St. John’s basketball players Da’Shena Stevens, front, a graduate of Trinity Catholic High School in Stamford, and Jennifer Blanding, rear, work out during a drill at Friday’s NCAA college basketball practice, Friday in Tallahassee, Fla. St. John’s plays Princeton in a first round game on Saturday.
It’s been a big year for Stevens, the St. John’s [...]

With The Stamford Times sports editor Steve Geoghegan on vacation, it’s been a flash-back week for me, putting together the March 21 edition of The Stamford Times.
The highlight was definitely a trip to West Hartford to meet Diana Delva for the first time. While I had done a telephone interview with her back when Julie [...]

The Trinity Catholic girls basketball team came up short in its pursuit of an FCIAC championship.
Top-seeded St. Joseph pulled away from the Crusaders in the fourth quarter on its way to a 47-38 victory over No. 2 Trinity in the conference title game on Saturday at Fairfield Ludlowe.
It was the first loss for the Crusaders [...]

The Trinity Catholic girls basketball team is a much different team now than the one that lost to St. Joseph early in the season.
The Lady Crusaders lost to the Cadets 61-47 in Trumbull back on Dec. 16. That brought their record to 0-2 to start the season.
“We didn’t play our best,” Trinity coach Tom Kriz [...]

The seeds for the upcoming FCIAC boys basketball and hockey playoffs have been set.
In boys basketball, the FCIAC quarterfinals will take place on Saturday at Fairfield Warde with defending conference champion Stamford (11-7 in FCIAC play), the No. 6 seed, taking on No. 3 Harding at noon.
Trinity Catholic’s string of 12 consecutive FCIAC playoff berths [...]

There’s an old saying around the world of sports that players win games and coaches lose them.
This year, however, I can’t say that’s totally true when it comes to the Trinity Catholic boys and girls basketball programs.
For the two previous winters before this one, I saw a lot of Trinity Catholic basketball which means I [...]

The Trinity Catholic girls basketball team defeated Ridgefield 51-43 in the FCIAC Tournament semifinals on Wednesday at Fairfield Ludlowe.
The second-seeded Lady Crusaders (19-3) advance to the FCIAC Championship game for the fourth time in five years and will play against the winner of the No. 1 St. Joseph/No. 4 New Canaan semifinal on Friday at [...]

The Trinity Catholic girls basketball team advanced to the FCIAC semifinals.
The second-seeded Lady Crusaders (18-3) defeated No. 7 Danbury 57-35 in the quarterfinals. They’ll play No. 3 Ridgefield, which beat Staples 56-33, in the semifinals on Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Fairfield Ludlowe.
The fifth-seeded Stamford girls (14-5) lost to No. 4 New Canaan 48-28 in [...]

By JOE RYAN
STAMFORD – King girls basketball co-coach Ervin Thompson said he had lofty goals for his team this season but the 18-game winning streak it has put together has been beyond his wildest dreams.
The Vikings dispatched Greenwich Academy with a 64-51 victory on Friday in a game dominated by King on Senior Night honoring Briana [...]

Ginny LaFauci made some key free throws down the stretch to lead the Westhill High girls basketball team to a 39-36 victory over city rival Stamford on Monday at the Kuczo Gymnasium.
LaFauci led the Vikings (6-13) with 18 points and 16 rebounds. Jasmine Jones scored 11 points for the Black Knights (13-4), who had won [...]

The Trinity High boys and girls basketball teams defeated Wilton on Friday.
The girls won 50-40. Cayleigh Griffin led Trinity (15-3 overall, 13-3 FCIAC) with 18 points. Mackenzie Griffin chipped in with 13 points.
The boys prevailed 61-46. Remy Pinson scored 22 points to lead Trinity (9-8, 8-7) and Tyler Walston had 12 points.
Both teams will be [...]

The Stamford High boys basketball team posted a 46-44 victory over city rival Trinity on Tuesday at Walsh Court in a rematch of last year’s FCIAC championship.
The Black Knights (10-5 overall, 8-5 FCIAC) took the lead for good in the third quarter and survived a last second shot that bounce off the rim at the [...]

