SWC Cross Country Championships—

NHS Girls Dethroned, Take Second; Boys Grab Fifth Place

By Andy Hutchison

BETHEL — All signs pointed to yet another repeat performance. The Newtown High School girls’ cross country team, having won seven consecutive South-West Conference championships, retained all but one of its top-seven finishers from a year ago and went unbeaten (15-0) this regular season.

But New Milford came out on top in the October 22 SWC Championship race at Bethel High School’s trail to end Newtown’s long run of first-place finishes. New Milford ended the race with 68 points and Newtown had 84 to settle for second. The Nighthawks actually tied Pomperaug with 84 points but won the tiebreaker by virtue of their sixth-place finisher, Danni Villa, finishing faster than Pomperaug’s sixth-place finisher since the top five finishers’ results are counted for the final score in the end.

“The pressure’s off a little bit now,” said Newtown girls’ Coach Doug Russell, adding that his team would focus its attention on the Class LL State Championships at the end of October.

“They ran really well,” Russell said of the New Milford girls. “And our girls ran exceptionally well today, but every good thing has to come to an end.”

Newtown’s top finisher was Anne Martino, who placed eighth in a time of 20:19.03. Bunnell’s Lauren Sara took first and broke the course record in a time of 18:43.66. Martino was followed by teammates Erin Begg in 10th (20:36.08), Katie Burns in 12th (20:51.26), and Mara Scallon in 19th (21:33.74) as four Hawks cracked the top 20. Newtown’s Lilly Rodriquez was 35th in 22:46.90, Villa placed 37th in a time of 22:50.77, and Scarlett O’Sullivan placed 42nd in 23:13.72 to round out Newtown’s pack.

The teams were running in unusually warm temperatures, which got into the 70s on a clear day only days after they were practicing in the cold rain — and a week after working out in the first snowfall of the year.

“Two workouts ago it snowed,” Begg said. But the NHS runner was not making any excuses. “They had to run in it, too.”

“It was a tough race,” said Martino, adding that the weather did come as a bit of a shock to the runners.

 “We gave it our all. I’m still really proud of our team,” Martino said.

Boys Fifth

The Newtown boys went 7-6 in the regular campaign and, thus, could have been projected to finish seventh in the 13-team race, Coach Dave Foss said. But the Nighthawks were happy to run away with a fifth-place result. The Hawks had 161 points. New Milford had 45 to win the race. New Fairfield’s John Raneri took first overall and set the course record for the boys with a time of 16:00.35.

Newtown’s best finisher was Jake Feinstein who was 23rd in 18:14.38. The Nighthawks grabbed the 31, 32 and 33 spots with Pat Sullivan (18:33.28), Vinnie Brophy (18:34.16) and Austin Baldour (18:37.18) finishing back-to-back-to-back. Dieter Gutbrod was 42 in a time of 18:59.46,

 Palmer Lintz placed 49th in 19:17.49 and Andrew LaMarche was 50th in 19:21.08.

Foss pointed out that four of his team’s top seven runners are freshmen and sophomores and said he was pleased with the results.

“Overall, I thought we ran pretty well,” Foss said.