Danbury sprints to title
NEW BRITAIN — At around 10:45 Thursday morning, Danbury senior Abigail Copeland ran the third leg of the team’s 4x100-meter race at the CIAC State Open in Willow Brook Park.
The team’s time of 50.05 seconds earned Danbury its first point of its laterto-be meet-winning score of 44 points.
Immediately after the event however, Copeland, Danbury’s captain, left the meet and drove the hour-plus drive back to Danbury to make the school’s 2 p.m. graduation ceremony.
“That says a lot about her,” said Danbury track and field coach Rob Murray, “She knows how big and important this meet was to us.”
Copeland’s dedication to making the meet along with three-event wins from junior Alanna Smith, gave way to Danbury winning its second-straight State Open title Thursday afternoon after last winning the winning the event in 2019. Thursday’s title marks the school’s fourth State Open title. Glastonbury came in second with 38 points and Weston in third with 37 points.
“It’s really about what they preserved through this year,” Murray said. “We haven’t been full-time in person at all. These girls, it was their families that helped them get back to practice, they helped each other with rides, that’s first and foremost. They were so committed to their goals; they work for each other. … Those girls and the 42 girls that were on our roster they all pulled themselves together. They did an amazing thing.”
THREE STATE TITLES, FIRST TIME IN DECADE
Smith scored 30 of the Hatters’ 44 points by winning the 100-, 200- and 400-meter races — the first time someone has won all three events since Precious Holmes of Hillhouse in 2011.
“I’m so excited and so proud. It really makes me feel like all my practicing and training has really paid of,” Smith said.
After winning the 100 in a personal best of 12.03 seconds, Smith had about six minutes of rest before jumping in the 400. Despite a quick moment bent over on the grass throwing up her nerves — something she said she does often between races but always makes her feel better — she won the 400 in 56.78.
Smith finished her day making history becoming the first athlete since 2011 to win all three of the sprinting events with her personal best of 24.49 in the 200.
A WINNING CONFIDENCE
Two years ago at her first State Open as a freshman, Joel Barlow’s Mariella Schweitzer tripped on the first hurdle of the 100 hurdles and threw off her pace for qualifying for the finals. The fall shattered her confidence.
That is until she got her redemption on Thursday.
Once the junior stepped through the starting line she knew could win and she did, in a personal best of 14.18 seconds.
Schweitzer took the extra boost of winning her first State Open title into the 300-meter hurdles to win that event in a meet-record tying time of 43.18.
THE KICKSTER HULK
With 250 meters left in the 1,600, Simsbury’s Olivia Birney pushed past the event’s leader Mari Noble of Greenwich to sprint through the final meters and win the race in 4 minutes and 50.96 seconds, winning her first ever State Open title. The win solidified an impressive season for Birney in the event after beginning the season with a previous personal best of 5:25.
An hour or so later, Birney again used her quick kick to beat out Weston’s Julia Rosenburg in the final 100 meters of the 800 to win her second State Open title in 2:11.82.
CLOSE POLE VAULT FINISH
Both Mallory Malz from Glastonbury and Ellison Weiner from Weston finished the pole vault at 11-00, however since it only took Malz two attempts to reach the height over Weiner’s three, Malz was awarded the state title.
THROWS, JUMPS AND OTHER WINS
Chloe Scrimgeour won the 3,200 for Conard in 10:21.61, missing the meet record by a little more than a second.
In the throw events, it was Hillhouse’s Leah Moore who won both the shot put (41 feet and 2.5 inches) and discus (131 feet), while Weston’s Shea Greene won the javelin throw in 154 feet, breaking the previous eight-year-old state record.
Kedarjah Lewis from Haddam-Killingworth won the long jump title with a jump of 19-01.00. The triple jump title was won by Nia Christie of St. Joseph in 37-11.50, while New Milford’s Anichka Malachi came in second with 36-10.25. Nonnewaug’s Courtney Rowland won the high jump in 5-06.00.