Trinity boys basketball coach Mike Walsh locked up his 500th career victory and King girls basketball player Briana Brown went over 2,000 points in her career Friday.
Walsh earned win No. 500 with a 56-46 victory at Fairfield Ludlowe. A shorthanded Crusaders’ squad, which was without R.J. Calo due to illness, was led by sophomores Aaron [...]

This Saturday, King girls basketball player Briana Brown could hit a special milestone.
Brown is 31 points shy of reaching 2,000 career points and she’ll go for the mark when the Vikings host the Hun School at 1 p.m.
“We still have a lot of games left to be played so she’s not feeling any pressure,” said [...]

The Stamford High girls basketball team held off an upset-minded Wilton squad to earn a dramatic 49-48 victory over the Warriors on Thursday at Wilton High.
With the win, the Black Knights improved to 8-2 overall to qualify for the state tournament.
Stamford had a 12-point lead going into the fourth quarter before the Warriors (3-9) rallied [...]

The Trinity Catholic girls basketball team’s winning streak now stands at eight as the Crusaders took care of business with a 48-37 win over Danbury at Walsh Court on Tuesday.
Cayleigh Griffin led the way with 14 points while Erin Sottosanti chipped in with 11 points and Mackenzie Griffin added 10. Trinity is now 8-2 overall [...]

STAMFORD – Briana Brown posted a triple-double in leading the King girls basketball team to a comfortable 63-49 win over Marianapolis Prep on Saturday.
Brown scored 25 points, including 17 in the first half, as the Vikings built a 39-19 lead. The senior captain grabbed 10 rebounds and had 10 steals to lead a King team [...]

The Stamford High boys and girls basketball teams were victorious over Norwalk Friday.
The boys earned 64-53 victory at the Kuczo Gymnasium and were led by Jethro Anilus, who scored 29 points. Marc Guirand chipped in with 11 points, 19 rebounds and five assists and Louis Briddter added 10 points and six rebounds as the Black [...]

The Trinity boys and girls basketball teams defeated Westhill Tuesday night.
The Trinity boys earned a 64-51 win at Walsh Court to snap a three-game slide and even their record at 4-4.
Remy Pinson and Mike Scaturcchio each finished with 19 points, including five 3-pointers apiece, to lead the Crusaders. Aaron Spence chipped in with 14 points [...]

The Stamford High girls basketball team improved to 2-0 with a 51-36 victory over McMahon Friday night at Stamford High.
Kelsey Cognetta netted 15 points to lead the way for the Black Knights. Ebony Razor chipped in with 10 Lauren Schapiro added nine.
The Trinity Catholic girls suffered a 58-48 loss to Staples in their season opener [...]

For the past two years, Suzanne Cohen of Westhill has been a dangerous weapon for the Vikings.
In many cases, though, she’s been over-looked by defenses as older players have been in key roles for the Vikings.
This winter, though, Cohen is a junior and she’s expected to be a marked woman around the FCIAC. Everybody knows [...]

Dateline Norton, Massachuetts.
Three former Trinity Catholic girls basketball standouts hooked up at Wheaton College on Tuesday when the host Lyons met up with Roger Williams College in the season-opener for both teams.
For Wheaton, it was also the debut of freshman guard Jeana Trimboli, who immediately made her presence felt by draining three 3-pointers and scoring [...]

There are two big stories to report this week in The Stamford Times.
The first is Tuesday night’s FCIAC volleyball quarterfinal victory for the Trinity Catholic Crusaders. Unfortunately, due to our odd-ball printing times, the team’s semifinal game against Greenwich will be played and done in on Thursday, before the Times even hit the streets (fear [...]

It’s Mother’s Day Weekend, so is there any better time, really, to salute the mothers of sports? That’s what The Stamford Times does with this week’s edition of its Sports section as we salute all of the mothers of the city through the eyes and emotions of three local moms — Patty Ann Tublin, seen [...]

Here’s a list of the 2009 All-FCIAC award winners from the city of Stamford for the recently completed winter season.
ICE HOCKEY
First Team — Ryan Haggerty, Trinity Catholic, Forward; Anthony Chiaramonte, Trinity Catholic, Goaltender
Second Team — Tyler Rich, Westhill, Forward; Jake Savona, Trinity Catholic, Forward; Shane McCarthy, Stamford, Defense
Honorable Mention — Mike Taylor, Stamford, Forward.
BOYS BASKETBALL
First [...]

