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

RESULTS

RECORDS

In the third day of the four CIAC Indoor Track and Field Class Championships on Saturday, the Class S meet featured the Bloomfield girls who took home their 15th consecutive title by a wide margin while the Warhawk boys repeated as champions. Among the exciting competition were four meet records in the boys 1000m and 3200m, plus the girls shot put and girls 4x400m relay. 

Girls Championship Highlights

The Bloomfield girls have had a stranglehold on Class S going back to 2010 but this was their most dominating performance as they scored 130 points, the most ever during the streak. Sacred Heart Academy took the runner-up spot for the 2nd year in a row with 61.5 points with Lyme-Old Lyme taking 3rd with 44 points. 

Bloomfield kept piling on the points and not only scored in 10 out of the 15 events, they won seven and scored multiple people in four of them. 

Anne Burrows, who has been with the program since 2009 and the head coach since 2011, felt the team could score 126 points going into the meet. “It was one of our ugliest ways to do it. We have had an off season with a few injuries and we had some mishaps today. But all of them are all back and we are making it work.”

Bloomfield girls CIAC S champions courtesy of CIAC

Bloomfield didn’t even qualify a 1600m sprint medley until Monday’s Last Chance Qualifying meet and on Saturday the baton was bumped out of Nacquelia Fletcher, their leadoff runner’s hand which caused them to be 20 yards behind at the first hand off. Here teammates Indya Norman, Soleigh Dixon and D’asia Duncan clawed their way back and won in 4:24.38, four seconds off their seed time. Points were lost as defending champion Jahniya Barclay crossed the finish line first in the 300m but was DQed for a lane violation. 

Despite these setbacks they also won the 4x200m and the team of Duncan, Kiylah Williams, Soleigh Dixon and Barclay broke their own record in the 4x400m when they finished in 4:02.63, 15 seconds better than runner-up Sacred Heart Academy. 

Bloomfield’s 55m sprinters simply dominated with four making the finals as Saphyr Brown won in 7.26 bringing home a total of 22 points in the one event. 

Even with Barclay’s DQ in the 300m, they still went 2-3 behind the efforts of Caleah Baker (41.82) and Anaejah Gray (43.04).

Duncan, the All American heptathlete has been injured the past few weeks and still ended up winning the 600m in 1:37.62 plus running legs in the winning SMR and 4x400m relay. She replaced the defending champion Kiylah Williams in the 600m who has also been injured the past few weeks and was relegated to only running on the winning 4x400m. To make up for the fact she couldn’t run the open 600m, she started throwing the shot put only a few weeks ago and ended up in 4th with a distance of 34-0. 

Vanessa Agyemang, led a 1 through 4 sweep in the long jump leaping 18-1.75 on her 6th jump, she took gold in the 55m hurdles in 8.76 and ran a leg of the winning 4x200m to contribute 30 points toward her team’s total.

Maya Quaranta led Sacred Heart with a record breaking win in the shot put. On her 2nd throw she popped out a mark of 44-10.25. This is the 3rd throw in the last four meets that the Yale committed athlete has gone over 44 feet with her best of 45-5 at the Throwhawks Throw Party. That throw ranked her 17th in the US and #3 all time in CT history, about a foot and a half less than Tynisha McMillan’s 19 year-old state record of 46-11.75.

Class S shot put champion Maya Quaranta of SHA, photo posted on X

Sacred Heart Academy was also ably aided in their runner-up finish by their winning 4x800m relay team of Mavis Banks, Abigail Chang, Cassidy Colantonio and Avery Stewart who came in seeded 5th but raced 27 seconds faster to become state champions.

Chase Gilbert of Lyme-Old Lyme did not run last year due to an injury but she picked right where she left off. Two years ago, she was a member of the winning 4x800m relay and came back to win the 3200m. On Saturday, the junior had a tougher double but the result was the same number of points as she won the 1000m in 2:59.11 and 1600m in 5:02.61 while running as relaxed as possible. 

Boys Championship Highlights

Bloomfield fueled their second consecutive title behind the efforts of their hurdlers, jumpers, throwers and relays scoring 72 points with runner-up Derby 22 points behind and Bacon Academy with 40. This win was unexpected according to Bloomfield coach Garfield White.

“This was definitely the hardest one because everyone was sick.Delante Senior, my best hurdler, has been in and out of school the past two weeks and hasn’t been able to practice. My second hurdler, two days ago, was out with the flu. I am shocked they competed today. Our times were alright, but they weren’t what I was expecting.”

Bloomfield boys CIAC S champions courtesy of CIAC

One bright spot for Bloomfield was by Zion Banton who only learned to high jump three weeks ago and qualified at the Last Chance Meet five days before the championship. In less than a week the junior improved from 5-8 to 6-2 to take the bronze medal and earn an unexpected six points.

But the brightest spot for the WarHawks came in the 55m hurdles. Despite being sick, Senior barely out leaned Derby’s Jaylen Titus who was only .008 seconds behind with both being awarded the time of 7.71. Singleton and Shaun Lazenby took the 3rd and 4th spots finishing in 7.90 and 7.92 respectively to earn 20 points in this one event. 

Singleton was also 2nd in the long jump at 22-3.0 and joined with Jahiem Lawrence, Senior and Sergio Rose Jr. to win the 4x400m in 3:30.46.

Defending shot put champion Khile Francis did not come in as the top seed. But just like last year, he unleashed a PR at the right time to come away with the win with a toss of 54-11.25. This throw moves the junior up to CT#5 with a solid chance of making New Englands.

Besides winning the 4x400m to close out the meet, Bloomfield also took 3rd in the 4x200m and the sprint medley relay to add 22 points to their total in the relays

There were two Class S distance records set on Saturday. In the 1000m senior Dylan Bathrick of Cromwell went right to the front clocking 29-30 second laps with Evan LoPresti of East Hampton some 10 meters behind the entire way. Both dipped under Will Rickers’ 15 year-old record running 2:30.44 and 2:31.43. “It feels amazing," Bathrick explained. “All season long, I just wanted to beat that mark, test myself and see what I could do.”

Both boys will attend Central Connecticut next year along with 1600m champion Matt Kraszewski of Hale Ray who won in 4:28.52.

In the 3200m sophomore Tycen LaBelle of Griswold was content to sit in the pack as early pace setter Joseph DeLuise of Oxford set a hot early pace. About halfway through the race, LaBelle decided he needed to pick it up and started to chase DeLuise who was the Class S champion last outdoor season and came with a seed time of 9:47. Deluise was on a low 9:20 pace for the first half of the race which set up LaBelle perfectly to win in 9:22.91, breaking Sean Kennedy-Wonneberger’s Class record by 15 seconds. Deluise held on for an indoor best of 9:40.09. 

Derby used their depth to score 20 of their 50 points in the relays. Quincy Carter, Jarell Williams, Zyare Petree and Titus joined together to win the 4x200m in 1:36.01. Their SMR earned silver and the 4x400m finished in 5th place. The Raiders also earned a surprise win when senior Sebastian Amaya tied his PR on his last attempt to win the pole vault at 12-6.