Nham, Hall boys fight through adversity, win 7th straight title
NEW HAVEN — Hall senior Joe Nham decided to go sledding on a snow day, a few days after he ran the seventh fastest time in state history in the 55-meter hurdles at the Yale Track Classic.
Naturally, he and his friends made a jump. He went over the jump too fast, launched himself into the air and landed on his wrist. It was broken. He had to have surgery. This was mid-january.
“We were told 6-8 weeks,” Hall indoor track coach Jeff Billing said. “There was no chance. He was done.”
But on Thursday night, Nham, wearing a splint on his wrist, won his second Class LL 55-meter hurdles title in 7.75 seconds. He scored 10 points and Hall won its seventh straight class state title, fifth straight in Class LL, edging Danbury 72-66.
Nham, whose personal best time was 7.46 this season, got his cast off on Tuesday.
“The first X-ray follow-up, they’re like, ‘The thing healed crazy fast,’” Billing said. “They did surgery. They put a pin in there. There was no chance he was running at states. Then a week ago, he was like, ‘The doctor said my cast is going to come off on Thursday.’ I said, ‘The morning of the race?’
“They moved it up to Tuesday. (Wednesday) he was able to go over one hurdle. One start over one hurdle and we’re like, ‘Go give it a try tomorrow, man.’
“I’m so proud of this team overcoming adversity.”
Hall didn’t take the lead until the pole vault, won by senior Liam Wright, who broke the Class LL record with a vault of 15 feet.
“We had three scorers in the pole vault,” Billing said. “Five years ago, we didn’t have a pole vault squad, we didn’t have a shot put squad. We got 15 points in the vault, 10 points in the shot put – a third of our points in those events.”
Wright was going for the state indoor record of 15 feet, 10½ inches. When he made his first attempt, he went up and over the bar and it bobbled once, twice, three times, looked like it was maybe going to stay put, then fell.
“I was hoping,” Wright said. “When I was falling down, I was like, ‘Please stay.’”
Wright broke the Class LL record of 14-6 set in 2015 by Westhill’s Chris Rough. He got a late start to the indoor season after having surgery in November. He didn’t start vaulting until January.
“I’ve just started feeling like myself again,” Wright said.
Wright, last year’s State Open and Class LL outdoor champion, has two more chances to break the indoor record – the State Open and the national championships.
Glastonbury girls win 10th title: Junior Brooke Strauss won two events and finished third in another as the Glastonbury girls won their 10th Class LL title with 84 points. East Hartford was runner-up with 46 points.
Strauss won the 1,000 (2:56.68), beating Conard’s Liv Sherry (2:57.10), finished third in the 1,600 (5:04.29) behind Newington’s Katie Bohlke (5:01.13) and Conard’s Tess Sherry (5:04.17) and won the 3,200 in 10:56.62.
“It’s kind of tough because you’re finishing one race and you’re thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve got another one,’” Strauss said. “Today I felt better recovering between events. Usually I feel the previous event a lot more.
“We got a lot of points and that was the goal.”
Glastonbury won the 4×400 relay, the 4×800 relay and the sprint medley relay and Anna Hilary won the pole vault (10 feet).
“I wasn’t expecting it to be honest,” said Hilary, who won the outdoor title her sophomore year. “I just wanted to do as well as I could.”
Manchester has double winners:
Manchester had a double winner on the boys and girls side, with Octavius Richard winning the long jump and the 55 meters and Samiya Eady winning the 55 meters and the 300 meters. Manchester, which also won the sprint medley relay and had a high jump winner in Kingnell Burgos, finished third in the team scoring on the boys side with 61 points.