H.S. cross country: Ledyard boys, St. Bernard girls sweep key ECC divisional meets
Colchester — Ledyard High School completed a perfect regular season in Eastern Connecticut Conference Division II boys' cross country by sweeping a tri-meet from host Bacon Academy and Waterford on Tuesday afternoon at Zagray Farm.
The Colonels (7-2, 4-0) edged Bacon 28-29 and beat Waterford 20-44 while Bacon beat Waterford 27-31.
Aidan Pepin was the individual winner for Waterford (7-3, 2-2), finishing in 16 minutes, 45.1 seconds. Ledyard's Simon Reichert was second in 17:25.8 while Connor Wilcox led Bacon in third place (17:36).
The Colonels won the meet by placing four other runners in the top 10 — Juan Garcia (sixth, 17:49.3), Connor Doran (seventh, 17:52.3), Christopher Evans (eighth, 17:55.9) and Daniel Donovan (10th, 18:12.9). In other meets: • Lyman Memorial placed four runners in the top six and picked up a pair of ECC Division III victories, 2233 over St. Bernard and 23-33 over Montville. Montville beat St. Bernard 27-28.
Shane Franson of Lyman won with a time of 18:26. Montville (3-5, 2-2) was led by Nathan Bedingfield's fourth-place finish (19:19) and St. Bernard (3-5, 1-3) was led by Sean Power's third-place finish (19:09).
• Ellis Tech took the top four places to beat Grasso Tech 16-49 in the Connecticut Technical Conference. Jacob Reed was the overall winner for Ellis (6-0) in 19:14 while Orin Dube finished fifth in 21:37 for Grasso (0-6).
Girls
• St. Bernard finished unbeaten in ECC Division III meets by topping Lyman Memorial 15-50 and Montville 24-31. The Saints (7-1, 4-0) were led by Serena Britner's second-place finish (21:31) and Brigid Kunka's thirdplace finish (21:43).
Jessica Casey of Lyman won the meet in 21:04. Montville (5-2, 3-1) beat Lyman 15-50. Montville's Maya Suarez (fourth, 22:17) and Maddie Gould (fifth, 23:07) finished in the top five.
• Bacon Academy picked up a pair of ECC Division II wins, beating Ledyard 26-33 and Waterford 20-36. Bacon also took the top two spots, with Jordan Malloy winning in a time of 20:48 and Erin Mathieu second at 21:18.
Ledyard (4-5, 2-2) beat Waterford 26-31 and was led by Ally Tran's third-place finish (21:33). Katherine Harren of Ledyard was fifth (22:12) and teammate Victoria Schweitzer was sixth (22:39). Melissa Vine (fourth, 22:08) was the top finisher for Waterford (5-4, 1-3).
• NFA took the top three spots and beat Fitch 17-46 in an ECC Division I meet. Sophie Jones won the race in 21:02, Madison Martin was second (22:41) and Tesse Hospod was third (22:52) for NFA (7-1, 2-1), which defeated Killingly and Griswold each 1550. Ava Paprocki of Fitch was fourth in 23:06 and NFA's Anna Gosselin was fifth (23:14). Fitch (3-6, 0-3) beat Griswold 15-43 and Killingly 15-50.