Maddy Fulton earned Week 3's Trackside Teen Center Athlete of the Week award.

On Dec. 20th, 2011, the Wilton girls basketball team stunned the FCIAC by recording a win over the St. Joseph Cadets, whom for three seasons had been a key player in the league’s upper tier of teams.

Even more surprising, though, was the final score: Wilton 45, St. Joe’s 28.

The Warriors dominated the Cadets and on that night no player was any better than Wilton’s own Bowdoin-bound Maddy Fulton. Fulton tossed down 15 points, hauled in double figure rebounds and play solid interior defense to lead the Warriors to the biggest win of the Jaclyn Woitkowski Era.

For that, upon which even more success was built, Fulton earned Week 3’s honor as the Trackside Teen Center’s Athlete of the Week.

In addition to the t-shirt she received, Fulton, a winner last basketball season, as well, gets free lunch for two at Trackside’s Deli and free admission for two to any high school events being held at Trackside.

Wilton's Joey Fraccaroli earned himself a Trackside Teen Center Athlete of the Week award.

The biggest news — both literally and figuratively — to come out of the Wilton wrestling program this season is the success of sophomore heavyweight Joey Fraccaroli.

The heavyweight wrestler built on a strong starter to the season, building a foundation upon which he would post a record of 18-4 as of the end of January.

For laying down that foundation, Frac has been named the Warrior Nation Sports Blog/Trackside Teen Center’s Athlete of the Week for Week 2.

In addition to the WNSB t-shirt, Fraccaroli and all AOTW winners receive free lunch for two at Trackside’s Deli and also free admission for two to any high school event held at Trackside.

Alex Ward of Wilton competes in the high jump at Thursday's FCIAC indoor track championship meet in New Haven. Ward didn't win this event, but he did win the long jump to earn an individual FCIAC title. (Photo by John Nash)

Wilton senior Alex Ward won the FCIAC championship in the long jump on Thursday night at the Floyd Little Athletic Center in New Haven.

Ward won the event with a leap of 21 feet, 10 inches — more than a foot ahead of the second-place finisher.

Other Warriors who posted top four finishes were Wes Shipp, who placed third in the high jump (5-10) and Max Fanwick in the 55 hurdles (8.51).

The Wilton boys were 10th overall with 20 points.

On the girls side of things, Wilton scored 19 points, placing 9th out of 15 teams.

Shannon Quinlan’s second-place showing in the 300 (42.85) was the injury-riddled Warriors best individual performance of the night. Katie Ward added a fourth place in the high jump (4-10) while Alex Fiesel was fifth in the 1000 (3:05.58). Fiesel was also a part of the Wilton sprint medley relay team with Taylor Gillespie, Meg Hemmerle and Gabby House, which took fourth place.

Wilton's Kailey Zengo, center, takes her turn running the 4x800 relay for the Warriors. The 4x8 team placed seventh. (Photo by John Nash)

Wilton freshman Erica Meyer scored a career-high 15 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, leading the Wilton girls basketball team to the victory over visiting Bassick at the Zeoli Fieldhouse on Thursday night.

Fellow freshmen Erin Cunningham (10 points), Cori Cannavino (9 points) and Hayley English (6 points) also contributed to the win in which each and every Warrior score.
Maddy Fulton, a senior, added 10 points.

Wilton, now 11-4 overall and 11-3 in the FCIAC, plays Darien on Tuesday.

While ESPN was splashing many of the country’s over-hyped high school players on its multi-hour special showcasing players who were ready to sign their Official NCAA Letters of Intent to play at major colleges, one of the feel good stories of the day was actually playing itself out in Wilton.

On Wednesday, Marko Piedmont, a senior two-way lineman for the Wilton High football team, signed an LOI with Bryant University.

While Piedmont’s putting pen to paper started a new and exciting journey toward the future, it also ended a long comeback road that any athlete could take to heart.

At a football camp at Bryant last summer, Piedmont suffered a serious leg injury — a broken bone that needed pins to help the mending process. He later needed a second surgery to have the pins removed, setting back his timeline for a comeback and putting his future in doubt.

Piedmont, however, is a worker — a hard-worker, who put his head down and did what he needed to do to prepare for the 2011 football season.

He lifted, he rehabilitated, he worked harder than he ever had to make sure he would return to the field 100 percent — not just for this year’s Wilton Warriors squad, but for his future, as well.

Piedmont had fallen in love with Bryant and had hoped he would be able to take his football talents there after his senior year.

The injury, however, threw him for a loop — not to mention his future.

Piedmont never stopped working, never stopped dreaming and on Wednesday, he realized his dream — signing to play college football at Bryant.

