Coach Jay's Legacy inspires team

The bench has an empty seat this spring for the Glastonbury Hartwell Girls U11 Premier Strikers. Their coach, Jay Bentivegna, lost a 9-month battle with cancer in January. This is the first season they faced without Coach Jay at the helm but his spirit has inspired success this spring and this Hartwell team of 10 and 11 year old girls has triumphed on and off the field despite facing such a difficult challenge at a young age.

Jay has been a volunteer for Hartwell for many years. He began as a coach for the recreation league coaching his 2 daughters, coached a Boys U9 Travel team, and eventually became Head Coach of a Girls Travel Team for the past 3 years. Despite his cancer diagnosis last spring, Jay Bentivegna still coached his team which included his 5th grader, Catherine, all the way through the fall 2014 season. He fought through a lot of pain to be coaching at the training sessions and game sidelines. The girls watched his decline through the seasons, and even spoke at his funeral.

This spring the girls took the field officially without him under the direction of their new Head Coach, Molly Donovan who was an Assistant to Jay. While things were different, his spirit was still very much present for the team and inspired a successful season. This past Memorial Day weekend the Strikers traveled to Cape Cod to their first premier level soccer tournament where they won their division! The best of 8 teams, they beat teams from CT and MA to take home the trophy!

Coach Jay’s team is one of the first to be placed in a Premier category by Hartwell. This is to allow for more rigorous competition with the other private clubs (instead of town teams) in the state. The success in the Premier brackets is a testament to Jay’s coaching and his commitment to the girls and to soccer. He truly loved the game and instilled the same love and dedication into his team using a winning combination of strong coaching, humor and compassion. When the GU11 Strikers took the field this spring, they knew they always had a 12th player on the field with them!