Hall Takes Girls Title
Zydanowicz Leads Way At Windham Invitational
WINDHAM – Jenna Zydanowicz ran her first cross country race at the Haddad Windham Invitational last year. Saturday, the Hall junior returned to the scene of her first win, a year older and wiser.
Zydanowicz won just about everything she ran in last fall, until the State Open. She went out hard with the leaders in hot, humid weather and her legs seized up and she wasn’t able to finish.
That was on her mind Saturday at Windham, where she won the Varsity 1 race again, in 18:25, a minute faster than last year.
“I focused on running it smart,” said Zydanowicz, who was limited in the outdoor track season by back and hamstring problems. “The first girl went out really fast; last season, I went out too fast and died, so I focused on starting out slower and slowly catching her, and when I got to the top of the big hill, I was able to catch up to her. I stayed with her till the last road over there and went from there to the finish line.”
Somers junior Kylie Raymond was second (18:33) and Manchester junior Kate Hedlund third (19:25).
Hall won the team title with 21 points and had five runners in the top 12 for first-year coach Betty Remigino-Knapp, who was an assistant last year and last coached at UConn from 1980-96.
“My debut,” she said, laughing. “It’s a blast. You work as hard as you can. You want to win, but it’s not life or death. They all ran really well. It’s always a test of their fitness at this time of year. We’re just going to keep working hard and see what happens.”
Jacob Smith, a junior from Glastonbury, won the boys Varsity 1 race in 16:25, and his team won the large school title with 68 points. Last year, he was 19th.
“It was a great start,” Smith said. “I’ve been sick for two-to-three days and just came back to practice yesterday. I’m very surprised with how I did.”
Suffield (37 points) beat Tolland (40) for the boys small school title. Senior Kyle Englander, who finished sixth, was the top Suffield runner.
The Eagles’ top runner, junior Alec Sauter, was 10th.
“We ran a pretty decent race, except our top six guys didn’t stay together throughout the whole race,” Tolland coach Brandon Elliott said. “That’s what ended up being the difference. [Killian McNamee, who finished 38th] wasn’t feeling 100 percent today, nothing in particular. We were missing one of our other guys who was sick this week. We’ve got work to do. That’s why we come and race races and find out what do we have to do to be where we wanted to be.”
Hall, expected to be one of the top teams this year, did not run its top runners in the boys race because the team has a dual meet with Glastonbury on Tuesday, coach Jeff Billing said.
East Catholic senior Heath Olivieri ran the fastest boys time of the day, winning the Varsity 2 race in 16:22. “I tried to push the last mile a little more than I normally would have,” Olivieri said. “I did it, and it worked out nicely. I can’t usually kick the last 400, 200 or 800 even. I don’t have a kick left. So I start kicking earlier than most people and hope they forget about me.”
E.O. Smith swept the boys and girls large school titles in Varsity 2. The boys, led by third-place Keegan Santasiere, a senior, had 26 points and the girls, led by runner-up Miranda Graves, had 35 points.
“We have a lot of depth and new runners,” Graves said. “I think we’re going to be really competitive.”
Avon junior Rhiannon Richmond beat Graves to win the Varsity 2 race in 19:54. “We did a scrimmage last week, and I didn’t feel too well then, but this felt a lot better,” Richmond said. “I was really sore from training last week.”
The freshman boys race got a lot of attention as three top young runners made their high school debuts: Gavin Sherry of Conard won the 2.1-mile race in 10:59, while Aidan Puffer of Manchester was second (11:17) and Gavin’s twin brother Callum was third (11:37). The three finished in exactly the same order as they did in the Connecticut Middle School championship meet last fall.