Boys
Staples, who defeated Danbury in a dual meet, the conference meet and again last week for the Class LL title, had a tougher time this week than last. Staples ran their school's fastest team time, which is the second best time on the newer course that was altered in 2008. But Danbury improved 52 seconds over its time last week to make it a narrow 16-point victory for the Wreckers. The Hatters had the lowest team score for second place since at least 1982 when team scores were available.
Danbury's team strategy was to go out faster than they did last week when they purposely tried to come from behind in the class meet. The Hatters came up the Green Monster, right around the 3K mark of the course, with their top three in front of Staples' No. 2 and their fifth runner in front of the Wreckers' No. 5. Both teams continued to move up in places, but Staples was able to move up more and hold off the challengers for a narrow 61- 76 point victory.
Staples had a perfect day to take both the team and individual titles. In a replay of the race last week, Zakeer Ahmad and Drew Thompson of Fairfield Prep went right to the front along with Sean Parker of Shepaug Valley and Robbie Cozean of Xavier. The quartet held together in the lead pack until the last 1,000 meters when Thompson make his move to try and counter Ahmad's faster finishing speed. Once again, the tandem entered the final 300m up a gradual hill to the finish line neck-and-neck. The only difference was than they both finished three seconds faster than last week, but with Ahmed once again one second ahead, running 15:46 to Thompson's 15:47.
Xavier was able to hold on to its predicted third-place finish, despite losing its No. 2 runner, Owen Curran, to a stress fracture earlier in the week. On the boys' side, freshman rarely make an appearance on the All State team. But Xavier has been led by ninth-grader Robbie Cozean all season and he stuck right with the leaders for most of the race to take home sixth place. He was followed by sophomore Dillon Selfors in 29th with a time that was 30 seconds faster than last week.
Fairfield Warde moved up two spots from last year to finish fourth. Senior William Brisman, the FCIAC runner-up, took fourth overall to add to his outstanding senior year season. This gives the FCIAC three teams to qualify for New England's and four in the top 10.
Two of the most successful programs in recent memory have been New Milford and Amity,who have made 23 appearances between them at the New England championships. The Green Wave and the Spartan took the final two spots to add to their totals of regional appearances. New Milford was led by sophomore Eli Nahom in 11th place to be the first sophomore finisher. Kyle Beaudette, who has been Amity's pacesetter for the past three years, finished 25th overall.