The winter sports season is behind. Almost.
While the local high schools have wrapped up their high school basketball and hockey seasons last week, there is a little bit of house cleaning to do this week before we look too far ahead to spring.
The biggest news of the week, though,  did come off the frozen ponds [...]

When former Trinity Catholic basketball star Da’Shena Stevens scored 27 points against the top-seeded University of Connecticut a few weeks back, her St. John’s University head coach Kim Barnes Arico expressed her opinion that Stevens should win the Big East’s Freshman of the Year award.
On Friday, she got her wish as the Stamford resident was [...]

While Stamford trudged around the court in a collective fog for most of the game, their opponents from Wilbur Cross were holding a clinic in team basketball on Thursday night.
The Governors were led by Shantell Alford and Shariqua Fuller who tossed in 15 and 13 points, respectively, but they were just the start as Wilbur [...]

The CIAC released the brackets for the 2009 state tournaments on Wednesday and all three city schools will be in action early next month.
Stamford will take it’s 17-3 record into a the fourth-seeded spot, which was good enough for a first-round bye. In the second round of the tournament, slated to be held on Thursday, [...]

St. John’s University freshman forward Da’Shena Stevens was one of the former Trinity Catholic players who were in the house at Fairfield Ludlowe on Tuesday night for the Crusaders FCIAC Semifinal showdown with Stamford.
Still, Steven’s mind is never far from Queens where her Red Storm squad is still trying to make sure their NCAA bubble [...]

FAIRFIELD – Fiona O’Dwyer scored 18 points to lead the second-seeded Stamford Black Knights into the FCIAC girls championship game with a 45-41 win over sixth-seeded Trinity Catholic on Tuesday at Fairfield Ludlowe High School.

The Black Knights, now 17-3, will face the winner of Fairfield-Warde/Danbury at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday.

Trinity led [...]

We have about 39 hours left for some predictions and debate: Will Jeana Trimboli or Fiona O’Dwyer have the bigger smile at 8 o’clock Tuesday night?
You have to give it to Trimboli for putting the Crusaders on her back lately. The senior seems to be making a statement about her importance to the green and [...]

The final scores are in and Tuesday’s rush-hour traffic heading north on I-95 will be a little more crowded than usual because the Stamford High School and Trinity Catholic girls basketball teams have a date for the FCIAC semifinals in Fairfield.
Stamford used its defense to shut down Trumbull (they held the Eagles without a field [...]

Earlier this week I had received a schedule update the other day which said Stamford was going to host Trinity on Friday night in the FCIAC Quarterfinals. This was before the final night of the regular season, however, where Trinity beat Staples and knocked the Wreckers – then eyeing a shot at hosting an FCIAC [...]

The calendar still says February, but as The Stamford Times found out over the last week, the season — well, the basketball season, that is — is starting to have a March feel to it.
Over the past week, we’ve visited St. John’s University and watched Da’Shena Stevens light up top-ranked UConn for 27 points. On [...]

Well one thing is for sure: Warde is looking like it’s going to coast to the FCIAC Championship this winter, moving their record to 17-0 with a 70-42 win over Stamford, the league’s second-place team.
Ouch.
Well, good for the Mustangs. The Daphne Elliott-Sabrina Siciliano combination is an outstanding inside-outside combination and the best 1-2 punch since [...]

Click here to view more photos from the Stamford-Westhill City Championship Game.

Da’Shena Stevens’ 27-point effort against top-ranked Connecticut earlier this week is still the talk of many of those in the area’s basketball scene.
Click here to take a look at Sports Illustrated says about that special evening for the Trinity Catholic grad.
Click here to view a video of the post-game press conference with Da’Shena Stevens.
Be advised [...]

Former Trinity Catholic basketball star Da’Shena Stevens will never forget this night. The St. John’s University freshman and her Red Storm teammates played host to the No. 1 women’s college basketball team in the land on Wednesday when the Connecticut Huskies came a calling.
The result, as expected, was a 77-64 win for the Huskies. What [...]

