MySportsResults.com – News – Sacred Heart Academy Girls, Tolland Boys Emerge with CIAC Class M OTF Titles

The CIAC Outdoor Track and Field Class Championships opened on Tuesday morning under nearly perfect conditions as girls and boys teams gathered at Veterans Stadium in Willowbrook Park in New Britain to compete for honors in the Class M meet.

The girls team championship plaque was won by the Sacred Heart Academy Sharks team in their first ever title victory scoring 80 points in close competition over runner-up Mercy with 55 pts and 3rd place Hartford Public with 50.5 as 26 teams scored. 

In the run to the boys team title, the Tolland Eagles emerged with their fourth Class M team title scoring 78 points to narrowly edge runner-up Suffield with 77 points and third place Ledyard with 60 pts that included 28 teams earning points.

Highlights from the Girls Class M Championship

The path to the Shark’s first championship title was paved by mainly by their field event athletes in 4 events who contributed more than three quarters of their 80 point total led by a win by Victoria Baker in the high jump (5-2) and a victory from Maya Quaranta in the shot put (37-4.5). Quaranta also led a 2-3-4 finish in the discus with her PR toss of 117-1 as she was edged by Aleisha Clarke of HPHS with her PR winning throw of 118-7. On the track, Juliette Forstrom proved to be the leader as she helped pace their 4x800m team to a second place 9:55.73 season best time behind Mercy’s season best time of 9:46.04 from the quartet of Kayla Johnson, Tess Wasiolek, Beatrice Perrault and Julia Lelko. Forstrom then returned to win the 3200m in her PR of 11:04.46.

Class M Girls Champion Sacred Heart Academy – Anatomy of a Title

Mercy’s run to the their runner-up title was fueled by sprinter Marie Kane as she sped to double golds in the 100m (12.75) and the 200m (25.38) as Imani Bryan of Career Magnet took second in both events. In between those events, Kane managed a bronze medal in the 400m that was won by Kiera Baxter of Career Magnet in 59.56. 

In addition to her win in the discus, Aleisha Clarke of HPHS sped to a PR of 14.90 in the 100m hurdles as she joined an elite group of only 4 CT girls this season to dip under the 15-second mark. Clarke also managed a 2nd place in the javelin with her toss of 111-4 as she was edged by winner Carley Bannerman of Northwestern with her toss of 1113-5.

Gabriella Zeller of Lewis Mills was also busy on the track and in the field as she shuttled back and forth to record victories in the long jump (18-9.5) and her PR of 45.03 by over a second in…