The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
East Hampton set to take on all comers
EAST HAMPTON — Coach Shaun Russell’s starting five sat just outside the doors of the East Hampton gym, where another all-business practice had ended just minutes earlier, to tackle questions about being deprived of the opportunity to win not one, but two, state championships.
(Spoiler: They are managing better than some of us adults).
Danielle Adams, Angela Mercaldi, Mya Field, Meryl Curtin and Hannah Barrientos — seniors all, mature and grounded, with bubbly personalities that no mask could hide.
They have known each other and shared court time together for so long, to ask a question of one would be to ask all five. One chimes in after the other, and pretty soon they’re all talking at once. Chaotic, but fun.
“The five of us have an insane amount of chemistry,” Barrientos said.
It was tough to keep up, which, come to think of it, is how a lot of their Shoreline Conference opponents felt last season playing against this special group. They have a Shoreline championship to defend starting Wednesday at home against Morgan, the team they beat for the title last March.
“All of us care so much about this sport,” said Adams, “that no matter what goes on outside, at school, whatever, the second we step on the court that’s all gone and we’re playing for each other.”
“It’s important that we’re there for each other,” Curtin said.
“Winning is fun to us,” said Field. “We have fun when the ball goes in the basket and we are celebrating on the way back down the court.”
“We’re all in it together,” said Mercaldi, a First Team All Shoreline and All-State performer last season. “We went 19-1 by playing together all the time.”
When the CIAC shut down all of last year’s winter tournaments after they had begun, the Bellringers (23-1 at that point) had a really good shot at winning their first Class S championship in 35 years. They had just rolled to their first Shoreline title in 12 seasons and were two Class S wins from making a bus trip to Mohegan Sun.
It took time for them to work through the suddenness of having it all end. Same for the Bellringers’ crazy loyal fan base.
Then it happened again last month. After two delays in the start of preseason practice, the CIAC announced a few days before Jan. 19 that a 12-game season would go forward — without the state tournament.
“There was a lot of outside conversation about that,” Russell said. “This town is very upset about how last year ended and that these kids won’t get a chance this year. So if you were in the grocery store or wherever, for a little while there was kind of funeral feeling where everyone felt terrible for them.”
With Russell helping them sort it out, the seniors had stronger stomachs to handle the disappointment of no state championship run at all in 2021.
“It was difficult for the five of them and they had to work through that on their own time and in terms of what it meant to them,” the coach said. “They have their feet under them. They know where they are today. Now they can say, ‘here’s the things that can happen’ and ‘OK, this is what’s in front of us.’”
Not forgetting the emotional toll of the last 11 months, the Bellringers do not want this new journey interrupted. They can minimize risk and take care of themselves, sure, but with COVID-19, so much is out their control.
“It’s go to school, go to basketball practice, go home and do it again,” Adams said with a straight face.
“Everyone has to be on their toes this year. We don’t know what could happen next,” Barrientos said.
After three weeks of conditioning, getting their minds right, melding with top underclassmen Madison Yorker and Jordan Murphy and tutoring nine freshmen players for what comes next, Adams, Mercaldi, Field, Curtin and Barrientos are ready to take on all comers.
“Since last season ended so abruptly, we felt we had unfinished business this year,” said Adams, who will attend UConn in the fall on a track scholarship. “With no state tournament again, we’re trying to finish strong for the five of us. It’s not the ending we wanted.”
“Trying to win the Shoreline again means everything now,” said Mercaldi, a long- and triplejumper who will attend New Haven. She plans to study mechanical engineering, with a concentration in aerospace.
“Every game is like a state championship now,” said Field, who will study business marketing, possibly at the University of Georgia.
Curtin has been accepted at Penn State and intends to study biomedical engineering biomedical, while Barrientos has thought about majoring in criminal justice in college. Talented, smart, grateful seniors all, each aware that they have set the table for younger players who might one day acknowledge them with gratitude.
“Their legacy is what will be happening here two years from now,” said Russell. “You know, ‘are these nine ninth-graders watching and learning how we do things?’ That’s important to them in terms of how they want to be remembered.”
