By Hal Levy, Shore Line Newspapers
Special to MaxPreps.com
This past weekend, a number of conferences around Connecticut conducted indoor track championships.
State divisional meets begin Thursday with Class LL and run through Saturday, all at the New Haven Citywide Field House, which is where a number of the league meets were held, as well.
The Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference (FCIAC) boys’ meet was won by Danbury with 118 points, followed by Staples-Westport with 75. Darien led the girls with 103 points with Danbury (101.33) a very close second. The meet highlight was a triple by Ridgefield’s Heather Stephens in the distance events. She won the 1000-meters in 3:03.68, the 1600 in 5:19.20 and the 3200 in 11:04.04.
The Southwest Conference boys’ meet went to New Milford with 91 points, trailed by Weston with 89. On the girls’ side, Weston scored 128 to far out-distance second-place Masuk-Monroe with 68. Once again, the only multiple winner came on the girls’ side where Weston’s Ali Atkinson beat the field in the 300-meter dash (0:43.32) and the 600-meter run (1:40.63).
The Central Connecticut Conference (CCC) meets also were in New Haven. Glastonbury swept both with the boys scoring 62 points to 60 for Manchester and 56 for William Hall-West Hartford. The Glastonbury girls had 146, well ahead of Weaver-Hartford with 67.
Mike Hartfield of Manchester set a meet record with a 23-foot-0 long jump. Dominic Smith of Bloomfield won twice, both in record times. He took the 55-meter hurdles in 0:06.47 and the 300-meter dash in 0:35.42.
The other double winner for the boys was Everett Hackett of Hall, who took the 1600 in 4:27.56 and the 3200 in 9:43.12. The girls got two meet records. Athalia Smith of New Britain threw the shotput 39-11 and Jill Pizzo of Glastonbury pole-vaulted 10-feet. Kristen Mallory of Glastonbury had a distance double in the 1600 (5:15.80) and 3200 (11:24.24).
Hillhouse-New Haven scored 65 points to edge Branford (61) for the Southern Connecticut Conference boys’ crown while Cheshire scored 72 to beat out Amity Regional-Woodbridge (56) on the girls’ side.
For the boys, Branford’s Matt Casey won the 1000-meters in 2:40.73 and the 1600 in 4:30.35 and added a third place finish in the 3200. For the girls. Irene Kalbian of Cheshire won the 1600 in 5:18.90 and the 3200 in 11:11.76. Ann Marie Clarke of Hillhouse took the 300-meter dash in 0:41.45 and the 55-meter hurdles in 0:8.60. She also was on the winning 4x400-meter relay team.
Old Saybrook swept the Shoreline Conference meet. The Runnin’ Rams scored 93 points on the boys’ side to beat Haddam-Killingworth (75) while the girls amassed 89 to edge East Hampton (85). Will Ricker of Lyme-Old Lyme set a new meet record in the 1000-meters at 2:34.99 and Chris Anagnos of Cromwell eclipsed the 600-meter run mark with his time of 1:25.36. He doubled up with a win in the 300-meters in 0:36.75. Jack Grumm of Coginchaug-Durham went 13-3 to set a record in the pole vault.
On the girls’ side, Cherish Richardson of Hyde Leadership-New Haven took the 55-meter dash in 0:07.53 and won the 300 in a meet-record 0:42.54. The other double winner among the girls was Coginchaug’s Erin Bisceglia who won the 1000 in 3:14.48 and the 1600 in 5:26.66.
Soccer: Uscilla Earns Gatorade POY
Alex Uscilla of St. Joseph-Trumbull was selected as the state’s Gatorade girls’ soccer Player of the Year, the first ever from her school. Uscilla set a school record with 25 goals for the Cadets and added eight assists as St. Joseph went 18-0-2 and won the CIAC Class M state championship.
Uscilla, who earned All-America honors from the National Soccer Coaches Association, had 69 goals and 35 assists in her career. She will play in the fall at the University of Hartford.
Hockey: SNC Beginning Web-Casts
Sporting News Connecticut (www.SportingNewsCT.com) has begun live video web-casts of high school hockey games. The site, owned and operated by Don Boyle, has done radio-style broadcasts of a number of sports in the past several years.
“Going to live video broadcast was our goal right from the start and we were waiting for technology to advance to the point where we could do it,” Boyle told Dan Nowak of the New Haven Register. “We understand the technology aspect of it now. This is so exciting for us and it’s great for the hockey fan.”
Boyle plans to sit down with CIAC officials to try to get an agreement to video-cast the three divisional state championship games. He has done audio for a variety of state tourney games in baseball and football the past several seasons as well as hockey.
For the moment, the video-casts will be free, although that could change in the years ahead.