overview

The following awards were given this fall by coaches recognizing individual players for their contribution to the team:

Cross Country
Most Valuable Runners – Ami Curtis, AJ Fitch
Most Valuable Runners - Jeff Lusignan

Football
Coach's Awards – Phil Hall & Ethan Sylvain (V) & Brian Pellegrini (JV)
Most Valuable Offensive Player – MJ Rus
Most Valuable Player – Tucker LaClair
Defensive Player of the Year - Kyle Lawson

Varsity Field Hockey
Most Valuable Player – Liz Sinclair
Defender of the Year – Beth Sturgis
Coach’s Award - Sora Harris-Vincent

Fall Cheerleading
Most Valuable – Nick Gray
Most Improved – Shannon Blanford
Most Spirited – Katie Reynolds

Varsity Girls Soccer
Most Valuable Player – Cecelia Puleio
Coach's Award – Anna Scribner
Most Improved Award – Abbey Allen

Varsity Boys Soccer
Most Valuable Player – Eric Root
Sportsmanship Award – Graham Sorenson
Most Improved Award – Robbie Rea

JV Field Hockey
Most Valuable Player – Gabby Sikora
Most Versatile – Amanda Gonyaw
Coach’s Award – Morgan Pratt

JV Girls Soccer
Most Valuable Player - Phoebe Shambaugh
Coach's Award – Sarah Corp
Most Improved Player – Caroline Freeman

JV Boys Soccer
Best Future Coach – Ethan Byrd
Best Team Player – Matt Loignon
Most Improved Player – Taylor Forbes

return to top of page

Principal's Award is given to one senior U-32 girl and one senior U-32 boy who demonstrate the spirit of a true Raider student-athlete. Student-athletes are chosen for their commitment to a varsity sport, demonstrated leadership ability, high academic achievement and community service. The fall awards were presented to seniors Katie Joly and Phil Hall at the Fall Sports Dessert.

return to top of page

cheerleading

History of cheerleading
Contrary to popular lore, cheerleading is not a product of the deep South. Even though the most famous cheerleading squad of all time belongs to the Dallas Cowboys, and the sport's perennial national high school champions are from Kentucky, cheerleading has purebred New England roots. In the 1870’s, Princeton organized the first pep club, and in the 1880’s, the first organized yell was recorded at Princeton.

In 1884, a Princeton graduate brought the yell and the sport of football to the University of Minnesota. It was in the cold Midwest that crowds first took a keen interest in hopping around and shouting. From there, cheerleading took off.

Minnesota pioneered innovations in the sport in the 1920’s, when women first became active cheerleaders. Some of the most famous male cheerleaders have included Dwight D. Eisenhower and Jimmy Stewart.

It was not until the middle of the Twentieth Century that pom-poms were developed as a vital prop. Cheerleaders incorporated tumbling and gymnastics into their routines around the same time. In 1978 CBS first televised the National Collegiate Cheerleading Championships, and universities began offering scholarships, college credit, and four-year letter programs in the sport. Today, cheerleading pervades all American athletics, from football to professional athletics.

Our team
Our seven-year-old varsity program has developed a group of very skilled and energetic cheerleaders to inject the U-32 community with plenty of school spirit and pride, as well as entertain the fans at halftime! Our team is proud to include two nationally recognized All-Star cheerleaders and we recently received many top achievement awards at the UCA Cheerleading camp held at VT Technical College. New this season, look in each game’s program for the words to a cheer and join us, and check out the large Raider flag on the sidelines celebrating our football team’s many touchdowns! Show your school pride - get out and cheer for your favorite Raiders teams! GO RAIDERS!

return to top of page

cross country

History of cross country
As a competitive sport, cross-country running began in England with a game called "hare and hounds" or "the paper chase" in the early 19th century. In this game, a runner or group of runners laid a trail by dropping pieces of paper or other markers while following a random course, and a second set of runners then set out in pursuit, trying to follow the paper trail. Although “hare and hounds” continued to be popular at schools, in important competition the game became a cross-country race along a course laid out in advance over open country.

