Boys' Class Meet Observation

In the closest race of the day, junior Drew Thompson of Fairfield Prep raced neck-and-neck with Ahmad until the last hill. The Staples standout had a faster finishing kick and held off Thompson by only a second to run 15:50, a 42-second best from last year.

In a preview of the future, freshman Robbie Cozean of Xavier had the third fastest time of the day, running 16:07. While there are no official records kept for separate grades, he now holds the 35th best time on the course since it was changed in 2008. No other freshman has broken 16:10. 

Sean Parker of Shepaug ran a 16:15 and broke Dhahran Velvaquez's 2013 Class S record of 16:18. In fact, this was the fastest Class S time since Joe Mohn of Immaculate ran a 15:58 on a slightly-different and faster road course at Wickham in 2001. Parker, who was part of Shepaug's championship team last year, ran 1:07 faster to take the title and leave the meet with the fourth fastest time of the day.

The magic place many athletes are shooting for will be 25th, so they can qualify for New England's. It looks like many of those spots may go to individuals who might qualify on teams. The current 25th best time, based on class meet performances, is 16:42. While the 25th place time at the State Open can, and often does, change, it does give athletes a target to shoot for at Friday's State Open.

On the boys' team front, Staples had the fastest combined time of the day with a 1:21:54 for its five scoring runners. This was the third best combined time on the course since 2008, behind only Danbury's 2014 time at the State Open and La Salle of Rhode Island's 2014 New England Championship time.  The Wreckers are coming into the Open with four runners seeded in the top 10 and the No. 1 seed in Ahmed. Their next closest challenger is Danbury with three runners seeded in the top 20 and five in the top 30 In the team-scoring category. 

The SWC champion, New Milford, is sitting on the all- important sixth seed in both combined time and projected points.

Ellington boys finished a disappointing third in Class M by one point to East Catholic. This usually means their season would be over for the team as most wild-card spots come from Class LL and L.  But they were in for a surprise when they found out they took the seventh wild card spot and come into the Open with a shot to crack the top 10.

Tolland won its first class meet title since winning their third straight in 2010.  Tolland was led by surprise individual winner, Josh Bedard, whose older brother Jared was a sophomore on that team.  Another family connection to their glory days was their fifth runner, freshman Alex Sauter, whose brother Colin was the sixth man on the 2010 team.

The last Coaches Poll was incredibly accurate, with one blaring exception.  Hall, the 4th ranked team in the poll and the winner of the Wickham Invitational, had an off-day and finished third in Class L with a combined time of 1:27.26.  This was 1:42 behind their Wickham Invite time and, unfortunately, it was 22 seconds off the wild-card, cut-off time held by Norwich Free Academy.

The following are the top 25 individual times and projected team scoring based Saturday's class meets performances. 

Projected team points: