By Senior Correspondent Marty Ogden, Editing and Graphics by Ron Knapp
A night of speed it certainly was. With all these specialized meets for distance runners, throwers and event pole vaulters, it’s about time one was developed for sprinters. Coginchaug Regional HS held the appropriately entitled Night of Speed Invitational on Friday night which saw one state record and 7 CT all time top 10 performances!!!
The Swedish 1000m SMR is a seldom run event in which athletes run legs of 100m, 200m, 300m and 400m. Bloomfield’s team of Saphyr Brown, Nikki Fletcher, Jahniya Barclay and D’Asia Duncan took down Windsor’s 10 year-old state record by a second running 2:13.93. Duncan split 56 seconds to help her team’s efforts.
Visit the only site for the latest Connecticut High School State Records for Outdoor and Indoor Track & Field at My Track and Field Records!
Duncan had less than an hour to recover from her own near record race in the grueling 400m hurdles. She cruised to a win in the event in her new lifetime best of 1:00.35 which is not only US #13, it is the 2nd fastest time in state history. The time of 59.62 must be written all over her notebooks by now because that is the state record set by Leslie Nixon 41-years ago at the Junior Olympic National meet. Because she is also an All American heptathlete, the WarHawk also took six long jumps on obviously tired legs with a best of 17-8.
The first event of the evening set the tone for the rest of the meet when Cromwell and Hillhouse battled to the wire in the 1600m sprint medley relay with the Panthers defeating the Academics. One of Cromwell’s 200m legs, hobbled by a hamstring injury only was able to muster about a 25 second leg with Hillhouse’s first two legs popping out a low 21 and a high 22 split. But Nassyr Andrade brought his team close with a 47.9 leg. Hillhouse anchor Mahkai Heyward ran the race of his life, splitting a 1:54 800m but he was not a match for Class S 1000m record holder Dylan Bathrick who ran an incredible 1:51.9. Cromwell ran the 13th best time nationally, finishing in 3:26.80 with Hillhouse not far behind in 3:27.90. Hall’s national champion time of 3:26.26 from 2019 is the only team in state history that has run faster and Hillhouse has the 8th fastest school record in state history. No other school has run faster outside of one of the national championship meets.
The 400m hurdles seems to be one of the big events this spring. On his home track Charles Dalles…
CLICK HERE to Read the Full Original Article at RunnerSpace News…