Got some nice feedback about The Daily Warrior idea, so thank you to those who sent notes. Obviously, the year gets going it will be much more of a big-time daily presence, but whereas its still the preseason, some days are going to be slower than others.

• • •

Today’s Schedule

No events scheduled according to CIAC website.

• • •

Wednesday’s Wrap-up

Football — The Warriors looked impressive as they beat-up Weston in a controlled scrimmage at Weston. (A year ago, it was the Trojans who spanked the Warriors). QB Sean Carroll threw three touchdowns passes to lead the way.

Freshman Football — I heard the lil’ Warriors — some of whom aren’t too little — had a good day today with Brett Phillips and Bobby Wyman leading the charge in a preseason scrimmage.

Boys Soccer vs. Staples — The defending State Class LL champs scored three goals against the Warriors, who again went scoreless for the second straight 90 minutes of play (three 30-minute stanzas). Said head coach Jim Lewicki postgame, “I have to find somebody that can score. Somebody has to step up.”

• • •

Happy Birthdays go out today to high-flying pole vaulter Lucas Genovese and baseball player Will Bruschi, who is also a pretty good tennis player if I recall.

Wilton defensive back Sean Osgood dives unsuccessfully for a tipped ball during Wednesday's controlled scrimmage against Weston. (Photo by John Nash/Wilton Villager)

After a week of just seeing each other on the other side of the line of scrimmage, the Wilton football team finally got to get out on the field and hit somebody else for a change.

And boy did Bruce Cunningham’s kids spank Weston in big-time fashion during Wednesday’s over-heated controlled scrimmage at Weston High School’s football field on Wednesday afternoon.

The Warriors got plenty out of the scrimmage including a confidence boost heading into Saturday’s Wilton Jamboree.

A year ago, it was Weston that slapped Wilton silly and this year the Warriors returned the favor.

“It was good, it was good,” Cunningham said after the bus returned to WHS. “They knocked us around last year, but this year was different.”

While the team had plenty of success — including two touchdown by Clay Helms (one rushing, one receiving) and three touchdown passes by Sean Carroll (one to Matt Reyes-Guerra-Dunn, one to Mike DiPilato, one to Helms) — Cunningham also saw enough mistakes to keep the team busy over the next 12 days until its opener against Trumbull.

The scrimmage also featured a nice by the Warriors new fullback — junior Connor Buhler, who last year was a lineman who was listed as 6-feet, 200 pounds.

If William Perry of the Chicago Bears fame was known as “The Refrigerator” then Buhler could be known as “Dorm-Room Refrigerator” by the time he’s done because he was just bowling people over when he touched the ball.

Other interesting asides was that Cunningham has moved senior captain Ryan Phillips to the center position on offense and Robbie Keers, despite a number of technical mistakes at the defensive end position, was still athletic enough to overcome his mistakes and make some tackles for losses.

Travis Stella, Marco Piedmont and Alex Ward also eached show flashes of strong play to this set of eyes.

Granted, it was only a controlled scrimmage, but the way the Warriors played — especially one day after what was reportedly a bad practice — was a good unofficial start to a season where hope and desire push forward like a lineman wanting more.

Former Wilton baseball player Jake Cowan had a good Minor League career going until a torn labrum ended his 2010 season. (Photo courtesy of riveraveblues.com)

Former Wilton High School baseball player Jake Cowan, who left town after his sophomore season when his father got relocated to Georgia, was quite an up-and-comer in the Minor League Baseball world, pitching in the Baltimore Orioles organization until getting shut down due to a shoulder injury.

Even worse for young Mr. Cowan, who is now 22 years old, word is it’s a labrum injury and he either has or will under go surgery soon, according to those in the Orioles organization.

Many people believe that a labrum injury for a pitcher is even more devastating than having to under go Tommy John Surgery, which could be bleaker news for Cowan who showed flashes of brilliance early in his Minor League career.

After leaving Wilton and graduating from Roswell High in Georgia, Cowan was drafted out of high school, a 14th-round selection of the Boston Red Sox.

