Tolland Athletes Competing for Connecticut D-I Universities This Fall

TOLLAND, CT — Talented high school student-athletes from across Connecticut aspire to be recruited to a Division I college or university, where they will compete at the highest level of NCAA athletics. Some standout athletes leave the state to pursue their athletic and academic dreams; three notable recent examples from north-central Connecticut are Jarvis Miller (Suffield, Penn State football), Mara Cosentino (Glastonbury, Colgate soccer) and Kat DeLoreto (Tolland, Boston College cross country).

Many other top student-athletes from Patch towns in Hartford and Tolland counties have stayed closer to home. Nearly 100 residents of those towns are currently on 2017 fall sports rosters at the seven Division I universities in Connecticut: UConn, Central Connecticut State University, Yale, the University of Hartford, Quinnipiac, Fairfield and Sacred Heart University.

UConn has the most fall student-athletes from the region with 24, nosing out Central's 23. With massive rosters, it is no surprise that football tops the list of most athletes by sport with 19, though women's soccer is close behind with 18.

A total of 22 Patch towns in those counties have at least one student-athlete on a fall roster, led by Glastonbury with 12 and West Hartford's 11. There are 53 men and 46 women listed.

Note: these figures may be slightly off, as several sports have yet to post their updated 2017 rosters online. In those cases, Patch editors included underclassmen from the 2016 rosters in compiling the lists.

Here is the breakdown by university...

• 24 - UConn
• 23 - Central Connecticut
• 16 - Sacred Heart
• 15 - Hartford
• 11 - Quinnipiac
• 7 - Fairfield
• 3 - Yale

...and by sport:

• 19 - football
• 18 - women's soccer
• 15 - men's soccer
• 14 - women's cross country
• 9 - men's cross country
• 7 - men's golf
• 5 - women's golf
• 3 - women's rowing
• 2 - men's tennis; field hockey; women's rugby
• 1 - men's rowing; women's volleyball; women's tennis

Tolland is represented by seven student-athletes:

• Courtney Akerley, cross country, UC, jr.
• Josh Bedard, cross country, UC, fr.
• Courtney Charbonneau, soccer, SH, so.
• Jordyn Dube, volleyball, CC, fr.
• Jenny Jacobs, soccer, FA, jr.
• Julia Sprout, cross country, UC, so.
• Kelsey Swanson, cross country, UC, jr.

KEY: UC = UConn; CC = Central Connecticut; SH = Sacred Heart; UH = Hartford; QU = Quinnipiac; FA = Fairfield; YU = Yale. Student-athletes with an asterisk (*) were underclassmen on 2016 fall rosters on teams which have not yet provided their 2017 rosters.

Patch graphic by Tim Jensen