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