In 1880, cross-country running was introduced at Harvard as an autumn training event for track and field distance runners, and other colleges quickly followed Harvard's example. Cross-country was on the Olympic program in 1912, 1920, and 1924, but it was dropped after that because it was considered unsuitable for summer competition.

Although most cross-country competitors also run distance events in track and field, the two are separate sports. The cross-country season is still the fall and events are run through open country, often over trails, not on roads or tracks.

Team competition is very important in cross-country. Teams are made up of five to nine runners and the order of finish is determined by adding up the places in which team members finish. One point is awarded for a first-place, two points for second, and so on. The team with the lowest score wins.

Our teams

The boys' and girls' teams both delivered on the promise they seemed to have coming into last season -- both teams won State Titles in Division 2, the first time in many years that both have won titles in the same season.  For the boys, this followed two years of close seconds, and was the culmination of very sucessful careers for three of our seniors, Rich Curtis, and Nick and Fran Mayforth.  We had come into the season in need of a fifth runner, and this role was admirably filled by a first-year senior, Craig Boulanger.  But this underscores the problem we have for this coming year -- our only proven star is two-time indiviual State Champion, Jeff Lusignan.

On the girls' side, we have now won two consecutive State Team Titles.  However, we are losing three of our top runners to graduation, Courtney Phillips, Chantelle Fisher-McKone, and our top runner of the past several years, Katie Loignon.  While we have some excellent returning runners (Amy Curtis, Sara Phillips and AJ Fitch), we will need some help frim the middle school team this coming year if we are to compete for a third title.

high school schedule | middle school schedule

Pictures from U-32 cross country invitational

U-32 cross country invitational results - September 23, 2006:
5/6 boys
5/6 girls
middle school boys
middle school girls
jv boys
jv girls
varsity boys
varsity girls

return to top of page

field hockey

History of field hockey
One of the oldest of competitive pastimes, the sport of field hockey dates back well before the Ancient Olympic Games. Although the exact origin of the game remains unknown, 4,000-year-old drawings found in the tomb at Beni-Hasen in the Nile Valley of Egypt depicted men playing the sport. Throughout the following centuries, variations of the game were played by a spectrum of cultures ranging from Greeks and Romans to Ethiopians and Aztecs.

Originally considered far too dangerous for female participation, field hockey quickly became popular with women whose previous introduction to sport included the "socially acceptable" outdoor activities of croquette and lawn tennis. With more and more women becoming active in the sport, the liberating game of field hockey earned the dubious title as the only team sport considered proper for women.

With the increasing popularity of the sport, and through the pioneering efforts of the Association's early touring teams, the U.S. quickly rose to international prominence. Women's hockey became a fixture on the Olympic program in 1980 but the U.S. boycott of the Games prevented the team from competing in Moscow . Four years later, the U.S. captured the bronze medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. The team would continue its Olympic tradition with appearances in Seoul in 1988 and Atlanta in 1996.

Our team
This year’s varsity field hockey team consists of ten returning players, all with one year of varsity experience, and six newcomers. The team is hard working, enthusiastic and has the potential to be very successful. They face a new (predominately Division I) schedule this season and the team is both excited and ready for the new level of competition.

varsity and jv schedule | middle school schedule

return to top of page

football

History of football
American football, known in the United States simply as football, is a competitive team sport. The object of the game is to advance the football towards the opposing team's end zone and score points. The ball can be advanced by carrying the ball, throwing it, or a lateral handoff, from one teammate to the other. Points can be scored in a variety of ways, including carrying the ball over the goal line, throwing the ball to another player past the goal line (known as a forward pass) or even kicking the ball held by another player on the ground through the goalposts (also known as uprights), which is also called a field goal. The team with more points when time has expired wins.