Athletes go through highs and lows, good times and bad. Piedmont made it back to Wilton football team and helped the Warriors post their first winning record in four years.

And his future looks as bright as it did a year ago, only the difference is the next he goes to Bryant he’ll be doing so as a bonafide Division I college football player.

Congratulations Marko. You deserve it.

Wilton girls basketball player Kelly Brosko, winner of the Winter Sports Season's Athlete of the Week for Week One.

It’s time for the Warrior Nation Sports Blog to start catching up with our winter sports season’s Trackside Teen Center’s Athlete of the Weeks.

Part of last week, we caught up with 75 percent of the winter sports seasons winners and we’ll get to posting them, starting now in rather jiffy fashion.

Week’s one winner was Wilton senior girls basketball player Kelly Brosko, who drained two key 3-pointers en route to a 14-point effort in Wilton’s season-opening win over Westhill, 59-49, back on Dec. 7 of 2011.

In addition to the t-shirt, Brosko also receives lunch for two from the Trackside Teen Center’s Deli and free admission for two to any high school event sponsored by Trackside.

Who won for Week 2? Check back later tonight to find out more.

Wilton High School junior Casey Pearsall, who was injured in a nasty fall in the final minutes of Thursday’s game against Trumbull, took Friday off from school, but otherwise appears all right.

Steve Pearsall, Casey’s father, said his daughter was feeling a lot better by the time she got home from the game, though she did give her family a few scary moments after the fall.

“Surprisingly, everything appears to be OK,” he said. “We took her up to see the (Wilton) trainer, and it doesn’t appear to be a concussion. She’s a little tight around the neck muscles, like she might have a small case of whiplash.”

Considering the incident and how hard Casey slammed against the court, it was the best news possible for the family and the Wilton girls basketball team.

Head coach Jaclyn Woitkowski is not allowed to speak to the media about the extent of a player’s injuries due to HIPPA laws and the Warriors did not have practice on Friday.

Casey Pearsall, reached at home on Friday night, said she remembered everything that happened.

“I remember pretty much all of it,” Pearsall said. “Going up for the ball and just getting caught and falling down. As I was going down, I knew it wasn’t going to be good and it just snapped my head back. It hurt a lot.”

The point of impact is an image the Pearsall family will not soon forget.

“It was scary,” said Steve Pearsall, who is an assistant boys lacrosse coach at Wilton High. “I’ve seen a lot of kids hit the court, but not like this.”

Casey Pearsall went airborne to snare a ball that was saved from going out of bounds. As she grabbed the ball, a Trumbull player collided with her the already off-balance Warrior, sending her to the floor hard.

According to Woitkowski, who literally had a front row seat to the incident, Pearsall landed on her rear end first, but her head snapped back and slammed onto the court with a sickly thud.

“It was hard to see (that type of fall),” said Wilton senior captain Maddy Fulton.

“It was terrible,” added Trumbull head coach Steve Tobitsch said. “Our whole team was shaken up by it.”

Elizabeth Reda, a Wilton High four-year varsity soccer player and lacrosse player, who is one of the team’s managers added, “I’ve never heard that loud of a bang. I was just happy she didn’t go out cold.”

Trumbull trainer Dan Searles was immediately at Pearsall’s side along with Woitkowski.

“I thought their trainer was very, very good,” said Steve Pearsall, who went over to check on his daughter after she walked slowly off the court and sat down at the end of the Wilton bench.

Searles ran Pearsall through a battery of tests while Reda sat next to McKenna Pearsall, Casey’s younger sister, assuring her everything was going to be fine.

“She was sitting right next to me,” Reda said. “I think she was more shocked and worried and she was trying to hold it together. I just told her everything was going to be all right.”

“She was so scared,” Casey Pearsall said of her sister.

By the time she got home, she had an appetite and ate dinner before going to bed.

Her parents checked on her periodically throughout the night and she slept much of the day away, as well.

The trip to the trainer, though, brought the best news possible.

“When they said it wasn’t a concussion, that really lifted a lot off of my shoulders,” Pearsall said. “I felt pretty good all day.”

Pearsall hopes to be back on the court for Monday’s practice and then play against Staples on Tuesday night.

She added how proud she was that her teammates were able to pull out the victory after the injury.

Wilton's Casey Pearsall, center, is attended to by Trumbull's trainer and Warriors head coach Jaclyn Woitkowski after taking a nasty fall in the fourth of Thursday's game against Trumbull. (Photo by John Nash)

Casey Pearsall is Supergirl.

She is Wonder Woman in a Wilton High athletic uniform.

In the 28 years I’ve been covering high school and college sports for newspapers throughout New England, Pearsall has been one of the toughest, hard-nosed and special athletes I’ve ever had the honor of covering.

