East Lyme girls, NFA boys win titles
New London — He was hearing the Norwich Free Academy results from every event come in.
"It was '1-3-4,' '1-3-6,' '1-2-3,'" NFA senior Dylan McGuire said. "I don't want to be the one that kills the team. The team has a momentum that just keeps on rolling."
McGuire did his part at Saturday afternoon's Eastern Connecticut Conference Division I indoor track championship at Coast Guard's Hallie Gregory Field House, winning the 1,600 meters in 4 minutes, 41.27 seconds in the midst of what was the first ECC championship for the NFA boys since 2012.
NFA won 10 of 15 events, highlighted by triple-winner Andrew Cote (300 meters, 600, 4x400 relay), to flood the field with 208 points. East Lyme was second with 93 and Fitch third with 71.
East Lyme's girls, meanwhile, picked up where they left off last year in the relay events, winning all of them, as the Vikings put together their seventh straight championship. East Lyme dominated with 207 points to 128 for runner-up NFA. Woodstock Academy was third with 60.
"In terms of indoors, it's been since 2011, 2012, it's been awhile," jubilant NFA coach Tom Teixeira said. "Given the success in the spring (of the Wildcats' outdoor track team), it's kind of been our white whale (not winning indoor).''
Scoring was anything but a problem for NFA, which placed in the top three in every event.
In the first event of the day, the Wildcats were second to Fitch in the 4x180 relay, but they quickly rebounded to win the 4x720 (Phillip Ludlow, McGuire, Tyler Crabb and Peyton Ramsey).
East Lyme's Chris Abbey won the 1,000 — and also became a double-winner with his impressive 3,200 victory later on over McGuire) — but after that NFA reeled off first-place finishes in the 600 (Cote), the 55 hurdles (Osaretin Osagie), the 55 dash (sophomore Dangelo Aristilde) and the 1,600 (McGuire).
NFA also got wins from Justin Costick in the high jump (5 feet, 10 inches) and long jump (20-5.5) and from Jacob Bazinet in the pole vault (12-6), in addition to Cote's narrow win over
Aristilde in the 300 (37.26-37.28) and a closing victory by the 4x400 team.
"I'm happy with everything," Cote said. "You can't ask for more than (what the Wildcats accomplished Saturday). We haven't done that since I've been there. We almost won states last year and we still couldn't win ECCs. This gives us all confidence . ... We're pretty close to the top of our game right now."
On the girls' side, NFA's Paige Martin broke the meet record in the pole vault at 11-6, eclipsing the mark she set last year at 11-3, and teammate Kayla Park won the 300 (43.49) and 600 (1:40.98).
East Lyme, which began its current ECC winning streak in 2014, got individual wins from Darya Mikusova (55 hurdles), freshman Kennedy Holsapple (1,600) and Savannah Soleau (shot put), in addition to the 4x180, 4x400, 4x720 and sprint medley relay teams.
On Saturday, it was East Lyme's Katherine Harris running the anchor leg of the final event of the day, the 4x400, with NFA's Park, who had beaten her in the 300, chasing after her. The lanky Harris, almost 6 feet tall, won the push to the finish in a moment of frenzy as seemingly every athlete in the field house swarmed to the finish line for a closer look.
East Lyme won that race over NFA 4:16.73-4:17.18.
Harris also was a member of East Lyme's winning 4x180 relay team, as well as finishing second in the 300.
Ava Pitruzzello, Ava Mauri, Sydney Arustei, Mikusova, Sophie Taylor, Ellie McCoy, Lindy Erikson, Karenna Kung, Bri am Ende, Caroline Real, Lauren Hinckley and Abby Jorgensen also contributed to the winning relays.
"It was exciting," said Harris, a junior, of anchoring the 4x400."I did know it was close. I just wanted to do the best for my team that I possibly could. I love to run with my teammates (in relays). It's really inspiring to have a lot of talent around you."
"If you look at most of the relays, our anchor leg didn't really need any heroics ... we got three real solid legs before that," East Lyme coach Carl Reichard said. "We got a lot of new kids that contributed today. We got kids that were here already that contributed today. We got great leadership from the seniors." v.fulkerson@theday.com