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

RESULTS

The Dan O’Grady Relays has established itself as one of the largest and oldest meets in Connecticut. What began as a single meet to give tribute to the Hall of Fame coach Dan O’Grady in 1979 by several of his former runners who had become outstanding coaches in their own right, has grown into a tradition that teams from all over the state look forward to every year. When bad weather was forecast for Saturday, Danbury coach and meet director Rob Murray made a quick decision to move the main portion of the meet to run under the lights on Friday and cancel the original Friday portion of the meet in order to hold the team event competition.

Relays on the track are common, but in this meet, even the field events are scored by combining the best performances from three athletes. All of this is scored as both an overall team competition and three divisions based on size. Danbury boys defended their title by defeating Greenwich by a score of 59 to 44 and Bloomfield girls moved up from 5th last year by defeating Newtown by a score of 70 to 52.5. There were 33 boys teams and 29 girls teams in attendance. 

Newtown girls came away with the large school trophy over New Canaan by a score of 77 to 67. Pomperaug held off St Joseph by two points, 56-54 and Bloomfield, the overall champion barely got by Sheehan 73-70. Danbury’s team not only hosted the meet, they won both the overall and large school division by defeating Greenwich 85-69. St. Joseph easily took home the medium school division scoring 68 points with Wethersfield taking 2nd place with 52 points. The small school team battle went to Weston who scored 84 with Coginchaug getting 2nd with 77 points. 

The Hatter’s only gold medal came in the Jimmy Ogden Long Jump. Tobeas Kelly leaped 21-10.50, Antony Butler was measured at 18-06.75 and Tristen Brewster reached a distance of 18-02.00 for a combined distance of 58-07.24

The night started off with a bang as Bloomfield crushed the meet record in the 300m hurdle. New England champion D’Asia Duncan had the fastest time of the day, running 44.09 with Vanessa Agyemang running a PR of 45.90. April Nathaniel finished up the scoring in 51.57 to give them a combined time of 2:21.56 which is more than five seconds faster than Windsor’s record set in 2022. 

The War Hawks also won 4x100m and 4x400m in state leading times of 48.48 and 4:00.20. They displayed depth by also winning the 4x200m, Discus relay (312-5.0), the Bruce Clark High Jump (14-2) and Long Jump (49-8).

Weston won the Marty Ogden 4x800m in a new meet record of 8:03.10. The team of Nick Masters (2:00.24), Brett Martin (2:01.40), Asher Leuzzi (2:03.03), Markus Soennichsen (1:58.43) took down Fairfield Ludlowe’s eight year-old record by just over a second. A little farther back was Class S 1000m record holder Dylan Bathrick of Cromwell, who was eating up the track, running a 1:53.90 split which is his lifetime best. He helped his team take the bronze medal in 8:19.64 behind runner-up Hall at 8:07.45. 

Coginchaug boys had an outstanding day breaking two school records. Their 4x400m team of James Parmelee, Liam Ullman, John Parmelee and Charles Dalles ran 3:25.77 which not only took the win, but also became the state leading team. They were greatly aided by Dalles’ 48.06 split. Dalles, who won New Englands this winter in the 600m, also had the fastest time of the day in the 300m hurdles and broke his school record with his time of 39.03. 

Before Dan O’Grady came to Danbury, he was coaching at LaSalle Academy in Rhode Island where his teams went undefeated for eight straight years, winning 24 state championships, 10 New England titles and three national individual titles. The Rams have continued that tradition and are still a dominant program in Rhode Island and the region. This past winter, they won New Englands in the 4x200m and were second in the 4x400m. On Friday, they attended O’Gradys for the first time and won the 4x100m in 42.38 and 4x200m in the New England leading time of 1:28.10.

They were pushed by East Hartford who broke their school record of 1:30.1 for 4x220 yds set in 1963 and finished 2nd in 1:29.71 which is the #11 fastest time in CT history. 

Amity’s Liliana Quill popped off her outdoor PR of 11’6 and moved up to #2 in CT. 

Bloomfield took the top three spots at the Indoor State Open long jump and finishing 4th was Aashni Shetty. The Newtown senior was able to turn the tables and was able to take the top leap with a jump of 17-04.0. This was only a couple of weeks after she broke the school record with a jump of 18’5.0 at a dual meet. 

Lauren Smith had a very busy week. At the Penn Relays the New Canaan senior threw 123-8 which is CT #1 javelin for 2025. She returned two days later and had the best throw at O’Gradys with a distance of 118-08.

If you enjoy the content that MySportsResults provides, then your help is needed to keep our content FREE for you by shopping for your gear at our sponsor Marathon Sports who helped make articles like these possible.

Foss Running Camp

Will take place August 14-19, 2025 at Camp Wah Nee in Torrington, CT

Visit their website at fossrunningcamp.com for more information and to apply for 2025.