Newtown High School’s girls’ and boys’ cross country teams had tough tests in visit to Pomperaug of Southbury to take on the host Panthers, as well as Brookfield and New Milford, on September 16.

The girls won two races, handling Brookfield 15-50 and edging New Milford 27-32, and fell 32-23 to Pomperaug. The boys, meanwhile, dropped two of three, getting past Brookfield in a tight outcome, 28-30, and falling 41-18 to New Milford and 29-27 in a nail-biter to Pomperaug.

The girls improved to 5-1 overall. Top finishers, with overall placement, are as follows: 3 Sarah Mawdsley 20:54.0, 7 Emma Bayuk 21:42.5, 10 Erin Tressler 22:02.5, 11 Hannah Schwartz 22:16.1, 13 Madison Findley 22:48.7, 14 Sarah Lyon 23:18.8, 15 Camille Johnson 23:19.8, 16 Kelsey Miller 23:23.4, 28 Micaela Nowacki 24:20.9, 29 Valerie Kadysheva 24:24.3.

“I was very proud of all the girls today. This was a tough meet with very tough competition. It is early in the season to have a big meet like this and we proved today that we can be competitive in our conference,” Newtown Coach Doug Russell said.

The boys stand at 4-2 overall. Kyle Mangold came across the line first for Newtown, in sixth place overall with a time of 17:35, just edging out Pomperaug’s number two runner. David Csordas was next in 11thplace in 18:04. Freshman Joel Duval stepped up to be Newtown’s number three runner, outracing the Pomperaug four runner in a time of 18:22 for 15th place. Brendan Reeds then took fourth for the team and 17th overall in 18:37. Ethan Burg and freshman Christian Lestic came in fifth and sixth for the team and 20th and 21st overall in 18:44 and 18:45 respectively. Joey Whelan closed out the top seven with a 25th place finish in 19:00.

“The race was a dogfight with what looks to be the top four teams in the conference all in one regular season meet,” Newtown Coach David Foss said. “It was neck and neck with both Pomperaug and Brookfield.  A few surprises in the top seven continue to make this season very unpredictable.”