Hillhouse's Gary Moore Jr kicked off his outdoor season campaign to rewrite the state records by heaving a 213-6.5 hammer throw toss to break AJ Guerra's 2010 mark of 211-2. The big throw came on April 15 at the Hillhouse Hammer Meet at Bowen Field. Moore won the competition by more than 47 feet.
Moore wasn't the only one from Hillhouse having a big day at the home meet. Olivia O'Connor took out the record set by her Academic teammate and 2021 grad Leah Moore of 164-2. O'Connor's big throw landed out at 168-5 to win by about 35 feet.
And Moore and O"Connor may keep hammering this weekend at the New York Relays at Icahn Stadium. Moore will be facing off against two of the top four HTers in the nation as Tarik Robinson O'Hagan of Woonsocket at 230-1 and Michael Pinckney of HS of Construction (218-8.75 in 2021) will be letting them fly. O'Connor is #2 in the US, and she is expected to dominate the HT competition on Friday. Needless to say, the MileSplit cameras will be wandering over that way when possible at the meet.
Elsewhere over last weekend, there were a number of CT #1 marks being laid down at the Lady Hawks Invite in Bloomfield. On the guys' side, Jeremy Rivera of Prince Tech ran a 4:27.20 in the 1600m, Norwich Free Academy knocked another .01 of the its season best with a 43.35 in the 4x100m, Jordan Ribeiro of NFA got out 49-9 in the shot put, and Stonington's Joshua Mooney did 174-8 in the javelin.
On the girls side at Lady Hawks, Windsor's Brittani Westberry ran a 59.91 in the 400m, EO Smith's Gabriella Hernandez did 2:16.51 in the 800m, Marina Perry of Rocky Hill tossed 36-4 in the shot put, Hannah Graham of NFA did 117-9 in the discus, and Bloomfield's D'Jior Delisser flew out to 17-5 in the long jump.
There are many strong competitions set up for the coming weekend. Danbury and Alanna Smith are expected to be competing at the New York Relays, which is on Friday evening and Saturday. The CT Distance Festival at Hall HS will be on Friday, and the Hillhouse Invitational at Bowen Field and the Patriot Games at Coventry will be on Saturday.
As always, the meet results are listed at RESULTS, the upcoming meets can be found on CALENDAR, and the ever-changing and updated RANKINGS for Boys and RANKINGS for Girls are also great places to hang out.