Article updated on 5/25/2022
All season long, Hillhouse's Gary Moore Jr. has been hammering in the hammer throw, and a 200-2 throw at the Danbury Dream invite on Friday marked the second time he has exceeded the double-century distance following on a state record (at least by all observed data) throw of 213-6.5 at the Hillhouse Hammer Meet on April 15.
Two days before the Danbury meet, Moore was competing in the shot put event at the SCC West championship and took down a revered 21-year-old mark of 65-0 when he put one out 66-4.25 to best the previous SR by more than 16 inches. The old mark had been set at the elite Golden West invite in Sacramento, CA on June 9, 2001 by another guy, South Windsor's Andre Reid, who was big on power but at 6'0'' not that tall for a top shot putter. Reid won the Golden West by more than a foot after dominating in CT all season and winning the CIAC Open at 61-1.5.
Moore will likely have a lot more big opportunities to extend his shot put SR further to put a little more distance between him and the younger set of throwers who will be chasing his mark when they are high school seniors. But there is also one more event among the weight group's quartet that Moore is definitely eying for an SR. He also competed in the discus at the SCC West meet and sent one out to 182-7, which is 6 feet short of his PR from last year's winning throw at the state Open. But Moore needs to add just a manageable 6 1/2 feet to his recent throw to claim the oldest outdoor SR on the books -- a 189-2 (recorded at that time as 189-2.25) mark by Mel Taylor of Hartford Public at the Greater Hartford meet on June 3, 1969. Taylor, whose indoor shot put SR Moore bettered in February in the Class M meet, was also a multi-event thrower and like Reid he competed out at the Golden West meet in June of 1969.
As to the fourth throwing event, the javelin, although we would never want to underestimate Moore's chances, his best mark is a 181-6 from last year, and beating the 212-9 mark by Stephen Simalchik of Danbury in 2009 would require a more major leap.
Update Note: Things happen fast at this time of the season, and on Tuesday May 24 at the SCC championship, Moore captured wins in all three throwing events contested -- the shot put, discus, and javelin. In the shot put he notched his second best mark ever, equaling Reid's old SR of 65-0. In the javelin he tossed a 175-11 mark for a season's best and CT #2 mark behind Stonington's Joshua Mooney. And in the discus Moore got a CT #1 and another season's best throw of 186-8, which is 2 1/2 short of the SR.
Another Note: While Moore was enjoying a big day last Friday in the HT at Danbury Dream, his Hillhouse teammate Olivia O'Connor was hammering out to 166-10, just a little shy of the 168-0.5 throw she made in April at the Hillhouse Hammer Fest. We'll just leave it up to the best statisticians among CT's T&F record-officiating hierarchy to decide which mark is an SR.