By Senior Correspondent Marty Ogden, Editing and Graphics by Ron Knapp

Elm City Coaches Meet

Floyd Little Athletic Center, Hillhouse HS, New Haven CT

RESULTS

Photos of L/LL Meet from Mr. Rosenberg (watermarks removed with purchase)

Class M/S Meet 

While championships are still several weeks away, the Elm City Coaches Meet held Class M/S school events on Friday and Class L/LL teams on Saturday. While many teams were missing people, this gave us all a good indication who might contend for some hardware in the post season. On Friday, Sheehan boys scored 81.5 points with Tolland earning 63 for second place out of 23 scoring teams. Sheehan girls joined the boys in the winner’s circle scoring 71 points with Daniel Hand scoring 58 points out of 25 teams.

Dylan Vazquez of Sheehan cleared 14-3, earning the win and breaking his 5th school record in the vault. This indoor mark surpassed a school record that had stood since 2003, securing the #2 spot in CT for pole vault, and #62 in the US. “This is awesome. There is no better feeling than falling 14-15 feet up in the sky.” 

Check out Dylan’s Interview on MySportsResults’ YouTube Channel.

Joe DeLuise continues to pile up the wins. He used this meet as preparation for the upcoming NVL championships and still managed to take three wins. He easily won the 1000m in 2:39.34 PR and faced a stiff challenge from Avon’s Brahm Bulow for the first six laps before throwing in a sub 30-second lap to pull away. He won in a time of 4:27.29. He finished off his day by taking the 3200m in 9:48.82. With his ultimate goal this season to break 15 minutes in the 5k at nationals, he is well on his way. “I knew I had to get out well to secure my position. My legs were still a little tired after the 1k. About mid way through the race, I tucked in behind Braham and I was just thinking I wanted to bide my time. I just wanted to kick the last three or four hundred and I was happy I was able to close it out.”

Check out Joe’s Interview on MySportsResults’ YouTube Channel.

Last year at the State Open, Foran’s Alexandria McWatters had a nearly 2 foot PR in the shot to finish in 9th place. In her first meet of the season, she broke her PR once again winning with a throw of 36- 4.5. This moves her up to the 5th place ranked in the state this winter. 

Elm City Coaches Class L/LL Meet

Glastonbury boys battled it out with E.O. Smith and barely held them off scoring 57 with the Panthers only four points behind with 25 teams scoring. On the girls side, Windsor ran away with it, scoring 79 points. But it was a tight race for 2nd with Hillhouse scoring 54 points, only a half of a point ahead of Fairfield Ludlowe. Glastonbury took 4th with 52 points. 

There was a real showdown in the girls 300m between outdoor State Open 400m champion Paige Wilson of Windsor and track newcomer Amaira Traynham of Wilbur Cross. With Wilson in lane three and Traynham just to her outside it took 250 for Wilson to make up the stagger. The pair battled the final straightaway with the Windsor junior crossing the line in 41.42 and the Cross sophomore finishing in 41.53. They are now ranked #2 and 3 in CT this season. Traynham also won the 600m with another strong time of 1:42.99. 

Davian Johnson simply tore up the track last year and could not be stopped even with hurdles in his way. In what was already a deep year for the 55m hurdles in CT. Four of the top 12 hurdlers in state history lined up against each other at the State Open and he came out on top against this star studded field. At the beginning of the winter, the East Hartford junior was running in the 7.7 range but eventually got down to 7.36, the 4th fastest time in CT history. On Saturday, he proved he is already at that level with over two months to go in the season and plenty of chances to improve, running a 7.38, the 7th best time in the nation. 

As what has come to be expected, Glastonbury’s Lauren Parrett went right to the front in the 1000m with Sofia Holovatska of South Windsor back in the pack, gradually moving up until two two laps to go, it became a two way race. The pair were only a couple of yards apart with Holovatska gaining a little with each step but Parrett was barely able to hold off her CCC rival, winning in a time of 3:05.31 to 3:05.75. 

A pair of Southington football players are rewriting their school’s record books the past couple of weeks. A week ago Walker Mierzejewski broke the 200m indoor record and also tied the record in the 55m. But his teammate, Chimdi Ogbuagu blazed to a 6.57 win and broke the record with Mierzejewski coming in 2nd with a time of 6.64, only .01 off his PR. With both of these outstanding runners in the line-up, their 4x200m record could go down next week at Yale or at least later in the season. 

Making a huge leap in the pole vault was Conard’s Elise McNamee. Last year she was a consistent 9 feet jumper and cleared 9-6 once outdoors to finish 16th at the State Open. On Saturday, she was one of four girls still competing at 10 feet when she became the only one to make the height. She attributes jumping with Sky Jumpers in the off season for her improvement. With that jump, she became 5th ranked girl in CT. 

Check out Elise’s Interview on MySportsResults’ YouTube Channel. 

