By Senior Correspondent Marty Ogden, Editing and Graphics by Ron Knapp
Three, two, one. Those are Soheib Dissa’s finishes the last three years in the 2000m steeplechase at New Balance Nationals Outdoor in Philadelphia. After coming close the past two years, the Newtown senior finally came away with a national title and the emotions were evident as he raised his arms and pumped his fist twice in the last 100m. He may have just missed the meet record by about a half of a second but he ran the fastest time in the nation and crushed his own state record with a time of 5:43.98. His performance is also the 4th fastest time in US high school history, only three seconds more than Nathan Mountain’s national record of 5:40.72.
When asked what was going through his mind as he celebrated on the home stretch, Dissa confessed “I was just so excited and grateful to end the season with a national championship, there were just too many emotions going through my head when I crossed the line.”
Winning the first section was Hale Ray senior Matthew Kraszewski. In his last race with his dad David as his coach watching, he ran a PR of 6:05.63 to finish 12th overall and graduate as the 14th fastest steepler in state history.
Everyone who follows CT track and field knows throwing has taken off the past four years. But even the most knowledgeable fan could not have predicted the results of the last few days. Simsbury’s Marshall Potter earned All American and broke the CT state record in the discus with his 3rd place finish on Thursday, but then on Friday the duo of Thomas Matlock of East Lyme and Norwich Free Academy’s Chris Amy took 3rd and 4th with Potter taking 10th in the shot put.
Moving onto Saturday’s competition Potter returned and put up a prodigious hammer throw mark of 227-9 to earn his third NBNO All American medal with a new state record. To put this mark in perspective the previous CT state record in the event was AJ Guerra’s 15-year old mark of 211-2. The best word to describe this is “Beamonesque” which is a word invented after Bob Beamon’s spectacular leap broke the long jump world record by nearly two feet in the 1968 Olympics. His record was thought to be unbreakable and stood for 23 years and in fact is still the 2nd best jump in history.
But that wasn’t all that happened in the hammer throw on Saturday. Bloomfield’s Khile Francis, Lucas DeCrescenzo of Lyman Hall and Matlock just missed finals and took…
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