Category Archives: Search for Inductee

Cindy Fixer

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Cindy Fixer earned her BS degree in Physical Education from Southern Connecticut State College and her MS degree in Educational Administration and Supervision from Central Connecticut State University. Cindy coached volleyball at The Gilbert School for 32 years. Her overall record is 310 and 242. Her teams won eight Berkshire League tournament championships as well as thirteen league championships.

In addition, Gilbert played in three State Finals, winning two runner-up titles and one State Championship title. Fourteen of her players went on to play in college. She was named Outstanding Volleyball Coach of the Year for 2000-2001 by the Connecticut High School Coaches Association (CHSCA) and was selected to coach in the 1993 & 2014 Senior Volleyball All-Star Game. She represented the school as the girls’ volleyball chairperson for the CHSCA and also served on the Senior All-Star Volleyball Game committee from its inception until 2014. In the educational setting, Cindy represented The Gilbert School by serving as treasurer of the Connecticut Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (CTAHPERD) for five years and as Finance Committee Chairperson for sixteen years. CTAHPERD recognized her with a Professional Merit Award in 1999.

At Gilbert she teaches Wellness and has also taught Health Science and Math. With her colleagues, she received an Outstanding Program Award for the Wellness department’s “Parenting Awareness Program” from CTAHPERD in 2000.In her community, Cindy is a member of the Colebrook Lions Club and received their Outstanding Member Award for 2003-2004. As a club member, Cindy is the advisor for the Gilbert LEO Club, the student service club sponsored by the LIONS. She received several Service Awards from the Winsted Lions Club for being an outstanding Leo Club Advisor.

Erica Webster Kearney

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Erica played at Cheshire High School from 1996 to 1999. She was a three year starter.

In 1996, her team won the SCC – Southern Connecticut Conference title. In 1997, she was a defensive specialist amassing 149 digs and 42 serving aces. Her team won the Housatonic Conference Championship and the Class L State Championship.

In 1998, playing both offense and defense, Erica had 240 kills, 160 digs, and 50 aces. Her team again won the SCC Conference title and their 2nd Class L State Championship. In addition, Erica was named to the All-Housatonic Team, the All-State 2nd Team, and the New Haven Register named her to their All-Area Team.

In 1999, her senior year, Erica finished her outstanding career with 239 kills, 149 digs and 27 aces. Her team again won their conference title in which Erica was named the Most Valuable Player. They were Class L State Run-ners Up and she was named to the All-Housatonic Team. That year, Erica was named not only First Team All-State but the Senior All-Star Team as well. The New Haven Register named her to their All-Area Team and the Hartford Courant named her Connecticut Player of the Year.

In all, Erica’s career record at Cheshire was 93 and 6. Her teams won four Housatonic titles, three Southern Connecticut Conference titles, one Class L State Runner-Up title and two Class L State Championships. She was also named to two All-Housatonic Teams, two All-State Teams, two All-Area Teams and a Senior All-Star Team.

After her distinguished career, Erica played for Springfield College and was captain in her senior year.

Madison McCaffery

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Madison McCaffery played at Ludlowe in Fairfield from 2007-2010. She also played basketball and lacrosse but decided in her junior year to play on a travel volleyball team and concentrate on volleyball. Concentrating on volleyball cer-tainly paid off as Madison became the captain of her team. In both her junior and senior year, Ludlowe was the runner up in not only their FCIAC Confer-ence – but also in Class LL state tournament as well.

Madison had an outstanding high school career. She finished her career with 107 career aces, 92 career blocks, 471 career digs, and 603 career kills – a Lud-lowe school record. She was recognized many times for her hard work and ac-complishments. In 2010, she was named the “Blue Streak” Player of the week and the month in her conference. She was also awarded the Most Valuable Player for the Ludlowe team and was named to the First Team All-Conference squad. Also in her senior year, she played in one of her most memorable matches. It was the semi-finals of the state tournament. Ludlowe was playing Mercy High School. It was a tight match throughout and Ludlowe was up 2 sets to 1. Madison remembers a few bad passes late in the third set which could have led them to fall apart mentally, but they stuck together as a team and were able to fight through and eventually win 3 to 2. Ludlowe finished runner up that year but Madison was named the 2010 Most Valuable Player in the State Tour-nament and was named to the Class LL First Team All-State.

In addition, Madison was named to the Senior All-Star Game by the Connecti-cut High School Coaches Association and was the 2010 Gatorade Volleyball Player of the Year for Connecticut.

Madison continued playing club volleyball at the University of Delaware. In her junior and senior year, she was president of the club.

http://www.gatorade.com/poy/assets/writable/12266/2010-11_VB_MMccaffery.pdf

Jerry Mallory

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Jerry Mallory was born in Ohio. He played volleyball while he was in the Navy from 1966 to 1986. His Navy team played in many Regional Tournaments.

Jerry also began his career as a referee in 1986 in the volleyball league at the Submarine Base in Groton and continues to officiate there. Shortly after he began, Tony Aretakis suggested to him that he become a high school official. Barbara Startup trained him and he was evaluated at UConn at a pre-season scrimmage. In 1987, he was rated as a state referee and a certified line judge. In 1988, he officiated college matches which were part of the NAGWS – the National Association for Girls and Women in Sports. Jerry remembers their uniform included blue and white striped, double knit shirts that were both uncomfortable and hot! Jerry began officiating boys’ varsity matches at the beginning of boys’ high school volleyball in Connecticut.

In 1988, Jerry also began officiating girls’ high school matches and from 1992 to 1994; he served as the Officials’ Board Vice-Chair. He later officiated high school state tournaments, high school state tournament finals, as well as Division I college tournaments. He remembers marathon volley-ball tournaments at Eastern Connecticut State College when officials would walk in at 9:00 AM and leave at midnight!

From 1988 to 2014, Jerry was the Groton Park and Recreation Adult Volley-ball League Supervisor and head referee and continues to serve as the referee. In addition, from 1989 to 2009 Jerry volunteered as the coordinator / supervisor for Southeastern Connecticut Easter Seals Volleyball Marathon. In addition from 1998 to the present, he is an Executive Board Member-at-Large for the Southern New England Board of Officials.

Jerry has been involved with volleyball for 45 years as a player and official at almost every level of competitive volleyball.

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!