This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Sports

Loss of Pollack Stirs Farmington for Title Run

Indians may be missing their All-State center but three straight tournament wins have the entire town believing.

Contemporary culture suggests that we do everything possible to shield young people from adversity but nobody could run interference for the loss suffered by the Farmington High boys basketball team.

For three years, esteemed head coach Duane Witter meticulously built toward this season, when he estimated the Indians could make a run at the state championship that has thus far eluded Farmington. Conjecture was the dream came to an abrupt end when 6-foot-7 center Ben Pollack fractured his right ankle February 25 in the CCC quarterfinals at Bulkeley High School.

But 17 days later, the dream lives on.

Find out what's happening in Farmingtonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Farmington, with Pollack’s teammates lifting their game up a few notches, meets Northwest Catholic Tuesday night at New Britain High for the right to play in the Class L title game later in the week on the big stage at Mohegan Sun Arena.

In addition to the intrepid group that has fended through rugged challenges posed by Lyman Hall, North Haven and Branford in the first three rounds, the raucous student rooting section (the Tribe), a supportive group of parents and the general populace have enthusiastically jumped aboard.

Find out what's happening in Farmingtonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“There’s a lot of spirit in the school,” Witter said. “I can’t tell you how many letters, emails, phone calls and text messages. Countless. The community made me feel so great about what we’re doing and I think these kids deserve that. They helped us win the games and you can’t tell me otherwise.”

The Indians were on a breakaway early in the league tournament game against Manchester. Ivan Guadalupe was on one block with the ball and guard Vasil Borisevich was on the other. Pollack was trailing the play, sandwiched by defenders. He went up to dunk, the defender tried to block it and Pollack’s ankle rolled, bones cracking under his weight.

Two pins, a plate and five screws hold the ankle intact with doctors saying he will be able to continue his career at Amherst College. The pins come out in three months.

Pollack remains engaged in the team’s success. He and guard Jalen Hurst embraced and shed tears after the Class L quarterfinal win on Friday.

“Every kid before the game – especially Trey [Witter], Nieko [Labbadia] and [Mike] English – will come over and say, ‘This is for you,’” Pollack said. “It’s been really emotional.”

Pollack explained how adversity has built character within the framework of the team.

“You can’t go through adversity by yourself,” he said. “When you’re older and your parents die, you go through it with your siblings. War you go through it with your country. Me getting hurt, I’ve gone through it with my family and my team. Coach says it’s the closest team he’s ever had.”

And one of the most successful. The Indians go into the semifinals at 20-5. The only other team in school history that amassed more than 20 wins was the 2006-07 team that lost to Maloney in the semifinals (22-5).

“We lose to Manchester (55-53) and we get hit with the news that Ben is done for the season,” Coach Witter said. “We got on the bus and it was dead silent. We drove the bus to [Hartford Hospital], we got off and we were in the waiting room, the emergency room. A lot of emotion. The kids were in tears.”

When they returned to the high school, Witter spoke of adversity. He told his players that much sadder things have happened in the hospital, that Ben was not going to die and he would play basketball again. The first few days were difficult.

“They were still broke up,” Witter said. “We tried to have some fun in practice and it wasn’t working.”

Fortunately, the Indians had eight days to put together the pieces for a stretch run and they dug deep.

“I knew that we were good enough to compete in the state tournament but I didn’t know about the emotional state of the team,” Witter said. “I wasn’t sure that we were going to be able to overcome that, especially if we got punched in the face early.”

Lyman Hall, one of the stronger teams in the CCC in recent years, was a stunning first-round assignment. North Haven and Branford were also survivors in the New Haven-area league that features Hillhouse, Wilbur Cross and Career magnet.

Obi Momah, a 6-5 sophomore, picked up the scoring slack, scoring over 20 points per game in the tournament. English pounded the boards. Hurst and Guadalupe rallied, too.

“[The injury] was probably the worst thing that could have happened,” said Hurst, who is headed for Nichols College next fall. “Me and Ben played together since fifth grade. I started my career with him and wanted to finish but that obviously can’t happen. As a team, it’s hard to lose your leading scorer and rebounder and we had to find ways to pick [it] up.”

Witter felt his confidence grow. Farmington crushed North Haven by 20 points in the second round.

“We got our swag back,” he said. “We had a lot of swagger going into the conference tournament to win. That’s how much swag we had at the end of the year.”

Northwest Catholic poses an interesting semifinal foe. The West Hartford team, also nicknamed the Indians,  lost a key starter – all-league guard Zack Lewis – at about the same time Farmington lost Pollack. Lewis was dismissed for disciplinary reason.

Northwest has beaten Farmington nine consecutive times and still has Kuran Iverson, a 6-foot-9 junior with a future in Division I.

But the Tribe has its route to New Britain High all mapped out. Farmington should enjoy a home-court feel because the small Northwest fan base is divided between basketball and hockey Tuesday night. Can they make it to the casino for the final? Don’t bet against it.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?