Middletown Invite Dominates State Rankings

Its amazing what a day with good weather can do for athletic performances.  After a very cold and wet start to the outdoor track season, athletes at the Middletown invitational on Saturday welcomed a warm day in the mid 70s which provided an opportunity to set qualifying marks for the championship season coming up in only a few short weeks.  

Justin Forde of Brien McMahon took advantage of the conditions and had an historic day and won the long, triple and high jump with nationally ranked performances in all three events.  The junior began the day with his "weakest" event and set a personal record and took over the state lead with a jump of 22'10. 

Then, in the highlight of the day, Forde opened up easily clearing 6'2 in the high jump and soon only had DeAaron Lawrence of Middletown as a competitor.  Even last year's Class L champion was impressed as Forde kept moving the bar up and eventually cleared 7'0, the 8th best jump in the country.  Only three other competitors in state history have gone higher, so naturally he went after the record of 7'0.25 and raised the bar to 7'1.  He had three good attempts, but had to settle with only meet record.  The state record will have to wait for another day.

Forde finished off the day on tired legs and jumped 47-7.25 to win the triple jump.  He and his coaches wisely decided not to take all of his all of his jump and finished a little over a foot below his personal best he set a a dual meet earlier in the week.  

Elizabeth Stockman of Rocky Hill continues to dominate the girls distance races and has proven she can run fast with, or without competition.  She began the day with a huge match up against State Open cross country runner up Kate Wiser of Pomperaug.  Both of them immediately went to the front and the freshman from Pomperaug, shadowed Stockman  by only a couple of feet the entire race.  Stockman never gave up the lead and held off Wiser down the home stretch and was able to pull off the win in a time of 4:56.11 to 4:57.27 with both athletes cracking into the top 100 nationally.  

Stockman double backed in the 3200m and won in a state leading time of 10:52.45.  She was followed by indoor State Open 3200m runner up Meredith Bloss of Guilford who ran the 2nd fastest time in the state with a 11:00.57.

In the girls pole vault, defending State Open champion Megan Biscoglio of Southington set a new PR with jump of 12'5, the 76th best jump in the country.  This is the 6th time the University of Connecticut bound senior has cleared 12 ft in her career.  

While Biscoglio has dominated the vault, her teammate Amanda Howe has done the same in the throws.  Howe, who has committed to the University of Iowa, broke 140 ft for the second time this season with her 142'8 win on Saturday.  She threw 144'8 at Penn Relays three weeks ago which is just under five feet off the state record set by Karen Wyzykowski of Old Saybrook set in 2002.  

In all, 61 schools were represented at the meet which saw state leading marks in half of all 18 championship events.  

The following athletes met the MileSplit US First Team standard at the Middletown Invitational.