Instead of signing, though, Cowan opted to play baseball at the University of Virginia.

He played one season for the Cavaliers, pitching in 13 games as a freshman and going 2-1 with a 3.34 ERA. Opponents batted only .220 against.

Things didn’t work out for Cowan at Virginia, though, and he left after just one season, transferring to San Jacinto State College in Texas, one of the top athletic junior colleges in the country. Cowan shined there on the mound, going 4-0 with a 1.99 ERA in 45.1 innings.

That was enough to get him noticed by the Baltimore Orioles, who drafted Cowan in the 10th round and this time around he jumped at the chance for a pro career.

During the 2009 season at Aberdeen, in the New York-Penn League shorts season Single A ball, Cowan pitched well, with a 2.25 ERA in eight appearences. He struck out 27 and walked 11.

This year, he got bumped up to the higher Class A Delmarva Shorebirds, where he was 3-1 with a 3.51 ERA in seven games before getting injured. He fanned 40 in 41 innings while walking just 18.

Initially, Delmarva just shut him down and sent him to Florida to rehab the injury.

Efforts to reach Cowan through his family and through the Orioles were unsuccessful with the Shorebirds even admitting, “wouldn’t have the slightest clue on how to get in touch with Jake directly.”

Well certainly everybody in Warrior Nation is hoping for a successful surgery and a speedy recovery for Cowan. After all once a Warrior, always kind of a Warrior even if you leave.

Welcome to the first of many posts that will be called “The Daily Warrior,” your daily news source for all that is Wilton High School-related sports.

Let’s begin our journey, shall we?

• • •

Today’s Schedule

Football — Wilton at Weston, 4 p.m., (scrimmage)

Varsity Boys Soccer — Staples at Wilton, 4 p.m., at Lilly Field (scrimmage}

JV Boys Soccer — Staples at Wilton, 4 p.m., at Allens Meadows (Scrimmage)

• • •

Tuesday’s Wrap-Up

• The big news of the day was the fact Wilton — finally — officially hired a new softball coach. Mark Salottolo, who coached New Rochelle, N.Y., for more than a decade before retiring in 2009 has been given the job, replacing eight-year head coach Bruce Cunningham, who resigned in the spring to focus more of his energies on the football team. If the Salottolo name sounds slightly familiar, that’s because his daughter, Leigh-Ann, is a teacher at Miller-Driscoll and also the girls JV soccer coach.

Wilton's Parker McReynolds had a ball during Tuesday's scrimmage against the Brunswick School of Greenwich. Wilton hosts Staples today. (Photo by John Nash/Wilton Villager)

• Boys soccer scoring drought hits two games in a row. The Brunswick School came to town for a scrimmage on Tuesday, playing the Warriors for three 30-minute periods. At times, Wilton looked impressive, at other times they looked lost … hard to believe the season is only four days old, no? In the end, Brunswick scored on a penalty kick in the second stanza and then capped off the game with a goal with only 10 seconds left to play. Those who impressed for Wilton included Mike DeSantis in goal, who shut out Brunswick during his time in net, along with Evan Roux up front and in the midfield, Parker McReynolds on the wing and Graham Parsons in the back.

• Speaking of a Parsons, track standout Brynn Parsons has given up soccer to focus on her track career. The speedy junior, who saw limited varsity time last season, is one of the fastest runners in the history of Wilton High School and after an injury-plagued sophomore season, she’s healthy again, feeling great, and training in preparation of the indoor season.

• • •

Happy Birthdays go out to former Wilton field hockey goaltender Hollister Kennedy and Warrior Nation Facebook friend Conor Brody, who celebrated on Tuesday.

Today, birthday wishes go out to Andy Rappaport and Kevin Quinlan, both of whom are also Warrior Nation Facebook Friends.

Mark Salottolo, a long-time coach at teacher at New Rochelle (N.Y.) High School, has been named the new head softball coach at Wilton High School, Christy Hayes announced on Tuesday morning.

Salottolo, who is a retired teacher, was picked from a pool of four candidates and had the most varsity experience and came with extremely high recommendations, according to Hayes.

