By Senior Correspondent Marty Ogden, Editing and Graphics by Ron Knapp
Mark your calendar for Saturday, October 25th where teams across Connecticut will vie for a place in the following State Open championships on Friday, October 31st. The CIAC Class Championships at Wickham Park in Manchester are where 12 teams will be crowned state champions based on the size of their schools. For a select few schools, this is just a qualifying meet in order to move on to the bigger prizes of the State Open and New Englands. But for the vast majority of teams in Connecticut, this will be the culmination of months of training as teams fight to qualify for the Open by virtue of a top two finish plus eight additional teams decided by having the fastest team times. If an Open qualifying finish isn’t in their future, they might have other goals such as a top ten finish or just turning the table on a local team that bested them earlier in the season. Whatever a team hopes to accomplish, this is one day on the calendar where the entire CT cross country community shows up for one day to display the results of their hard work from over the past few months.
Let’s take a look at who some of the top teams might be at the State Open based upon results at the end of last year plus so inside information and educated guesswork.
Coaches can get their input by participating in the 2025 Marathon Sports CT High School Coach’s XC Preseason Poll. IF you are interested in participating in the polling this season THEN please register as soon as possible using the 2025 CT XC Coaches Poll Sign-Up form. Coaches must provide a valid email address on the form to receive further emails about voting in the next poll. Coaches only need to sign-up once to participate in polling this season.
The start of the 2024 CIAC Girls State Open Championship at Wickham Park
Girls Top Teams
Glastonbury – Class LL, Coach Brian Collins
Glastonbury has won six State Open titles with four runner-up finishes since 2007 and qualified for New Englands in all but one year since 2004. They are the defending champions and while they saw All American Brooke Strauss graduate to UConn, they return sophomore Lauren Parrett who was the State Open 3200m champion during indoor track and four other varsity girls who were under 7 minute/mile pace at Wickham Park. The Guardians will be looking for their third title in four years.
Mercy – Class MM, Coach Matt Conyers
The Tigers won three out of four Class titles in the…
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