Due to the storm bearing down on the region, the city’s Battle of the Unbeatens – Stamford vs. Trinity boys basketball – has been postponed for 24 hours. The game will be played Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Kuczo Gym.
The Stamford-Trinity girls game was also pushed back. Start time there is 5:30 p.m. at Trinity’s [...]

Mike King and his Westhill High School girls basketball team hasn’t had a lot to smile about of late. Until Friday, that is.
The Vikings, who had lost five in a row since beating Trinity Catholic on Walsh Court – and scored only 15 points in a 32-15 loss to Trumbull in its last game – [...]

Another Friday means another edition of The Stamford Times and this week, the first week in February, will bring you the Big Bs — Bowlers, Beluks and Boys.
Richard Kravchuk, who was born in Stamford and has made the city his home for 52 years since, has bowled his way into the Fairfield County Bowling Hall [...]

Paul Kuczo Gymnasium was a bit of a surreal world on Tuesday night as the Stamford Black Knights won their 10th straight game with a 37-35 win over Staples.
First there was the JV-esque statistical show put on by both teams (including a combined 13-for-29 foul shooting performance) and a bizzare finish in which Stamford held [...]

Three years and a plethora of separate homes for the Trinity Catholic basketball teams, at least when it comes to how they’re being Class-ified by the CIAC.
While perusing the CIAC Web site earlier today, I noticed that the Crusaders had been placed in Class L for this current season. Last year, of course, Trinity was [...]

FYI — Friday’s girls basketball game between Trinity Catholic and Fairfield-Ludlowe, being played in Fairfield, has been bumped up one hour to 6 p.m, reports TC AD Tracy Nichols.

The date of Feb. 3 was already a big night for high school sports in the city as the basketball teams from Stamford and Trinity Catholic are schedule to go head-to-head in a pair of games that highlight the rivalry.

Just a few miles south of both venues, however, a dark cloud will be hanging over [...]

Mighty impressive streak put together by the Stamford High girls basketball team, no?
Yes.
A closer look at the numbers, however, will show you can even more impressive streak.
Consider: Since dropping its season-opening game to Trumbull (My, how much the Black Knights wish they could have that one back, I’m sure), the Stamford girls have rolled to [...]

The biggest sports story to come out of the city this week should have been how the Stamford boys basketball team is off to a 9-1 start, or how the Stamford girls squad has won eight straight, or how the Trinity Catholic hockey team got the upper-hand in the chase for the City Championship with [...]

With the holidays well behind us and the New Year rolling along, the sports season is picking up steam again in the city and The Stamford Times brings you stories from a plethora of angles this week.
One of the bigger stories this week was the Trinity Catholic boys basketball team remaining undefeated on the season, [...]

The Stamford High School girls basketball team is certainly on a roll, moving to 6-1 on the season with a convincing 67-38 victory over the Norwalk Bears on Friday night. And the boys are keeping pace, moving to 6-0 on their season with a 67-48 win Norwalk.
Fiona O’Dwyer had 24 points while Lauren Beluk had [...]

The big story in The Stamford Times this week is the high school basketball doubleheader involving Westhill and Trinity. The Trinity boys trekked across town to play at Westhill while the Crusaders girls hosted the Vikings at Walsh Court. The games proved to be a split as the TC boys and Westhill girls earned victories [...]

For a while there, you could imagine the spirit of Dr. James Naismith, from his seat in the heavenly reaches of the upper-bleachers, watching Tuesday night’s girls FCIAC basketball matchup between Westhill and Trinity Catholic and trying to convince those around him that it was actually Abner Doubleday who invented the game of basketball.
For that [...]

While the mid-game brawl in the crowd seemed to be all everybody was talking about over the holiday weekend, there were a few other newsworthy things that happened too.
How about the Wright Tech girls basketball team winning its second straight holiday tournament title with a 31-26 win over host Cheney Tech on Saturday? Or the [...]

Da’Shena Stevens, who tore it up as a four-year starter at Trinity Catholic in Stamford, has taken her game to the college level and fit in quite nicely, thank you very much.
Stevens, a freshman at St. John’s University, was named Big East Freshman of the Week last week by her league.
Click here to read the [...]

