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

RESULTS

MEET RECORDS

Photos - Track & Field Events by Ron Knapp

Photos - Field Events by Craig Rosenberg

Photos from CIAC

After a long hard year that saw East Lyme take second at the State Open and New Englands in cross country and tie for third during indoor track, the focus for the Vikings shifted from team goals to individual ones for Saturday’s CIAC Outdoor Track & Field State Open Championship. That change led to the team’s first ever State Open title when they held off Ridgefield who defeated them in the fall. But unfortunately, East Lyme will have to wait until Monday afternoon to receive their plaque because a line of storms arrived at Willowbrook Park with four high jumpers still remaining in the competition. While East Lyme has mathematically clinched the title, there is an outside chance that Bloomfield could tie for 2nd with Ridgefield if their remaining jumper, Ethan Rowe clears 6-8 on one of his two remaining jumps and then goes on to set a PR of 6-10 to move ahead of current leader Brodie Scott of Watertown. 

After losing a couple of dual meets and the ECC championship due to some end of the season injuries, the focus for East Lyme was on individual accomplishments instead of the team goals in the postseason. Their top distance boys didn’t double at the Class MM Championship to keep their legs fresh for the Open, New Englands and Nationals. 

“People said we are going to be in it but when you have this small of a group, everything has to go pretty much perfectly” said East Lyme coach Mike Flynn. “We didn’t talk about winning. We joked about it but typically all those things have to go perfect and they don’t usually go the right way. At the end of the season, you just need a bunch of studs and we felt pretty good about our guys.”

The throws and distance events have been the bedrock of East Lyme the past few years and they didn’t  disappoint on Saturday. Thomas Matlock and Norwich Free Academy’s Chris Amy have been trading State Open titles and even records the past three years in the shot put, but this time Matlock came out on top. The Mississippi State commit broke Andre Reid’s 24-year old State Open record on his 5th throw with a distance of 62-09.75. He followed that up with a PR in the discus of 175-6 to take 2nd to provide 18 important points for his team. 

Junior Sam Leone pushed eventual winner Magnus Manley of Ridgefield to the wire of the 1600m, taking second in 4:12.71, less than three tenths of a second from the win. ”They are just so competitive," said Flynn “Even though he had second clearly in hand, he kept going for it over the last few meters” 

Sean McCauley moved up from third at last year’s State Open to claim his first Open title in any of the running seasons. He used a furious last lap to pull away from Amity’s Luke Cushing, who was the State Open runner-up in cross country and newcomer Joe Deluise of Oxford, as McCauley won in a PR of 9:09.09. Not far behind McCauley was unsung hero Matthew Carrier who ran a 13 second PR of 9:23.68 to finish 7th place in 9:23.68 to put the Vikings over Ridgefield in the team standings.

With every point making a difference, Justin Blezard was a foot under his winning pole vault at ECCs, but his height of 13-6 still held up for 7th place to add two more important points to East Lyme’s total. 

Meet Records

Defending champion in the javelin Thomas Bannon of Rockville, coached by his school record holder of 45 years, John Ward, broke his mentor’s record with a distance of 207-1. More importantly it breaks Ben Latham’s meet record of 204-1. That is the 4th best CT throw in the state since the rules changed in 2002 to make it harder to throw the javelin for distance. He is now a little over five feet away from the Stephen Simalchik’s state record of 212-9 and ranked 12th nationally. 

There was a showdown afoot in the boys 300m hurdles with East Hartford’s Davian Johnson and Coginchaug’s Charles Dalles both coming into the meet with identical times of 38.11 and Stafford’s Javon Stigler just over a tenth of a second behind both of them. This race lived up to expectations as Johnson broke Sam Forte’s one-year old meet record with a time of 37.28 and Dalles set a PR of 37.79. Johnson, a junior, moved up to become the 2nd fastest hurdler in state history and should have Aaron Hayes’ 31-year old state record of  36.48 on his radar. Dalles moves into the # 10 spot on the CT all time list with Stigler coming in at #20 with his time of 38.26.

Highlights

Johnson was trying to become a double gold medalist in the hurdles, but that quest was denied when Bloomfield’s Delante Senior set his PR by two tenths of a second running a US #44 time of 13.74 with a legal wind. Johnson settled for 2nd in 13.86 with Windsor’s Marvin Escalera grabbing 3rd in 14.39.