REMEMBERING DON RUSSELL
Wesleyan and the community as a whole has lost a sporting legend. Don Russell, the Cardinal football coach and a founding member of the NESCAC, died Tuesday at age 93 in Plano, Texas.
Russell had been working as a high school coach and teacher in his native Massachusetts before coming to Middletown in 1960 to join Wesleyan’s staff as the freshman football, basketball and baseball coach. Four years later, he was running the football program. The Cardinals won three Little Three titles in his seven years as coach.
Russell’s 1969 team received the most accolades for going 8-0, with an epic second-half comeback win over Trinity on the final Saturday sealing its undefeated status. Both Russell and the ’69 Cardinals have been inducted into the Wesleyan Athletics Hall of Fame and the Middletown Sports Hall of Fame.
Russell died in Plano, Texas, where he lived for the last dozen or so years.
“This was a great man, a towering figure in my life and one of the reasons I got into coaching,” Sandy Tucci, who played on the ’69 team and went on to coach and teach in Middletown for years, said on Facebook. “Over fifty years ago he said these words to our team — words I’ve repeated to players many times: ‘Football doesn’t make men; men make football.’”
Russell also was Wesleyan’s athletic director and wore many hats in the Middletown community as a councilman, board of education member and asset to many civic organizations. He led a well-rounded life.
“I enjoyed my years in Middletown very, very much,” he said upon his Wesleyan induction in 2016. “I found it to be a great community with great people. I was involved in community affairs fairly deeply. That made the whole picture there great. I enjoyed my job and I enjoyed the community, and you can’t do much more than that.”
THIS AND THAT
** Former Xavier quarterback Will Levis, who left Penn State’s program in January, announced Friday that he is transferring to Kentucky. I love this move.
Levis will earn a degree in finance from Penn State this spring. He comes to Kentucky with three years of eligibility. We know has the goods to be a starter. He’ll compete for the job with an SEC team that does not compete for national championships in football, so there won’t be sky-high expectations. Kentucky has a new offensive coordinator who worked previously on the Los Angeles Rams staff. Lots of intrigue here knowing Levis’ goal is to play on Sundays. Will be fun as heck to watch the situation develop.
** GameTimeCT is doing a good thing in producing boys and girls basketball Top 10 polls this winter. Plenty of media members were all for the voting to continue in spite of a truncated season. Maybe the polls create excitement and a sense of normalcy for kids and coaches in this off-kilter hoops winter.
** In case you missed it: The Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare road races in Middletown, usually held in April, have moved to Oct. 31 this year, the Hartford Marathon Foundation announced. Runners could plan for some wind and a spring chill. The weather on Halloween is anyone’s guess. There will be a 10mile run and 4-mile legends run or walk. For more information, visit hartfordmarathon.com.
** Trivia time: Name the two players in the NFL’s top 10 all-time in rushing yards who have played for five different teams. Answer below.
** Sadly, my Jayhawks will not be part of the new AP Top 25 men’s basketball poll today. Kansas is an average team this season, and I wonder how heavily the cloud of an NCAA recruiting investigation and likely penalty to come weighs on the pipeline of talent the program is so accustomed to procuring. The Top 25 is missing blue bloods Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky and Michigan State. Strange season.
** West Virginia coach Bob Huggins served up this great bigger-picture quote, following a loss, about his team’s effort defensively: “Defense to a large degree is about heart, about competing. When you don’t compete, you get exposed. We have been getting exposed. We’re not as competitive as we once were, but I think you can say that about youth in general. I’m used to having guys who winning means everything.”
** The stage and screen lost two more icons recently, Hal Holbrook and Christopher Plummer. Each had key roles in two excellent movies about journalism — Holbrook as Deep Throat in “All The President’s Men” and Plummer as Mike Wallace in “The Insider.”
** Trivia answer: Frank Gore (49ers, Colts, Dolphins, Bills, Jets) and Adrian Peterson (Vikings, Saints, Cardinals, Washington, Lions).