By Senior Correspondent Marty Ogden, Editing and Graphics by Ron Knapp
There was a wind tunnel down the straightaway at Weston High School on Monday afternoon as talented sprinters in the Southwest Conference produced incredibly fast times. Newtown girls and Bethel boys repeated as champions with the Nighthawks three peating with a score of 140 and Weston taking 2nd with 116 points. The Wildcats simply dominated scoring 196 points with Bunnell taking the runner up spot with 109 points.
Girls Championship Highlights
Newtown was led by Aashni Shetty who was the double winner in the LJ (17-8), TJ (34-10) and grabbed silver medals in 100m hurdles (15.45) and 300m hurdles (47.73). After a long day of six jumps and three separate races over a little more than two hours, the senior was responsible for 36 team points. They also scored well in the relays with the 4x100m team of Summer-Rose Chaljub, Jessie Moore, Abigail Manka and Lola Kessler (50.89) and 4x800m squad Natalie delCampo, Leah Morris, Clare Csaszar and Ana Morris (10:04.10) also claiming gold. Their depth ultimately carried them through as they scored in 15 of the 18 events.
Stratford frosh Kyra McLean sped to double victories in 100m at 12.09 and 200m in 24.76. Both times were the fastest ever run at SWCs but were not eligible for records due to higher than allowed tail wind.
Phoebe Cora Smith of Joel Barlow earned two first places in winning the 100m hurdles in 14.71 and returned to win in the 300m hurdles in 45.58. Like McLean, Smith’s hurdle time would have been a meet record but had wind readings of +4.5, over the allowable +2.0 m/s.
Katie McMorrow of New Fairfield ruled the distance events as she took home two gold medals. Using a 76 second last lap, she won the 1600m PR 5:10.87 and finished with a win in the 3200m in 11:39.56.
Weston’s Alexis Banks owned all three throwing events. She tossed the shot 33 -1.25, threw the javelin 116-4 and a won with a discus mark of 93-7.
Boys Championship Highlights
The sprinting events were on wind-aided fire with Bethel’s Luke Richardson and Bunnell’s Jayson Vanterpool running times rarely seen in Connecticut, much less a single conference meet. With a 4.9m/s tailwind, both boys went way under the meet record in the 100m with Vanterpool winning this round of the back and forth between these two great runners. The Bunnell senior won in 10.38, the 75th fastest time nationally. To put that time in geographic perspective, 36 of the…
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