Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.
softball

Softball season thrown open: Webutuck and Millbrook field a joint varsity team

Softball season thrown open: Webutuck and Millbrook field a joint varsity team

Continuing a practice regimen during spring break at Webutuck’s athletic field on Monday, March 25, the combined girls’ softball team is preparing for its 2024 season. The newly combined team has gained three members from Millbrook High School this year.

Leila Hawken

AMENIA — Aligned with a growing trend toward schools combining sports programs to field viable teams, Webutuck High School has welcomed three players from Millbrook High School for the 2024 girls’ softball season, growing their team to 13.

Head coach Chris Osterman, now in his second season of coaching the girls’ softball team, was conducting an intensive practice session at Webutuck on Monday, March 25, despite the academic spring break; practice was scheduled throughout the school’s spring break to ensure that the team would be ready for the coming season.

Osterman has been coaching sports at Webutuck for 18 years of experience coaching sports at Webutuck.

Another team experiencing its first combined year is girls’ soccer, said Daniel Pietrafesa, a spokesperson for Webutuck Central School District. The boys’ football team has also joined forces with Millbrook’s team.

“It’s very beneficial, giving young athletes a chance to compete in the sport they love playing,” said Pietrafesa. “We’re all here to give the kids a chance to play.”

Overall, there are three combined teams participating in the spring sports season, Pietrafesa said. Those teams are track and field, softball and baseball.

“Millbrook brings a lot of talent,” said team member Grainne Williams, a Webutuck senior.

“I like to meet and have new people playing with me,” she added, predicting that her team will have a winning season. Williams praised the team’s potential as they are learning to work as a team and she spoke for her team that they have a good coach.

An experienced combined girls’ team soccer player (outside wing) in the fall sports roster, pitcher Madison Krueger of Millbrook, a junior, is no less enthusiastic about her softball team’s prospects this year.

Varsity softball opens its season on Wednesday, April 3 at Housatonic Valley Regional High School. The home opener and league opener will be against Dover on Wednesday, April 10.

The season will continue until mid-May.

Leila Hawken
softball

Latest News

Tri-Corner Real Estate - November 2026

Tri-Corner Real Estate - November 2026

Download directly

The Millerton News - October 29, 2026

The Millerton News - October 29, 2026

Download directly

A life reshaped by clay in “Matin”

A life reshaped by clay in “Matin”

Left to right: Hannah Wheeler, Matin Malikzada and Yonah Sadeh.

D.H. Callahan

On Monday, Oct. 26, a group of students, teachers and local residents gathered at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville for a screening of the new short documentary “Matin.” The film tells the story of Matin Malikzada, a seventh-generation Afghani potter making a new life in New Milford, Connecticut. The film was made by local filmmaker Yonah Sadeh, creator of the Video Wall at the David M. Hunt Library, and Berkshires-based potter Hannah Wheeler, who were both present for the screening, along with Malikzada himself.

As a member of the seventh generation of his family to master the art of pottery, Malikzada had done things the way his family had for over a century. Istalif, the village where his family has lived for generations, was known throughout Afghanistan for its pottery, with wares sent across the country for use as everyday cups, bowls, plates and other vessels. The pottery-making families of Istalif gathered clay from the same mountain, about 30 to 45 minutes away by donkey. Every July, they would head north toward the Uzbekistan border to gather ishkar, a plant they processed by hand to make their signature glazes.

Keep ReadingShow less
film
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

Meg Sher finds her calling among the stacks

Meg Sher finds her calling among the stacks

Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.

L. Tomaino

When Meg Sher came to Falls Village in 2006 from Old Lyme, Connecticut, where she grew up, she never imagined she’d someday be the executive director of the David M. Hunt Library.

Although, in hindsight, perhaps it makes sense.

Keep ReadingShow less
our community

Crescendo’s 23rd season speaks to the heart and mind

Crescendo’s 23rd season speaks to the heart and mind

Christine Gevert, founding artistic director of Crescendo, conducts the audience at a performance.

Steve Potter

For Christine Gevert, founding artistic director of Crescendo, music from centuries past is anything but a relic. It is a living, breathing art form, full of drama, emotional complexity and, occasionally, surprises. As the regional choral and period-instrument ensemble launches its 23rd season, Gevert is once again bringing forgotten masterpieces into the present.

“Early Music has been my lifelong passion and the focus of my specialization in Europe and South America,” Gevert said. “Bringing this repertoire to our audiences in a nuanced way that does justice to its incredible depth, intensity, and beauty is deeply important to me.”

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts

Close Encounters with Music celebrates 35 years of musical discovery

Close Encounters with Music celebrates 35 years of musical discovery

Close Encounters with Music’s 35th season opens with “Saluting the Clarinet” featuring clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein.

Provided

For 35 years, cellist Yehuda Hanani has been inviting audiences to experience classical music in unexpected ways. As founder and artistic director of Close Encounters with Music, Hanani has built a concert series that goes beyond the music itself, exploring connections to literature, history, politics and the human experience.

This year, Close Encounters celebrates its 35th season with “Celebration & Discovery,” a seven-concert series that opens Sunday, Nov. 1, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington.

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.