Author Archive: vballhall

Clare Matasavage

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Clare Matasavage attended Notre Dame Academy in Waterbury. She graduated from Syracuse University where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Physical Education. While at Syracuse, she played intercollegiate bas-ketball and volleyball. She captained the basketball team in both her junior and senior year. Clare continued her education at Southern Connecticut State University where she received her Master’s degree in Physical Edu-cation and Health.

Clare taught physical education and health at Holy Cross in Waterbury for 23 years. During her tenure at Holy Cross, she was head volleyball coach for 22 years. During that time, her volleyball teams won numerous league championships. Her groups also received sportsmanship awards presented by the volleyball board of officials.

The Connecticut High School Coaches Association recognized Clare as Volleyball Coach of the Year in 1994. She was also nominated in 1995 for National Volleyball Coach of the Year. Clare has also worked as an inter-scholastic volleyball official. She is one of the founding members of the CT Women’s Scholastic and Collegiate Volleyball Hall of Fame.
While at Holy Cross, Clare also coached softball, basketball, and track and field. Her track teams won numerous league championships and she served as an interscholastic basketball official.

Clare is presently teaching at Coginchaug Regional High School in Durham.

Shirley Breuer

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Shirley Breuer’s involvement in volleyball began in 1975 when Newington High School started a program in her sophomore year. She was awarded the Coaches Award that sea-son in recognition of her dedication toward improvement. Her dad, seeing how much she loved the sport, laid out a volleyball court in the backyard that summer so she could prac-tice her setting skills with one of her teammates. Under the guidance of Coach Willa Eckersley, the team went on to win the Central Valley Conference in 1977 and finished 7th in the state. Stats weren’t “in vogue” during those days, but she might still hold the school serving record- acing 17 in a row! She continued on, playing at UCONN and then coached E.O. Smith in 1981.

Upon graduation, Shirley played recreationally in the Newington League where her team won championships in 1983, 1985, 1986 and 1987. She played (and officiated) in the Nutmeg Games, winning silver medals in 1990 and 1991 and capturing gold in 1993 and 1995. Moving to South Windsor, she was Captain of her recreation team, “Side Out”, winning championships in 1989-1996, 1998, 2000, and 2012.

She began officiating with the CT Board of High School Volleyball Officials in 1982 and remains an active member of this board at the present time during both the Girls’ and Boys’ seasons. She was also an official on the Women’s Collegiate Board from 1983-1995 until professional obligations in her Physical Therapy career demanded more of her time.

For 28 of her 34 years as an official, Shirley has served as an Executive Board Member. She began as secretary for the girls’ board from 1982-1986 (in the days when you had to type, address and stamp envelopes for 80 members!), moved into the vice president’s position from 1986-1990 and served as president from 1990-1996. She returned to the secretarial position on this board from 2000-2010, resigning to spend time taking care of her mom. From 2011-2015 she held the dual role for secretary/treasurer of the boys’ board. She was also secretary and vice president of the college board from 1984-1993 and was the assigner during the 1994 and 1995 seasons. In addition she has served on rating/training committees throughout her career and has donated her time to officiate Special Olympics, Easter Seal Tournaments, the Cathy D’Apice Memorial Tournament, the Alana Ferrante Memorial Tournament as well as the high school girl’s/boy’s All Star Games.

Shirley has had the honor of officiating many exciting regular season, tournament and state final matches throughout her career, but perhaps the most memorable were: The 1995 Girls’ State Final – Morgan vs. North Branford in which Morgan won 15-13 in the 5th set! May 5, 2008- Lewis Mills vs. Southington Boys at Southington High School – a 47-45 rally point set that took 42 minutes!!

Robert Tarigo

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Robert Tarigo was a 1965 graduate of Clarkstown High School in New York. He attended Central Connecticut State University receiving a Bache-lor of Science degree in Elementary Education, and a Masters degree in guidance. He played basketball from 1965 through 1969 and coached bas-ketball in several Connecticut high schools from 1969 to 1998.

Robert started coaching volleyball at Berlin High School in 1982 and has been there for the past 34 years. His overall record is 444 and 212. His teams won thirteen conference championships, had 53 All-Conference Players, and eleven All-State players. For these achievements he has re-ceived many awards and much recognition. In 1993 he was selected to coach the Connecticut Girls Senior All-Stars, and in 1998 he received the Connecticut Gatorade Outstanding Coach Award. Robert was named a Na-tional Coach of the Year finalist in 2004 and in 2011. He was also inducted into the Berlin High School Athletic Hall of Fame in 2016.

As a player, Robert also represented Connecticut Men’s Volleyball, and played in the Senior Olympics in New Orleans in 2004. However there is another sport close to Robert’s heart and that is softball. Every summer from 1979 to 2001 he would play in both the American Softball Associa-tion and in the United States Specialty Sports Association. In 1989, he was named to the All-World team for both pitching and playing first base and two years later was inducted into United States Slow Pitch New England Hall of Fame.

Robert credits Bruno Lukas for his start in and love of volleyball, as well as Bill Detrick and Eddie Rosmarin who made a difference in his life. He attributes his success to his dedicated athletes, assistant coaches, and espe-cially the support of his wife Pat, and his two sons Jason and Jeffrey.

Lisa Drennan

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Lisa first played organized volleyball in high school at Greenhills School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She was a four year varsity player and also played varsity softball and basket-ball. After graduation, Lisa played volleyball for Wesleyan University from 2005 through 2008.