The holiday season has finally slowed things down enough for me to catch up on some of my work, photo-wise.
Here are some links to some recent games I shot.
Click here to view photos from the King-Greens Farms Academy girls basketball game.
Click here to view photos from the Stamford-Harding boys basketball game.

Here’s a look at Saturday’s local basketball results, including the big game – Fairfield Warde snapping Trinity’s FCIAC win streak.
GIRLS
Fairfield Warde, 64-49
TRINITY CATHOLIC (49) Jeana Trimboli 6 3-5 18 Erin Sottosanti 3 2-2 8 Claire O’Leary 0 2-4 2 Chelsea Starks 1 0-0 2 Leila Barden 1 0-0 2 Cayleigh Griffin 0 0-2 [...]

So in this week’s edition of The Stamford Times, in my column, there is a paragraph saying wouldn’t it be neat if our city’s athletic directors got a Christmas present of a snow-less winter, saving them tons of scheduling headaches.
Ya, well, so much for that.
Friday’s schedule has been wiped out thanks to the snow that [...]

It was a win-win-win situation for the city’s hoop teams on Wednesday. Here are the stats to back it up:
Stamford 43, Danbury 38 (OT)
DANBURY (38) Amanda Ghannam 1 0-0 3; Kasey Smith 1 0-2 2; Jasmine Holmes 0 0-1 0; Gabrielle Olavarria 1 0-0 2; Nicole Eanniello 4 1-2 15; Erin Boggan 5 6-6 16; [...]

With a full slate of high school events going on, now is the time to start taking some regular looks at The Stamford Sports Scene and The Stamford Times Sports web site as we try to keep up with everything going on this winter season.
Tonight, Times correspondent Joe Ryan will be at the Terry Conners [...]

Courtesy of CT Women’s HS Hoops News and Review:
CT Sports Writers Alliance Poll
The first poll of the regular season is out, as issued by the CT Sports Writers Alliance. There’s not much to argue about in the Top 10, as teams jockey for position during the first week of the season, other than Holy Cross [...]

Say this for King’s Briana Brown. She’s on pace to score a million points in her career, at least it seems that way, but for such a high-scoring individual, she really knows how to play a team game.
The junior guard tossed in 24 points to help her Vikings beat Greens Farms Academy, 64-45, on Monday [...]

Here’s the stats to prove it:
Trinity 47, Central 33
TRINITY (47) Jeana Trimboli 5 5-17 15; Lauren Hurd 0 0-0- 0; Erin Sottosanti 3 2-2 9; Clare O’Leary 0 0-0 0; Lelia Barden 0 0-0 0; Cayleigh Griffin 4 0-0 9; Ariel Camporeale 0 0-0 0; Eileen Ornousky 2 0-0 4; Kelly Andersen [...]

Westhill 49, Wilton 34
The Vikings took a 24-14 halftime lead and never looked back on the way to their first win of the season at home (1-1).
Ginny LaFauci led Westhill with 17 points while Suzanne Cohen added 11 and Adriana Miller tallied 10.
Stephanie Boyles led the Warriors (0-2) with 14 points.
WILTON (34) –   Brittany [...]

Wow, talk about an interesting first night of hoops in the city. Stamford loses to Trumbull – a game that could come to bite the Black Knights – and Trinity Catholic runs its in-league winning streak to 64.
Here are the box score breakdowns of Wednesday’s Opening Night for the city’s Big 3.
Trumbull 51, Stamford 49
TRUMBULL [...]

Anybody who has followed girls basketball in the city over the last decade or so many not recognize the scene. Oh sure, the teams are the same, the uniform colors remain as vivid as ever and Tom Kriz is entering his third decade as head coach at Trinity Catholic.
With so many star players having left [...]

Here are some action photos, courtesy of the Associated Press, of former Westhill High School star Diana Delva helping to knock off sixth-ranked Duke on Friday night. See the post below this one for more information on the game itself.

From the Associated Press:
CHICAGO – Lisa Etienne thinks she and Hartford caught No. 6 Duke napping. They definitely caught the Blue Devils on an off night.
Etienne, a former Connecticut Post player of the year from McMahon, scored 15 points to help Hartford upset the sloppy Devils 53-51 in the first game of the DePaul Invitational [...]