On Saturday, Danbury boys and girls swept the FCIAC Western
Division championships on Staples' 160m flat track.
The Danbury boys defeated the host Staples Wreckers by a score of 154.50 to 129.50 in the seven team meet. They won with a balanced attack, scoring in all 15 events and winning the 50HH, 4 x 240m in school record time of 1:58.35, 4 x 800m and pole vault. But their depth won the day as they had multiple scorers in eight events.
Danbury has won their fourth straight division title and their 14th in 17 years under coach Rob Murray. "It's always good to win this meet" Murray stated. "It gives more of our athletes a chance to contribute to a championship. But points will be much harder to come by next week at FCIACs."
The star of the day had to be Trumbull's Tyler Gleen. The defending New England champion in the 600m, defeated another nationally ranked rival, Terrell Cunningham of Danbury in the 600m and 300m races. While Gleen only ran 1:24.38 and 37.58 on Staples gym floor track, this will be a match up that will continue the next four weeks up to New Englands.
State Open cross country champion Zakeer Ahmad finished 2nd in the 1000m to Trumbull's Tyler Rubush. He returned to run the 1600m and sat in back for most of the race, but used his finishing speed to win in 4:33.45. To finish the meet, the University of Pennsylvania signee, ran easily and let his teammate, Brandon Harrington take the win and help Staples to a 1-2-3 sweep.
Danbury girls matched their counterpart's effort by defeating Greenwich 144-111. Ridgefield, who rested several of its competitors, did not take home a division title for the first time in 14 years, finished 3rd with 80 points.
The Hatters were led by the queen of the FCIAC sprinters, Bridget Chiaravalle who won the 50m, 50HH and the 300m. The senior captain was motivated by the energy of her teammate to complete this difficult triple and said "the team is really coming together. We are all working so hard and Coach Fraticelli is giving us great workouts."
Ericka Regus also took the long jump in 15'9 and the sprint medley also took home wins for the Hatters.
Greenwich's Emily Philippides had another outstanding day as she dominated the 600m winning in 1:39.70 and anchored the winning 4 x 400m. While the time is well off her FCIAC record time of 1:34.77 she set last Saturday at the New Balance Games, this meet was merely a warm up for the Ocean Breeze Invitation 800m she ran in the next day.
Katelynn Romanchick of Trumbull had two close wins in the 1000m and 1600m. The Class LL cross country champion defeated friendly rival Hetty McMillan of Greenwich by four tenths of a second, winning the 1000m in 3:15.95 and returned to out lean Danbury's Lauren Moore by .02 seconds with a time of 5:24.48 in the 1600m.
The girl's pole vault continues to heat up this winter. Lia Zavattaro of Greenwich joined three other girls in Connecticut to jump between 11'6 and 11'10 this season. She took three valiant attempts at 12'2 to try to break Robin Bone's FCIAC record but came up short each time.
Next up will be the FCIAC championships to be held at the Floyd Little Fieldhouse in New Haven. The start time will be 4:30.