Just a few more days and Connecticut's Wickham Park will be host of the 80th annual New England Championships. In this Saturday’s meet, the Nutmeg State has potential to make quite a bit of noise.
But before previewing this top regional competition, which also attracts schools from New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Rhode Island, let’s take one last look at what transpired this past Friday at the CIAC State Open Championships.
Was there ever a doubt? Was there ever a doubt who would win the boys’ and girls’ individual titles on Wickham’s challenging terrain. When you have two nationally-ranked runners on the line, the real battle is for second place.
In the boys’ race, it was Darein High senior Alex Ostberg all the way. The Stanford-bound runner already held a sizable lead over the chase pack after he 
motored up the “Green Monster” around the midway point. He crossed the line with a new meet record, an outstanding time of 14 minutes, 58 seconds. William Hall senior Ari Klou was second at 15:34 and Wilton senior Spencer Brown placed third in 15:38.
“I just kind of wanted to surprise some people, turn some heads,” he said. “I was able to go out there and do it today.”
Ostberg, who is ranked No. 2 in MileSplit’s national rankings, is eyeing a strong performance at the NE meet and more importantly the Foot Locker Nationals where he’ll be toeing the line with a field that includes the country fastest runner, Michigan’s Grant Fisher.
“I am part of a fantastic grade,” he said. “The senior class is very strong. It’s been really fun following the progress of not only where I have been now and the last two years but how the class is progressing."
Ostberg is also appreciative of how things are going in his home state.
"As I said earlier, I am overshadowing how Ari Klou did today, " he said. "Ari ran amazing and it’s good to see that Connecticut is experiencing such great success and continuing to be such a deep state. For me, this season has been great. I am running more with the competition than against it. Everyone has been really supportive throughout the course of the day. I can’t even tell you how many people were cheering for me today and giving me projected times.”
Danbury, consistently No. 2 in the state’s polls, pulled off a mild upset in the team competition by beating defending state champion Ridgefield, 83-94. Comprising the winning squad for the Hatters was senior Eric Waterman (eighth, 16:02), senior Ryan Ansel (22nd, 16:18), senior Corey Mullins (24th, 16:18), senior Ryan Fox (30th, 16:32) and junior Jack Adamski (33rd, 16:37).
“We just put the work in since Day One,” said Danbury coach Rob Murray. “We had some ups and some downs. We lost last week (to Amity) at the Class LL by five points. That was the first time that four of our seven runners had run on the state meet course. It was a good learning experience. We talked about it and keeping the plan and executing. It obviously worked really well. We are very happy to have the state championship.”
There was no denying Staples’ junior Hannah DeBalsi her second straight individual state title. Last year’s Foot Locker runner-up, who also ranked No. 2 nationwide just like Ostberg, took the guesswork out of the outcome quickly and cruised to a winning time of 17:59. Coventry senior Elisabeth Jean was second in 18:43. She was followed by New Milford sophomore Mia Nahom, who placed third in 18:44.
DeBalsi is focusing on breaking her own course record of 17:41 at the New England’s. By the nationals, she looking for something close to 17 minutes.
“My goals for Foot Locker is low 17s, but this course (Wickham Park) is a tricky course to run fast with the hills,” she said. “My goal is to run my fastest time.”
For the second straight year it was the Tolland girls that were hoisting the trophy at the end. The Tigers posted a low score of just 48 to earn the title. Glastonbury, the 2012 titlists, was second with 121.
Tolland’s top scoring runners were sophomore Hayley Collins (fifth, 18:55), sophomore Katherine Deloreto (ninth, 19:10), senior Courtney Akerley (12th, 19:18), junior Caitlin Swanson (13th, 19:22) and sophomore Michaela Caron (28th, 19:45).
“This was hard today because we were the favorites going in,” said Tolland coach Judi LaFontaine. “I just wanted to have a good time today. I had some goals for the season with one of them being breaking their Connecticut team time for this course and we did that by 46 seconds.”