Salottolo’s official status as softball coach was held up for more than a month as the school waited to get CIAC clearance because he had never coached in Connecticut before and did not have a valid Connecticut coaching certificate. All the paperwork has since been worked out and everything is now official.

His daughter, Leigh-Ann Salottolo, is the JV girls soccer coach at Wilton.

He currently lives in Bethel.

More on this story will be posted later and a complete story can be found in this week’s edition of the Wilton Villager.

So last January, the CIAC and MaxPreps made this big joint announcement of how they were joining forces for the good of sports in the state of Connecticut, right?

As part of the press release sent out announcing the “partnership”, Michael Savage, the executive director of the CIAC said, “The CIAC is extremely excited about our new partnership with MaxPreps.com, the online leader in high school sports. Within Connecticut there are so many extremely talented high school teams and well over 100,000 high school athletes. The exposure that MaxPreps.com brings will provide maximum recognition of our high school athletic programs and student athletes throughout the state.”

Sounds like a pretty good deal, no?

Well I hopped on to MaxPreps.com this morning, bounced down to the Wilton High School football page where I saw a button that said, “2010 Team Preview.” And, when I clicked it, I found out that Tim Eagen was once again the head coach of the Warriors.

I know it’s still early in the season and I didn’t expect much to be posted on the site, but with Bruce Cunningham heading into his second year as Wilton’s head coach I would have thought that a website like “MaxPreps” would have at least gotten that right.

I mean, gosh, like Savage said, MaxPreps is “the online leader in high school sports.” Seems to me MaxPreps is currently the online trailer by over a year.

For the record, though, MaxPreps does ranked Wilton as the No. 71 team in the state and No. 8403 in the entire country.

That’s important stuff to know to the CIAC, I guess.

Matt Reyes-Guerra-Dunn's return from a shoulder injury assures Wilton of at least one proven receiver this fall. You can see him in action during Saturday's annual Wilton Football Jamboree. (Photo by John Nash/Wilton Villager).

While the Wilton Warriors football team get their first look against an opponent tomorrow when it faces off against Weston in a controlled scrimmage, on Saturday head coach Bruce Cunningham’s team will be looking to lock horns with multiple teams during the annual Wilton High School Football Jamboree.

“Kick-off” — which won’t really be a kick-off, because again it’s a controlled scrimmage — is 9 a.m. on Fujitani Field and on Guy Whitten Field and eight teams will looking to work out the kinks in their system as the season quickly rushes upon us.

In addition to your Warriors, teams from Norwalk, Brien McMahon, Ludlowe, Trinity Catholic, Bridgeport Central, Fairfield Prep and King Low Heywood Thomas of Stamford will be part of the line-up of teams playing that day.

Following the jamboree, the Wilton Football Boosters will be presenting a cook-out for Wilton players and their parents at the school cafeteria, as well.

Wilton opens its 2010 season on Thursday, Sept. 15, against Trumbull at 6 p.m., at the Eagles’ McDougal Field.

A year ago, it took 1,000,000 shots on goal — or at least it seemed that way — before the Wilton High School boys soccer team got on the scoreboard in a game.

In reality, it was only nine games that the Warriors went nil-after-nil-after-nil, not scoring during any of its four preseason scrimmages, not its first five regular season games in which the team went 0-3-2.

By the time all was said and done, though, Wilton went 4-7-4 on the season, sneaking into the Class L tournament and stunning No. 7 New Milford by a 2-0 score.

That, of course, was followed by a thrilling-to-watch, 1-0, second-round defeat to rival New Canaan, which went on to play for the state championship.

So the question heading into the 2010 sesaon for Coach Jim Lewicki’s crew is going to be how long will it take them to score a goal?

We’ll find out starting on Tuesday when the Warriors play host to the Brunswick School at 3:45 p.m., on the Lilly Field turf.

A number of key players were lost from last year’s team, but there was a lot of young talent in the program that made some noise at the sub-varsity level.

Will they be ready to make the jump to varsity ball?

The answers will start coming fast and furious and it’s all going to start with the team’s opening scrimmage on Tuesday.