By Senior Correspondent Marty Ogden, Editing and Graphics by Ron Knapp
MSR PHOTOS by Craig Rosenberg and Ron Knapp
Saturday’s CIAC Indoor Track and Field State Open Championship was full of surprises. After a few months of qualifying meets and conference meets, the top athletes from last weekend’s CIAC Class championships came to Floyd Little Athletic Center to vie for team, relay and individual titles in 15 events.
Things rarely go as planned at the Open, even for the winners. Windsor boys were not a favorite coming into the meet on paper and they had some challenges before the day even began. It seems the Warriors had to replace one relay member of their top seeded 4x200m that is ranked 31st nationally. Then on the morning of the Open, they had to replace the alternate. That put freshman Caneil Goldson on the team in the biggest meet of the season. Goldson had never practiced handoffs and was taught by Coach Kelvan Kearse on the spot. The 64-year-old Kearse showed off his track skills and taught the inexperienced Goldson with six handoffs to get the job done. Windsor won the opening relay as expected in a time of 1:30.46.
While Goldson was the surprise hero of the day for his team, it was Maxim Copeland and Taeshawn Berry who did the bulk of the heavy lifting that brought Windsor to 45 points and the school’s first ever indoor State Open title. Both were part of the 4x200m and then they returned to finish 1-2 in the 300m with Copeland winning in 34.32, the 7th fastest time in the 300m in CT history and the 15th best time nationally this season. But the biggest upset of the day had to be Copeland tying for the win in the 55m dash final. He was seeded 8th coming in and was not expected to score. Northeast Timing’s finish line picture had Copeland and Xavier’s Stylz Mitchell superimposed on each other as both were awarded the time of 6.467 that gave each teams nine points. Even with an alternate in the 4x400m, Windsor finished 2nd in a time of 3:30.44 to provide them the final total to put them on top of the 46 teams that scored points.
The Class M champions Lyman Hall were as close to perfect as you could imagine with five individuals setting personal bests and two relays setting season bests. The Trojan’s 4x200m came into the meet seeded 6th but improved their season best by just under two seconds to move into third place from the second heat with a time of 1:32.45. Of the six events they scored in, they set two school…
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