Another big PR came from Simon Dawson of Fairfield Ludlowe. The junior was a consistent 11 fee and 11-6 vaulter last outdoor with a best one time of 12 ft. He went up against E.O. Smith’s Caden Miller, son of long time UConn Associate Director of Cross Country and Track & Field. The pair both set PRs at 12-6 but only Dawson could clear 13 feet and took the win. 

Check out Simon’s Interview on MySportsResults’ YouTube Channel. 

Lexie Lockwood broke another Fairfield Ludlowe school record tossing a meet best of 36-0.5 in the shot put and surpassing her previous record of 35-11. She is now ranked #7 in CT. 

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Apple Bank Hispanic Games

The Nike Track & Field Center at The Armory, NY

RESULTS

MSR Finishline Photos from Ron Knapp

Meet Photos from John Nepolitan

Connecticut teams have been taking advantage of the Armory’s lightning fast track for the past three decades and several teams once again made the trip down to northern Manhattan to compete against some of the best athletes on the northeast coast. 

In her 2nd meet of the season Guilford’s Kaylin Diglio competed in three events but shined in the brightest on the pole vault, her specialty. She made five consecutive attempts without a miss in the and then the bar was moved up to the CT state record height of 12-9.0. An unfortunate break in competition for the next 15 minutes came just before her final attempts as the track was cleared while a small electrical fire was extinguished in the lights above the long jump pits. While the sophomore didn’t make that height because she had no misses, she came away with the win at 12-3.0 which is only three inches off her PR she set just before Christmas in Boston. She also ran personal bests in the 55m hurdles (8.92) and 400m (1:01.63). 

Besides the pole vault, we are also on the state record watch in the girls 55m hurdles. Bloomfield’s D’Asia Duncan continues to drop her time against nationally ranked competition as she took 4th in a US #11 time of 8.14. Her time moves her up to number five on CT’s all time top performance list, not too far from Tess Stapleton’s 7.88 set in 2020 just before the Covid shut down. The All American heptathlete also finished off the meet with a 25.1 relay split to help the WarHawks to a state leading 1:46.25 time in the 4x200m. 

The Rich brothers are at it again. Lyman Hall twin brothers Aaron and Ethan Rich are getting plenty of national recognition. Aaron went over 24 feet in the long jump for the second time in a week. He won with a distance of 24-0.5 with his brother taking 3rd and tying his PR 22-6.25. Aaron is already ranked #1 in the country with his performance at the U.S. Marine Corps Holiday Classic last week and Ethan is in the top 50 nationally. In the high jump, both cleared 6-6 with Ethan taking 2nd and Aaron finishing in 4th place overall. In Ethan’s 3rd event he triple jumped 44-8.25 with his brother Aaron testing his raw speed running 6.74 in the 55m dash earlier in the day. 

Windsor’s Shelldon Simpson II is showing off incredible range this winter. He has already run state leading times of 6.45 in the 55m and 34.12 in the 300m. On Saturday, he moved up to the 400m and took over the state leading time in that event as well, finishing 2nd in 48.77 to become ranked 12th in the US and take over the 5th spot on the CT all time top performance list from Cromwell’s Nassyr Andrade. While Simpson is more likely to stay in the 300m and Andrade is likely to move up into the 600m for the championship season, it should be very exciting to see who comes out on top in the spring season when both can face each other in the one lap event. 

Bloomfield girls continued to show off their depth in the long jump with Vanessa Agyemang going over 18 feet for the second time of the season, winning with a distance of 18-4.0, only 3/4 of an inch off her season best. The senior also finished 11th in the 55m hurdles, tying her season best of 8.43 and ran a leg of the 4x200m with Duncan, Jahniya Barclay and Saphyr Brown. April Nathaniel had her season best of 17-6.0 to finish 5th spot in the state this season with only three Bloomfield teammates in front of her.

There were three nationally ranked performers competing on the pole vault runway on Saturday led by NY state record holder Luke Beattie. The senior won at 16-3 with his Warwick Valley teammate Klaus Lindenau tying Daniel Hand’s Sean Arms at 14-3. Arms has already cleared 15-6 this winter which is only four inches off the state record held by Chris Rough and Joe Fogarasi from the 2015 New Balance Nationals Indoor Championships. 

In the distance events, defending New England champion Sam Leone of East Lyme continues to gain experience against some of the best in the nation. He finished 7th in the Invitational mile that was won by NY state leader and Federation cross country champion Claudel Marc Chery in a time of 4:12.53. Leone passed two runners in the final 100m of the race and improved upon his CT leading time, running 4:17.77.

Also in the same field was New Canaan’s Ryan Monohan who broke another school record, running 4:20.62 to take over the #2 spot in CT. 

In the girls 3000m, vastly improved Sarah Bogdan of Staples took 2nd place, running a time of  9:59.51 and cracked the CT all time list for the first time. She is less than a second behind Tess Sherry’s time from last year and moves her up to 13th nationally. This is over a 40-second improvement from her time last year at the Yale Invitational. 

It’s not too early to think about your plans for summer training that could include attending the Foss Running Camp!