This year's Middletown Invitational at Middletown High School is bringing together some of the top athletes in the state this Friday and Saturday.
The freshman/ sophomore races will be held on Friday evening beginning at 2:30. In the varsity races on Saturday, the field events will begin at 1 pm and the running events start an hour later at two in order to accommodate the SATs that will be given earlier in the day.
The best performance of the meet could be Justin Forde, the
football and basketball star from Brien McMahon who just jumped 47'5 in the triple
jump and 6'10 at a dual meet this week.
His triple jump ranks him 24th in the nation and his high
jump is tied for 21st.
In the high jump the Manchester junior will have to face Chet Ellis of Staples who has also cleared 6'10 this week. Both will have a chance to break Justin Adams of South Windsor's 24-year-old record of 6'8.
Last year's State Open champion in the boys' 400m is all state
football player Jevin Frett of Manchester.
Frett, a senior ran 47.92 to take 2nd in New Englands last year
will face a stiff challenge from Andre Valentine of Hartford Public who won the
Panther Invitational this year in 48.58 two weeks ago and was followed by Jason
Walton, who also broke 50 seconds. Throw
in CT indoor 300m champion Kymali Hay of University High and you have the makings
of a great match up.
Headlining the girls' sprints is last year's State Open and New England champion, Aisha Gay of Hamden. The senior ran a 55.55 last year and tied the all-time Connecticut record in the indoor 200m with a 24.56 this winter.
Three of the top female vaulters over the past three years will
face each other once again. Megan
Biscoglio 
of Southington was last year's State Open and Branford's Bridget
Wirtz and Greenwich's Lia Zavattaro were the next best returners and all three have
jumped between 11'9 to 12'2.
Another big rivalry will be reignited on Saturday when the 2nd and 3rd place finishers from last outdoor and this indoor seasons will match up in the girls high jump. Patricia Mroczkowski of Berlin and Monique Anderson of Bloomfield have both qualified for New Balance Nationals with PRs of 5'7. In this competition, expect some big jumps.
Amanda Howe of Southington has dominated the throws this year and has the furthest throws of 2018 in the shot, discus and hammer throw. In fact, she is only five feet away from the all-time state record of 149'0 in the discus and eight feet in the hammer from the 163'0 record set last year in the hammer.
Rocky Hill Sophomore Elizabeth Stockman surprised many people this
winter by winning the State Open 3200m and taking 2nd in New England
with a 10:31.84, the 7th best two mile time in the nation. She is entered in the both the 1600m and
3200m this weekend and will expect competition from Pomperaug freshman Kate
Wiser who was the State Open runner up in cross country.
Indoor State Open 1600m champ Alexander Korczynski is entered in the 1600m and 800m. While he is the only person to have a personal best time under 4:20 in the longer race, he will face a stiff challenge in the 800m from Mario Mastroianni of Branford who ran 1:54 last year at the Danbury Invitational, Manasseh Bekele of Hillhouse who was the Class M champion in the 600m and New Milford's Charlie Osborne who ran 1:57 last year.