ECC’s unlikely power couple
NFA’s Chris Guisti will coach fifth grade AAU team with EL’s Sophie Dubreuil
If there's any sense of basketball justice, there will be an Amateur Athletic Union season this spring and summer, virus-free, for the Connecticut Storm, the fifth-grade girls' team, in particular.
Sophie Dubreuil, an East Lyme High School senior and future Division II player at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, N.Y., will serve as the assistant coach for the Storm fifth-graders, her first foray into coaching.
Chris Guisti, the Norwich Free Academy boys' basketball coach who has coached girls' basketball for the Storm on many occasions, will be the head coach. Guisti will be coaching his 10-year-old daughter Maia for the first time. It will be his introduction to coaching girls at such a young age and he said he will be taking his cues from Dubreuil, who will act as a role model for the girls.
Dubreuil and Guisti both love basketball. They were both still an active part of the CIAC state tournaments recently, with their respective teams, when the tournaments were cut short due to potential spread of the coronavirus.
Oh, man. Keep an eye on the sideline for these two.
"It's going to be a tough fifthgrade team," Guisti said this week with a laugh. "(Dubreuil) might be the only coach more fiery than me. I'll be deferring to her a lot, helping to teach the fundamentals to these young girls."
Dubreuil called the end of the high school season, in which she willed East Lyme to a state tournament quarterfinal berth with a 25-point, 10-rebound performance in a second-round game, "a big letdown."
She doesn't necessarily know Guisti well, but credits her playing days for the Storm — including a stint with NFA girls' coach Courtney Gomez as her head coach — for helping make her realize that she could lift her game to yet another level.
"He always saw me around and gave me tips here and there," Dubreuil said of Guisti. "This year I lost to NFA in the semis (of the Eastern Connecticut Conference tournament) and he gave me a good talk. He said, 'That's how the game goes and that's sports. Just keep working hard.'
"I'm looking forward to developing the younger kids . ... I can already tell it's a good match me and him."
Dubreuil and Guisti would soon get an additional painful lesson in "that's how it goes."
Dubreuil, who missed the start of the season with a high ankle sprain, returned to the court to lead the Vikings. Despite an 0-6 start, they became one of the toughest outs in the ECC, falling to NFA in the league tournament semifinals in overtime despite 26 points by Dubreuil, the All-ECC point guard.
The Vikings, seeded 21st, then reached the Class L state tournament quarterfinals with a 52-33 victory over No. 5 Northwestern Regional. East Lyme, which finished 12-12, was scheduled to play at No. 4 Hand in the quarterfinals on Thursday.
That ended Tuesday with the CIAC's announcement that the remaining state tournament events for boys' and girls' basketball, hockey and swimming were canceled. Dubreuil was scheduled to play in the Connecticut High School Coaches' Association Senior All-Star Game on March 23, also canceled.
"Me and my coach (P.J. Zipser), we were texting about the game during school, about if we wanted to watch film before practice. We were going to be going over our defensive plan."
When Dubreuil was notified about the cancellation of the tournament, she was in culinary class making motzo ball soup.
"I really was speechless," she said. "I was so zoned out . ... We needed closure, to have those tears or celebrate or whatever it was. It got just kind of taken away from us. It's sad. Basketball is kind of like my outlet for everything."
Guisti, meanwhile, in his seventh season as the head boys' coach at NFA, was in the midst of a dream season. The Wildcats were 23-0, including the ECC Division I tournament title, and ranked fourth in the GameTimeCT state poll as they poised themselves to begin play in the CIAC Division I state tournament. Second-seeded NFA received a first-round bye and was scheduled to play No. 15 New Britain in the second round Wednesday.
Guisti was the assistant coach at NFA for 13 seasons under Neal Curland before taking over as the head coach prior to the 2013-14 season. He credits the Storm as helping to give him his foundation in coaching.
"I coached a lot of talented basketball players. I learned a lot as a coach myself," Guisti said of the Storm. "I was the JV coach, Neal's assistant. The X's and O's are strikingly similar (between the boys' and girls' games), but different in how you approach motivation. You just learn a lot about yourself as a coach.
"When I did take over NFA, I thought I was really prepared. Being a Storm coach made me varsity-ready . ... I always wanted to coach Sophie. I remember her being the toughest kid."
Dubreuil thinks highly of the Storm organization and what it's taught her. This is her way of passing it down, she said.
"I work with kids throughout my summers, so I'm used to the little kids," said Dubreuil, who works with the parks and recreation department, as well as working with kids after school at the library, playing games or helping them do homework. "It's always been something I've looked forward to. I like helping people. I've worked with kids who are athletic and aren't athletic but still try hard.
"It will be interesting to actually coach."