Outside of the United States and Canada, the sport is referred to as 'American football' or sometimes 'Grid-iron' football to differentiate it from association football (soccer), a sport that it does not resemble. Ironically, besides kickoffs, field goals, and running, the game involves very little usage ofthe feet, especially compared with soccer.

Football historians, who have studied the game and its origins, place the game’s beginnings in rugby, an English game played with many similarities to football. Rugby began in 1823 at the famous Rugby Boys’ School in England. Another cousin of the game of football is soccer; its beginnings can also be traced to English origin, being played as early as the 1820’s.

varsity and jv schedule | middle school schedule

Pictures

return to top of page

soccer
Congratualations to the 2006 boys soccer team for winning the Division II State Championship and for bringing the first soccer state championship home to U-32 in 19 years!

boys soccer | girls soccer

History of boys soccer
Various forms of soccer-style games have been around since Roman times, and the United States was the first British colony to start playing soccer-style games. Some form of soccer was played in the colonies as far back as the establishment of the original Jamestown settlement in 1609. It was soon banned by ordinance as a reputed bad influence, and for the next two centuries appeared only in the least restricted of colonial communities.

The modern form of soccer originated in England in the early 1830's. When soccer first started in the United States , it was played primarily in working-class communities and was seen as a way of keeping young and energetic kids out of trouble at home and in the school; they could let off steam and learn the values of teamwork. As immigration increased, the new arrivals brought deeper soccer traditions with them, and the game grew rapidly in the Northeastern industrial cities.

Today, youth soccer has gained a firm foothold in mainstream America , and the youth game has grown by leaps and bounds. Spearheaded by national organizations such as the United States Youth Soccer Association and the American Youth Soccer Organization, soccer participation has skyrocketed, eclipsing all but the most established sports in youth participation. This is partially due to accessibility and lack of expenses. Soccer does not require great strength or size, and the outlay for equipment and uniforms is minimal compared to sports such as hockey and football.

varsity and jv schedule | middle school boys' soccer

return to top of page

History of girls soccer
Women’s soccer has had an unusual genesis in the United States. Arguably the U.S. is currently the top country in the world for women’s soccer, both in terms of participation and in international competition. Yet, women’s soccer got off to a fairly late start in this country. Women’s leagues existed in Europe as far back as 1930, and international competitions date back to the 1950’s. In the United States, however, organized women’s soccer did not take root until the late 1970’s, and even this was partly an outgrowth of the Title IX legislation of 1972 mandating gender equity in education. Varsity college teams began to spread in the early 1980’s, and a national squad was only established in 1985.

But when women’s soccer did finally take off in the U.S., it was with a vengeance, fueled by enormous participation at the youth and amateur levels, rapidly growing interest by mainstream sport fans and the media, and the growing acceptance of women’s sports in general. After two World Cup titles and Olympic gold and silver medals, the U.S. dominates the world in the women’s game, leading the way as it takes root throughout the rest of the world.

Our team
As a first year varsity coach, I started last year with the concept of re-building. We made great strides, and ended up with the label "Team with Intensity."

This year my plan as a coach is to work hard to ensure the team fulfills all its desires and aspirations. I am a team player and prepared to work with anybody to build on where we left off last year.

The team is still in a re-building process, and with every game, the hard work and intensity from last year will continue yielding improvement. This year we will focus on polishing our shooting ability and, hopefully with time, the goals will start adding up. I'm optimistic that the team will continue to improve like it did last year.

This year's team can boast of unity, discipline, teamwork, hard work and fine team spirit. I can count on the players’ promise to go the extra mile every time they wear the blue and white. This year we have players who have been together a long time. On defense Nicki, Ali, and Hannah, supported in goal by Kim and Anna were solid last year. In the midfield Katie, Lauren, Maddie and Kristen will be influential. On attack, Sam, Celia and Joanna are impressive. All these players play together very well, and we can count on them to produce one of the best teams in the history of U-32.

varsity and jv schedule |middle school girls' soccer

return to top of page

coaches

return to top of page