All of which made Pearsall’s human frailty that much more scarier to see.

With approximately three and a half minutes left in Thursday night’s FCIAC showdown at Trumbull — a game the Warriors would go on to win 58-52 — Pearsall went airborne to catch a ball that had been saved from going out of bounds. A Trumbull player went up with her and the two collided.

Pearsall got the worst of it. My camera and I were shielded from most of it, but the sickening sound of Pearsall’s head hitting the Trumbull High basketball court stunned the crowd into sudden silence.

All that could be heard were the wails of Pearsall, sprawled on the floor, holding her head in a type of pain she had obviously never felt before.

“That was really hard to see,” said Maddy Fulton, Wilton’s senior tri-captain. “We knew we had to win it for Casey.”

You see, Pearsall always gets up. Always.

On the soccer field, on the lacrosse field, on the basketball court. She’s gone down on each and every one of them because that’s the way she plays the game. When you go from 100 percent and reach inside yourself for that little bit extra, sometimes you fall. But she always gets up and she always plays on.

Not on Thursday night.

I’ve seen Pearsall cry three times. After the girls soccer team beat Westhill in this fall’s FCIAC quarterfinals; after Wilton’s loss to New Canaan in the state lacrosse tournament; and after the final buzzer had sounded in the win over Trumbull, when the emotions overcame her and the tears just came.

Wilton coach Jaclyn Woitkowski had the best view of the incident as it happened right in front of her.

The coach said her first thought was “Oh my God,” and her first concern was there might be an open wound on Pearsall’s head. But her junior guard landed “on her tush” first before her head whipped backed and slammed against the floor.

In addition to a probable concussion, whiplash is also definitely a possibility.

“That was terrible,” Trumbull head coach Steve Tobitsch said. “The game changed from one of competitiveness to one of worrying about the player’s safety. It was a well-played high school basketball game, but at that point it just turned to more of a concern over (Pearsall). I hope she’s back soon, because she’s an excellent player and a good kid from everything I’ve seen.”

She’s a great kid, but everybody in Warrior Nation knows that.

Steve Pearsall, Casey’s dad, was in attendance and once his daughter was moved to the bench, he went over to check on her as the trainer was giving her a battery of tests; most of which seemed to come out positive. After a while, he walked away. He’s a former Division 1 athlete and an assistant coach with Wilton’s defending state champion boys lacrosse team. He knows injuries are a part of the games. But when it’s your daughter, your little girl, taking that kind of fall …

Well, I walked over to Coach Pearsall and asked, “Is she going to be OK, considering?”

“I think so,” he said.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said.

There were no plans to take Casey to the hospital, Woitkowski said. Instead, she went home with her family where they would keep an eye on her and let her get some rest.

It’s going to be weird not seeing her on the court on Tuesday. But I can’t wait to see her again.

Supergirl can wait. I just want to know that Casey Pearsall is all right.

• • •

Wilton High School students Kafesha Thomas and Brynn Parsons, both seniors, have advanced to next Saturday’s finals of the 55-meter dash at the Colgate Games. The finals will be held at Madison Square Garden.

In the semifinal above, Thomas – in lane six – finished fourth in 7.44 seconds while Parsons – in lane two – was fifth in the 7.45.

Both earned enough points to advanace to the championship finals.

While the two compete for Wilton High School during the spring season, they raise their training during the winter months, working with a private coach through the Connecticut Elite Track Club.

Parsons is going to run for Johns Hopkins University in the future while Thomas is still deciding from a trio of colleges.

NORWALK — When the Wilton High boys basketball team needed someone to step up in its game against Brien McMahon, Chris Nugent answered the call.

Nugent, a senior captain who was held to one point in the first half, came alive in the second half with 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter and overtime combined, to lead the Warriors to a dramatic come-from-behind 67-58 victory in overtime over the Senators Tuesday night at BMHS.

“In the fourth quarter we got things going then when everything was clicking, I had a good feeling,” the standout forward said. “I knew we were all going to make the plays in the end.”

Nugent also pulled down 16 rebounds and had five blocks for the Warriors, who improved to 5-6 overall.

“He’s a captain and he’s a senior,” Wilton head coach Tim Tallcouch said. “He’s made the commitment and I expect that from him. He did a great job.”

The overtime victory improved the Warriors’ record in overtime to 3-0 this season and they are just a few wins short of earning a state tournament bid.

“We want to win in four quarters but when we get to overtime, we have a lot of confidence,” Nugent said. “If we can get to six wins this week, we’re in a great position to get those eight wins (to qualify for the state tournament). That’s our goal.”