BY KYLE BRENNAN
CITIZEN’S NEWS
BEACON FALLS — At long last, Dec. 30 was a banner day for the Woodland softball team.
The school unveiled the Hawks’ 2022 Class M softball championship banner and presented players with championship rings at halftime of the girls basketball team’s game against Holy Cross.
All five players who graduated from last year’s team — Kylie Bulinski, Riley Kane, Isabella Kraemer, Cassidy Doiron and Rory Nolan — were in attendance during their semester breaks from college, as were the players who will return for the Hawks this spring.
Bulinski also received a banner of her own, acknowledging her status as a 2021 National Fastpitch Coaches Association All-American. Bulinski is the only All-American in Woodland history and is just the second athlete to have an individual banner in the Hawks’ gym; only Eric Alfiere, the 2007 New England, State Open, and Class M javelin champion, is individually honored on the wall.
Earlier in the school year, Woodland received another national softball honor. The Hawks were named one of the nation’s top 25 academic teams by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association.
Last spring, Woodland’s unweighted team grade-point average was a 3.667. That was the highest GPA of any high school in the Northeast.
Nine individual student-athletes were named NFCA All-America Scholar-Athletes as a result of the team honor. They included Bulinski, Doiron, Kane, Nolan, Paige Chiaramonte, Lindsay Koliani, Julia Rowley, Breanna Thurston and Ella VanAlstyne.
