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

RESULTS

Behind their powerful distance squad, Mercy won their first Southern Connecticut Conference Outdoor Track and Field title since 2016 by holding off defending champions Hillhouse by a score of 99-75. Defending champions Xavier were denied a three-peat on the boys side and were overtaken by Hamden who scored 132 points to Xavier’s total of 98 points at Amity High School on Tuesday. 

Boys Championship Highlights

Hamden just won their first SCC Outdoor Track title of the century with only two individual wins but they scored in 15 of the 18 events with multiple scorers in 5 of them. The Green Dragons single win on the track came from New England 1000m champion Alex Medina who took the 800m in 1:54.35 after finishing 3rd in one of the most competitive 1600m races of the season which was won by Xavier’s Jack Ouellette in 4:12.68 with Luke Cushing of Amity taking 2nd in 4:14.29. They both broke the meet record and are the top two 1600m in the state this season. In the triple jump Robert Adkins had a 2 foot PR to win with a distance of 43-2.5. He was also 2nd in the long jump (21-2.25) and 4th in the 100m (11.22).

Jack Davis of Fairfield Prep was a double champion taking the 100m in 10.78 and 200m in 21.71. He was prevented from winning a third gold medal when his 4x100m was disqualified. 

Up until last year, if you broke 15 seconds in the hurdles you were almost guaranteed a chance to make New Englands. So far there have been 14 boys under 14.90 and one of them is Willam Gibson who set his PR of 14.29. The same can be said about the 300m hurdles where usually less than 10 boys were under 40 seconds. The Hillhouse senior set another PR of 38.73 and is one of 19 boys under that barrier. He was named the Meet’s Most Outstanding Performer.

Daniel Hand continues to excel in the sprint relays, taking both the 4x100m and 4x400m events in meet record times. The 4x100m relay of Stone Leckey, Lucas Nolte, Aedan Virgulto and Matthew Petersen ran 42.54 to hold off Hamden by .4 seconds. Nolte, Petersen, Virgulto and John Daniels went under 3:20 for the second time this season, running a time of 3:19.29 for the win. Nolte came away with his 3rd gold medal when he won the 400m in a time of 48.97. 

Girls Championship Highlights

Over half of Mercy’s points came from distance events from the 800m and longer. The Tigers started off the meet with the team of Heather Meisinger, Allison Pelletier, Ruby Kuselias and Alyson Low claiming victory in a time of 9:53.87. Junior Sarah Roberts did a lot of the heavy lifting as she won the 1600 in 5:12.26, 800m in 2:20.08 and 3200m in 11:29.81. For sweeping the three distance races, Roberts was named Meet’s Most Outstanding Performer. She had a great deal of help from freshman Cora Wasiolek who took 2nd in both the 1600m and 3200m to earn 16 points. Kathleen Gaboury also added significant points in the throws, taking 2nd in the discus (99-10) and 4th in the shot put (32’8.0)

Hillhouse had a double winner with Deanna Moore taking the 400m in a 57.57, the 7th best time in CT this season. She came back to join her teammates Darea Vargas, Briana Thompson, and Crystal Harris to run 4:03.47 in the 4x400m. 

Hamden had a strong day behind the SCC “Queen of the Sprints”, Shanez De Roche. The junior is working her way into one of the top sprinters in the state with a wind-legal PR of 12.17 in the 100m and  24.83 in the 200m. She was also a member of the 4x100m along with Megan Stallworth, Siobhan Diggs and Chyle Bond to claim her 3rd gold medal with a CT #3 time of 48.25, which also broke the meet record and is the 11th fastest school record in state history.

Sacred Heart Academy’s Maya Quaranta has gone undefeated in the SCC for the past two years. Before she heads off to Yale, she claimed more gold medals in the throwing events. The defending State Open discus champion claimed the win in the event with a near PR of 125-8. Interestingly, she is only 4th in CT among CIAC athletes. The Shark had a solid day in the shot, claiming the victory with a 41-4.5 throw. 

Ella Stone was the Female Field MVP after she won two events and placed in a third. The Branford jumper cleared 5 feet for the first time to take the win in the high jump and long jumped 17-6.0 to grab her second gold medal. In the triple jump, the senior reached a distance of 34-0.5 to take 7th. 

The javelin is an event that if you do one thing differently, you can see a monster improvement. Mallory Boney must have figured something out because she popped off a 19 foot season best and a 15 foot lifetime best. The East Haven junior’s winning throw of 126-9 moved her all the way up to number two in CT and number five in New England. 

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