West Side, where she’d raised a family and worked in corporate marketing. Newly empty nesters, she and her husband decided to move to the wilds of northwestern Connecticut, where they had spent 15 years as weekenders, to see what life in the woods had in store for them.

Rubin started teaching yoga classes at the Union in West Cornwall, a space designated by the town of Cornwall as a community hub with couches, Wi-Fi, occasional events and a growing yoga class schedule. She was adjusting well but missed one important thing about city life: a casual coffee shop.

Keep ReadingShow less
Sons of Astro are musicians, friends and bandmates — in that order

The Sons of Astro will be at the Common Pub in Housatonic on Oct. 24 and the 2nd Home Lounge in Winsted on Nov. 14.

Provided

No matter where they are in the world, musicians seem to find other musicians. There’s a shared language, a shared experience of being on stage and performing, and a shared enthusiasm for making those melodies by themselves or together. Such is the case with Norfolk and Brooklyn-based cosmic Americana band Sons of Astro.

That magnetic musicians’ bond drew Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mike Cobb into the orbit of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matt Statler. The two neighbors took to each other right away and were soon playing open mics together. As an ethics professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Statler made the case that if he sat in for Cobb’s set and Cobb sat in for Statler’s, they could play together and double their stage time. Clearly, these men wanted to make as much music as possible. That became a little harder when Cobb and his family moved up to Norfolk, Connecticut.

Keep ReadingShow less
One more weekend to get inside the art at ArtEast

The participating artists in this year’s ArtEast open studios.

Provided

ArtEast’s annual October Open Studio Tour is already underway, but there’s still one more weekend to step inside the creative worlds of artists working throughout eastern Dutchess County. On Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 24 and 25, artists will once again open their studio doors, inviting visitors to see where the work happens, meet the people who make it and perhaps discover something worth taking home.

Now in its 21st year, the ArtEast October Open Studio Tour offers a self-guided journey with participating studios in Holmes, LaGrangeville, Hopewell Junction, Pawling, Patterson, Poughquag and Wingdale. Visitors can explore painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media and other artistic practices, and get some leaf-peeping in at the same time.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.