Bethel’s Luke Richardson was the only double gold medal winner on the boys side. He pulled away from greatly improved Jack Davis of Fairfield Prep, winning the finals of the 100m in 10.66, his fastest wind legal time of the season. Davis was 2nd in 10.76 with Octavius Richard of Manchester running a season best time of 10.78.

Richardson and Davis matched up once again in the 200m with the Bethel senior just missing his PR, but winning in a time of 21.39, easily defeating Davis who finished 2nd in 21.79. 

Samuel LaMalfa of Portland ran a US #32 time of 46.83 to win the 400m. In the process he became just the 4th CT boy to break 47 seconds and is now ranked #3 on the CT all time list. He returned to finish 3rd in the 200m with a time of 21.75. Not far behind him was Immaculate’s Brenan McCabe who was returning from a soccer injury which forced him to skip indoor track. The junior ran a PR of 47.40 which cracks the top 100 nationally and moves him up to #7 in CT history. Matthew Peterson of Daniel Hand also broke his PR to run 47.95 to take 3rd. 

Xavier’s Oliver Guzy defended his long jump title but faced a stiff challenge from Torrington’s Michael Ahoua who took over the lead on his last jump with a distance of 23-7.5. But like he has done on so many other occasions, the Falcon rose to the challenge and soared to a new PR of 23-08.50 to grab the win by a single inch. 

The top returner in the triple jump from last year Jesse Singleton Jr. of Bloomfield lived up to expectation winning with a jump of 46-02.75.

Yendri Ruiz of New Britain ran the fastest time in CT for the season, covering the two laps in 1:52.17. He was pushed by Ridgfield’s Charles Lovett who finished in a time of 1:52.67. There was contact made with 200m to go with Loevett’s teammate Aidan Nelson who was in the lead pack of four and got tripped up and went down for several seconds. He was able to still finish in 2:01, but was well out of the scoring. Had he finished in 7th, Ridgefield would have tied for the win and potentially won the meet if  he finished in the top six. 

You can never count on points in the pole vault but this event came close to expectations. State leader Seam Arms of Hand moved up to 7th last year and came within a half of an inch of his PR clearing 15-0.0. Sheehan’s Dylan Vazquez broke his school record, clearing 15-0 to tie with nine other vaulters to become the 15th best jumper in state history. No CT boy had broken 15 feet unti Jordan Thull in 2006 and since then, there has been an onslaught with the barrier being broken almost every year by someone. 

There is always great pride in the relays. Often in the 4x800m teams put their best runners in individual events until the State Open and seeds are very little indication of success. Weston did just that, surprising even themselves with the win, breaking their school and conference records in the process. Nick Masters (1:55.5), Brett Martin (1:57.6), Asher Leuzzi (1:59.9) and Markus Soennichsen (1:55.5) led from the gun and ran 7:48.61. This performance moves them up to tie Wilton with the 8th best school record in state history. New Canaan also broke their school record, running 7:50.26 and edged out Xavier who took 3rd. 

Windsor defended their title in the 4x100m but held off top seeded Bunnell with the quartet of Elijah Fraser, Jaden Langford, Jaylen Wesley and Shelldon Simpson II. The Warriors won in a season best time of 41.61 which is only a half second off their CT all time and meet record time of 41.16 they set last year. 

All good meets finish off with the 4x400m, and this event was particularly eventful. The top six teams broke their school records and moved into the top 16 school records in state history. Daniel Hand improved upon their state leading time, running 3:17.89 with New Britain holding on for 2nd in 3:18.42. Top seeded Hamden improved to 3:18.55 but settled for the bronze medal. Naugatuck took 4th in 3:19.22, with Coginchaug (3:20.00) and Rockville (3:20.13) rounding out the New England qualifying spots. Hand now has the 5th fastest school record in state history with New Britain and Hamden in the 7th and 8th spot. Naugatuck cracks the top ten and Coginchaug and Rockville move up to 14th and 16th on the all time list. CT schools should be well represented in the fast heat at New Englands with six of the top seven times in the region. 

Check back with us on Monday to see the final team standings where the team scoring will be updated to include the results of the high jump. With 17 of 18 scored the current top ten teams are:

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