While at Wesleyan, Lisa’s teams had four straight winning seasons with an overall record of 73 and 36. Lisa played a major role in their success. As a hitter, she ranked third na-tionally in Division III for kills per set as a senior while also leading the NESCAC for the third year in a row. Lisa was ranked among the top five nationally in Division III in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Over her four years, she amassed 1,865 kills to rank second all-time at Wesleyan. Her average of 4.92 kills per set is tops among all Wesleyan players. She also averaged 2.73 digs, 0.68 blocks and 0.46 aces per set with an outstanding .298 hitting efficiency over her four years.

Lisa finished her career with her second NESCAC Player of the Year honor and was named to her third straight first-team All-NESCAC. Lisa also became Wesleyan’s first American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Second-Team Division III All-American. She had achieved honorable-mention All-America status from the AVCA as a junior and was the only player from a New England college to receive higher than honor-able-mention recognition from AVCA in 2008. In short, Lisa completed her four-year women’s volleyball career as the most decorated player in the 25-year varsity history of the sport at Wesleyan.

Excelling in the classroom as well, Lisa earned District I First-Team Academic All-America honors from the College Sports Information Directors of America, or CoSIDA , and went on to received second-team national honors from CoSIDA, which was the high-est level of achievement ever by a Wesleyan volleyball player. In her senior year, Lisa was Wesleyan’s Hoagland Award winner as well, signifying the outstanding contributor to women’s athletics at the college.

After graduating from Wesleyan, Lisa continued her playing career when she signed a professional contract and played one year of professional volleyball with the Brøndby Volleyball Klub in Denmark.

Lisa has just graduated from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition as a holistic nutrition coach. A month before graduating from the program, Lisa joined the Institute for Integra-tive Nutrition staff as Curriculum Developer for the school. Lisa is passionate about health and wellness, and “walking the talk” to inspire others to live an authentically crea-tive and joyful life!

Announcing The Class of 2016

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Lisa Drennan – Collegiate Player
Erica Webster Kearney – Scholastic Player
Madison McCaffery – Scholastic Player
Clare Matasavage – Scholastic Coach
Rober Tarigo – Scholastic Coach
Shirley Breuer – Official
Jerry Mallory – Honorary

Alan Malizia

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Al Malizia’s coaching career spanned twenty two years from 1979-2000 and during that time he has established quite a resume. It started when he became the head coach of Stamford Catholic High School (aka Trinity Catholic). Al brought his enthusiasm, dedication and winning attitude to his players.  This is evident in his teams’ success.  In 1981 Stamford Catholic qualified for the CIAC State Tournament.  Just two years later they not only qualified for the tournament, they reached the finals and they won.  This was to be repeated for the next two years- Al’s teams won three consecutive state championships: 1983, 1984, 1985.   Also during that ’85 season Stamford Catholic was FCIAC League and Tournament Champion and posted a perfect 23-0 record.  In 1988 Al once again brought his team to the state tournament and another appearance in the finals and another victory.  Winning four state championships is quite an accomplishment in a coaching career.  The Connecticut High School Coaches Association apparently agreed because that year Al was selected as a Coach of the Year- Outstanding Coach of Volleyball.

Throughout his 22 year career Al’s teams made 16 consecutive FCIAC playoff appearances; 17 consecutive CIAC State Tournament appearances (4 of which were in the finals); and he compiled a .640 career win percentage, 274 wins and 154 losses.  He had just 5 losing seasons in his career.  Many outstanding athletes played volleyball for Al and he had numerous players named to All-FCIAC and All-State teams.  Many of these student athletes went on to play on the collegiate level on scholarship for schools such as Georgetown, Boston College, UConn and Holy Cross.

In 2004 Al Received the Stamford Old Timers Athletic Association Award in memory of “Mickey” Leone.

Dorothy Franco-Reed

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Dorothy’s distinguished career began in 1972 when she entered Milford High School.  At that time, athletic seasons were not as rigidly defined, so as a freshman, Dorothy was able to play four sports: volleyball, swimming/diving, basketball and softball.  It was that year that she first walked into the gym to try out for volleyball, a sport she had never played, and she was nervous. She overcame her anxiety, and with determination and hard work she made the team.  Just two weeks into the season, to her surprise, her coach, Edna Fraser moved her up to the varsity.  Although there were no all-star teams for volleyball in the early 70’s, Dorothy was a standout for her team.  She was an aggressive hitter, tenacious on defense and a powerful server.  While at Milford, Dorothy earned 13 varsity letters.  She was captain of the volleyball team her senior year, the tennis team her junior and senior years and the basketball team her sophomore, junior and senior seasons.  She competed in state tournaments in five sports: volleyball, basketball, swimming/diving, and tennis.

Dorothy received one of the first NCAA scholarships for women.  She attended the University of Alabama on a volleyball and basketball scholarship.  She was a four-year varsity volleyball player earning letters each year.  She appeared in three AIAW National Championship tournaments.

In 1980, Dorothy started teaching in Milford, but left in ’81 to train for the Olympic Games (Team Handball). She made the team and represent the US in the ’84 Games.  The team finished fourth, missing a medal by a goal.

After the Olympics, Dorothy began a 13 year college coaching career which took her at the University of Minnesota, Tulane University and the University of Alabama.  After marriage and two children, Dorothy decided to discontinue her Division I coaching career and she returned to Milford to resume her teaching career.

Dorothy has been the Athletic Coordinator at Newington High School since 2001. She has been a sports commentator and color analyst for ESPN in 1997, broadcasting NCAA and international volleyball events. She lives in Rocky Hill with her husband Tom and children Ty and Kyley.