Sweep Success for Danbury at FCIAC Championships

The stakes became higher and tables were turned on Thursday as Danbury hung on by the narrowest of margins to defeat their rivals by 1.5 points to capture their first FCIAC indoor title since it last won in 2010 and 2011. 

Longtime Danbury boys' assistant coach Nick Fraticelli took over the girl's program last winter and has led a revitalization of the program.  After a third-place finish last year, the girls recaptured the title with a balanced attack placing in 13 of 15 events with four wins.  

Fraticelli commented that the key to victory was,"the power of positivity."  He described how, "every time Ridgefield came back on us the girls came together to motivate each other."

Danbury started off the day with a meet record in the 4x200-meter relay. The team of Saintphanie Porcenat, Bridget Chiaravalle, Zyniah Bunn and Jewel Ly broke their predecessor's record from 2010 by .33 to run a 1:46.65. 
Danbury followed up that win by taking down another meet record in the sprint medley, running 4:19.56 with a team of Porcenat, Rackell Souza, Natalee Seipio and Leah Sarkisian. 
 
The long jump was one of the biggest surprises for the champions.  Winner Caylea Landrie set a 10-inch personal best on her first attempt and was followed by Erika Regus who came into the meet with a best of 13 feet, 9 inches.  Everything came together for one jump and Regus improved her best by nearly three feet to take second in 16-5.5. 
 
Regus was obviously excited and exclaimed, "This feels great.  I want to work even harder to get this feeling again!"
 
Ridgefield's only had victory came in the 4x800m.  Kasey McGerald, Ava Kelley, Katherine Jasminski and Julia Hergenrother combined to run a 9:51.00 and even managed to hold off Staples who decided to take All America Hannah DeBalsi out of an individual event to help her teammates get All FCIAC status in the event. 
 
What Ridgefield lacked in star power, it more than made up for with depth.  The Tigers scored in 14 of 15 events and scored at least two athletes in six of the 11 individual events.  Their most productive event of the day was the 1600m when McGerald, Kelley, and Hergenrother doubled back from the 4x800m to go 2-3-4 for 18 points. 
 
Altogether, Ridgefield's FCIAC championship cross-country team accounted for 38 team points in the distance events.  But after many of the Tigers distance runners had already doubled and even tripled to keep the score close, they were not able to score in the 3200m.  Therefore, holding a narrow 2.5 point lead, they had to place no more than one place behind the top-seeded Hatters in the final event, the 4x400m relay. 
 
With Danbury solidly in the lead, Ridgefield's quartet battled it out with Greenwich and Wilton.  On the anchor legs, Ridgefield was in third behind Wilton but quickly moved into second.  Ridgefield's closer Alexandra Damron had about a two- yard lead over 600m champion Emily Philippides of Greenwich.  With everything on the line, the soccer standout Damron gave it everything she had but was barely out leaned by Philippides. Damroof then fell to the ground and was unable to get up for several minutes while Danbury celebrated it narrow team victory. 
 

Individually the star of the day had to Jada Harris of St. Joseph's, who won the 55HH in an FCIAC record of 8.26 and immediately had to walk back down the track to the starting line and finished second in the 55m, only .01 seconds behind Bridgeport Central's  Kanajzae Brown, who ran 7.43.  Then, to cap off her day, she set a three-inch PR to break the FCIAC meet record with a leap of 5-7, which ties for the third best jump in the country.
 
With Debalsi out of the 1,000m, Trumbull junior Katelynn Romanchick led wire-to-wire to take her first FCIAC championship in 3:06.56.  She then doubled back to take second in the 3,200m with a time of 11:27.90.
 
Debalsi, again, put on a show, running a leg of the second-place 4x800, and winning the 1600m (5:10.08) and 3200m (10:58.63).  Senior Claire Conley of New Canaan improved by over a foot (35-09.50) to take the Rams only win of the day in the shot put.
 
In the pole vault, Greenwich tenth-grader Lia Zavattaro tied her best jump of 9-6 to win her first major championship and take 10 points for the third-place Cardinals. 
 

The Danbury boys matched their female counterparts by winning the FCIAC indoor track meet over Brien McMahon, 117-56.  It was the Hatter's third consecutive title and tenth in the last 14 years.

Veteran Danbury coach, Rob Murray thought it was a "blue collar effort" that gave them the win.  "The enthusiasm each athlete showed and their willingness to sacrifice for each other is what set them apart today," he said.

Danbury scored in 13 of 15 events with four wins and multiple scorers in four of 11 individual events. 

Two of their wins broke meet records.  To start off the day, the 4x800m made up of Tim Moore, Pedro Pereira, Bradley Fox and Dan Campbell ran 8:15.22 and just edged out Fairfield Ludlowe, who also broke the meet record with their 8:15.70.                                 

Senior Devonte Clarke took his friend and volunteer coach Matt Andrew's record in the 55m with a time of 6.48.  Clarke came back later in the meet to take the runner-up spot in the 300m with a time of 36.35

Danbury's depth was evident in the relays where, besides its record-breaking 4x800m, it also won the sprint medley, 4x400m and was a runner-up in the 4x200m. 

The sprint medley was an exciting match between Trumbull and Danbury.  The Hatters had a one-second lead after the first two legs but the lead was shrunk to only a tenth of a second after the 400m runners finished.  Terrell Cunningham and Trumbull's Tyler Rubush both tried to break each other but Cunningham used a greater finishing kick to hold off his challenger by a half of a second to win in 3:43.87

Danbury also had contributions from the field events with runner up finishes from Jonah Hinh in the shot put (43-4.75), Nate Llanos in the pole vault (12-6) and Tumani Edwards in the high jump (6-0) to give them a total of 19 All FCIAC athletes.

Brien McMahon took home its first FCIAC trophy in recent memory by taking four individual events.  Asderly Pierre-Maintus pulled off a mild upset and ran a personal best in the 55HH running a time of 8.35. 

Top-seed Daniel Linehan lived up to his top billing in the 300m and ran 36.15 after coming back from a 3^rd place finish in the 600m. 

The individual star of the day on the boy's side was All-American Eric van der Els.  The McMahon senior broke his own meet record in the 1600m with a 4:16.91 victory.  Van der Els ran by himself the entire way and won by 13 seconds. 

He expected to have an easy time of it in the 3,200m coming in with a PR 33-seconds better than his next closest rival.  But Gilmar Barrios of Stamford and Danbury's Jack Adamski stuck right with him for the first mile.  The All-American was still running relaxed when, with seven laps to go, Adamski briefly took the lead.  That immediately caused the pace to quicken and the Danbury senior held on until about three laps to go.  Van der Els' winning time of 9:18.56 is currently the fifth fastest 3,200m time in the country and Adamski's one-second PR of 9:23.38 ranks him as the eighth best time nationally.

Greenwich had an outstanding day in the jumps with junior Isaac Floyd sailing to a 22-6 victory in the long jump to go along with his teammate Scott Safir's leap of 6-4 in the high jump.

State leader in the pole vault, Marc Delucia of Westhill, cleared 13-0 to follow up his former teammate Chris Rough's victory last year. 

Staples' thrower Israel Werner rose to the occasion and took 10 points for the Wreckers with his 44-1.5 throw.

Junior Aaron Breene came out on top of a tight pack to take the 1,000m in 2:35.11

With various conferences finishing up their championships this weekend, next on the agenda will be the CIAC Class meets that will be held February 11^th, 12^th and 13^th at the Floyd Little Athletic Center in New Haven.

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