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Yellowjackets Made the Most of Their Chance to Compete

Many of the athletes on this year’s East Haven girls’ volleyball team had seen their winter season cut short and then lost their entire spring season as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the Yellowjackets finally got a chance to step on the court this fall, Head Coach Craig Brown’s squad was eager to perform at the highest level.

“They just wanted to compete,” said Brown. “We’ve got a lot of multi-sport athletes, almost exclusively multi-sport athletes. I’ve had kids that were robbed of being able to finish their basketball season, tons of softball players who didn’t get to have a season at all. When we had an opportunity to get back to the high school season, we wanted to compete at a high level and try and do some winning.”

East Haven did its fair share of winning by posting a record of 7-7 on the season, while advancing to the championship match of the Southern Connecticut Conference Division C Tournament. The Easties set the tone for their campaign by rattling off victories in their first three matches of the year, earning wins versus Whitney Tech, West Haven, and Daniel Hand.

“We got off to a great, hot start. We were 3-0 right off of the bat. We hung tough against West Haven, when we were still finding out who we were, and then had a nice win against Daniel Hand,” Coach Brown said. “From there, we really had to evolve and adapt. We had been in school for a couple weeks. You’re trying to compete against the top teams. We played a competitive schedule. We were happy to compete and grow against all these teams.”

East Haven endured some struggles toward the end of the regular season by losing four matches in a row at one point. However, the Yellowjackets bounced back with a 3-1 win versus North Haven in their regular-season finale prior to competing in the postseason.

As the No. 2 seed in the SCC Division C Tournament, East Haven had a bye through the first round. The Yellowjackets then earned a 3-2 victory versus No. 3 Hand in the semifinals before taking a 3-0 loss to Guilford in the championship.

As the Easties went through their losing streak, the seniors on the team realized that the end of the season—and their careers—was coming to a close one way or the other. Brown said that sense of finality motivated the seniors to turn things around and make some noise in the playoffs.

“It was a realization that it was almost over. It was the end of the high school career for some of these girls. This is what we were allowed to play, this is what we had left. Let’s go out there and win it for the sake of winning it,” said Brown. “We’ve had so much taken away from us. Why take it away from ourselves? We were able to get hot at the right time. We got back to the championship level we expected to be at.”

East Haven featured seven seniors on this year’s roster—the most in Coach Brown’s nine-year tenure with the Yellowjackets. Outside hitters Carly Cordova and Tori Heaphy served as the Easties’ captains for the season. Cordova and Heaphy were joined in the senior class by opposite hitters Gia Buonfiglio and Kayla Goodrich, middle blockers Taylor Salato and Brooke Clancy, and libero Megan Gaudioso.

Coach Brown said that all seven seniors played a crucial role in East Haven’s success and set a great example for the underclass athletes with the work ethic and competitive fire they displayed throughout the campaign.

“It means everything when you’re a younger kid and you see one of these multi-sport seniors in front of you. They understand that while [volleyball] may not be their first sport, they’re competitive, they want to win,” Brown said. “They put so much effort in. They’re not having anyone or anything take it away from them. They went out, worked hard, and competed for a championship. That should resonate through the program.”

Cordova led East Haven in kills with 80 on the year, while Goodrich and Buonfiglio contributed 47 and 27 kills, respectively. Heaphy’s 49 aces were the most on the squad. Salato posted the most blocks with 10, and Clancy had five blocks. Gaudioso led the Easties with 115 digs this season.

Cordova, Heaphy, and Salato were all named to the All-SCC Division C Team by virtue of their performances during the season. While his team received quality leadership from every senior, Coach Brown gave plenty of credit to the captains Cordova and Heaphy for leading that charge this fall.

“I make being captain a big responsibility to begin with, and obviously this year was a whole different animal for everyone,” said Brown. “They have had plenty of responsibilities, whether it be communicating with the entire team through me, relaying changes to the schedule, working with the coaching staff and athletic facilitators. They had the team rolling and ready to compete every game.”

Heading into next year, Coach Brown said that he’s excited to see continued growth from junior Kayla Stefania and sophomore Nicole SanGiovanni, who are the Yellowjackets’ setters. SanGiovanni dished out 166 assists this year, and Stefania was right behind her with 159 as the duo accounted for 325 of East Haven’s 340 total assists on the season.

Brown added that he is expecting junior outside hitter Magdalena Barthel to become a bigger part of East Haven’s offense next season. Barthel had 17 kills and three aces this year.

The culture of the East Haven girls’ volleyball squad is such that the team wants to compete for conference and state titles in every season. As he looks toward next year, Coach Brown believes that what his club went through in 2020 will prove beneficial in that it taught his athletes how battle through adversity and come together as a group.

“It just shows that you’re going to struggle at times. We had to deal with a pandemic in the middle of a season, and we dealt with a losing streak,” Brown said. “We dealt with anything you could almost deal with in a season. At the end, we might have not had the prettiest record, but we were able to come together in crunch time and compete for a championship.”

The East Haven girls’ volleyball team’s roster featured senior captains Carly Cordova and Tori Heaphy; seniors Gia Buonfiglio, Brooke Clancy, Kayla Goodrich, Taylor Salato, and Megan Gaudioso; juniors Magdalena Barthel and Kayla Stefania; sophomores Adriana Franceschi, Jessica Urban, Lily Gagnon, Alice Stettinger, Nicole SanGiovanni, and Autumn Clancy; and freshman Brooke Ciscone, Nicole Brown, Nevaeh Caffalette, Hayli Nuzzelillo, Mia Ponte, Ava Avena, and Isabella Derosiers.