Panthers upend Cougars
SOUTHBURY — The Pomperaug girls basketball team has had its fair share of success in recent years but the one thing it has not done is play for a SWC championship.
Pomperaug last won a conference tournament in 2010 and has not been to the final game since 2011.
The Panthers are now going back.
Capitalizing on Kolbe Cathedral turnovers, the second-seeded Panthers pounded the ball inside all night en route to a 35-29 win.
Pomperaug will now face defending champion and top-seeded Notre DameFairfield, the No. 2 ranked team in the GameTimeCT Top 10, in the championship game Friday at Notre Dame.
That game will be a rematch of opening night when Notre Dame beat Pomperaug 65-46, handing the Panthers their only loss of the season. Pomperaug has won 11-straight since that loss.
“We focused on getting the ball inside all day yesterday,” Pomperaug coach Joe Fortier said. “Then we came out in the first quarter flat, standing still. It was about getting the cutters through the middle to make them work and collapse on us. Once we got ourselves moving in the paint, we were much more effective and it was easier to kick it out. Then we got a couple jumpers to fall with their defense collapsing in.”
Pomperaug center Megan Reilly scored 11 of her teamhigh 13 points in the first
without him.”
Nik, who wants to play Division III college hockey, was considering playing junior hockey instead of high school this year. He will play for the New Hampshire Avalanche next season. Justin Stergos of Cromwell and Nick Maringola of Cheshire currently are on the Avalanche roster.
“Nik went up there this past year to skate with them,” Giusto said. “He was offered a spot. When we weren’t sure what would happen, he was debating it. Talking to his mother (Stephanie) the last few years, they were really looking forward to this one season to play together. That definitely drove him to stick around.”
“Having Evan on the team gives me a boost,” Nik said. “It helps everybody. It has been a really nice time. My mom really wanted us to have that one year where we got to play on the same team. I think she would have had a meltdown if we didn’t have that chance.”
Don’t worry, Stephanie. There are thousands of moms and dads — raise my hand — throughout the state who have gone through similar emotions with their high school and college athletes.
“They have a great family,” Giusto said. “The boys’ mom and her mother come out to every game. She’s like our team photographer.”
“She’ll be in the corner of the rink taking pictures,” Nik said of his grandmother Laverne Pawlak. “She loves it. That’s her hobby.”
Herberts Vasiljevs watches the Cheshire games from Germany on LiveBarn or video.
“Some of my closest friends know my dad played in the NHL,” Evan said, “but I don’t think a lot of kids around school know. I don’t go around telling everyone.”
Herberts was born in 1976 in Riga, Soviet Union, now Latvia. Stephanie grew up in Suffield. They met when Vasiljevs played for the Beast of New Haven in the AHL during the 1997-98 season. Herberts would go on to play parts of four NHL seasons with Florida, Atlanta and Vancouver before returning to play in Europe. Herbert’s father, Haralds, a noted Latvian player and coach, moved to Germany in the early 1990s as a coach.
Herberts returned to Europe to play the 2003-2004 season in Russia before he settled back with Krefeld Pinguine in Germany for 12 seasons until he retired in 2017. He played for Latvia in the 2006, 2010 and 2014 Olympic Games. It was in Krefeld, a city of 225,000, close to Dusseldorf where the boys learned to play hockey.
“We’d go to my dad’s games at night after practices,” Evan said. “We’d go as close to the ice as we could. I wish I paid attention a lot more. We used to fool around a lot.”
“It’s funny, the boys’ styles are very different,” Giusto said. “Nick is a very dynamic forward, very fast, creates offensively with his speed. Evan is the exact opposite. He’s a methodical player. He doesn’t have the flash Nik has, but he’s a great player, looks to set up his teammates, has great vision on the ice.”
A number of hockey ties were made during their time in Germany. They’re good friends with Tim Stutzel, the February NHL Rookie of the Month.
Said Giusto, “Nik grew up playing with him and knows the family very well. They had a little draft viewing when he got drafted (third overall by Ottawa in 2020.)”
Nik said his mom’s brother had a house in Cheshire so they would live there in the summer and return to Germany and play hockey while his dad’s season was going on. He grew fluent in German.
“When my parents got divorced, we settled in Cheshire since sixth-seventh grade,” Nik said. “We still can hold conversations in German, but our language skills have declined.”
Before COVID, Nik said Herberts would come pick the boys up in Connecticut and return to Europe with them for the summer.
“We’d stay for a month or a month and a half and have some good times with my dad,” Nik said. “The summer before COVID we visited my grandparents in Latvia.
“My mom says I skate like him. We obviously look up to our dad, but we want to play our own style. We do try to imitate his breakaway moves.”
Mom and dad have to be thrilled the bond between brothers has made this short season so long on worth.
“As a team we’ve rolled with the shots,” Nik said. “We’ve had multiple games canceled. In a very short amount of time we’ve had so many battles. Our 0-5 start, not scoring a lot of goals, having a quarantine. It’s been tough, but the last 4-5 games we’ve really bounced back and are ready to take on Lyman Hall.
“And getting to play with Evan? It is an awesome feeling.”