Trojan Track Teams Take Second at SWCs

Photo courtesy Weston Athletics

Both Trojan track teams were runners-up in the 2022 SWC championship on February 5.

Boys

Injuries, the graduation of key performers, and a paucity of field event points prevented the Trojans from continuing their run of four straight SWC championships. They had to settle for a second place tie with Bethel, totaling 73 points. New Milford won their first championship since 2008 with 95 points.

The only field event points came in the pole vault, where Aaron Smith and Roman Novotny took second and third respectively.

Weston always manages to do well in the relays, and this year was no exception as they won the Sprint Medley relay in 3:52.32 with the team of Ari Escandon, Max Spencer, Jack Haythorn and anchor Cooper Capola. Tyler Schiffer and Rex Kaplan teamed with Escandon and Haythorn to grab second in the 4x200 meters relay, while Capola and Kaplan joined Blake Braun and Cooper Clemens to take second in the 4x400 meters.

The 4x800 meters relay team took third with Clemens, Luke Rubin, Cole Mancinelli and Cameron Miles.

Capola picked up a second win by using a good finishing drive to win the 1000 meters in 2:42.61. Other individual scoring came from Braun (second 600 meters), Haythorn (fourth 55 hurdles), Rubin (fourth 600 meters), Kaplan (sixth 300 meters) and Miles (sixth 3200 meters).

Girls

The Trojan girls have dominated the SWC championship, losing only once (2012) in the last 16 years. This year the young team came up just a bit short, with 77 points to Newtown’s 85.

Unlike the boys, the girls were able to score well in the field events, with Ellison Weiner winning the pole vault (11 feet) and Sofia Zharyy a big surprise winner in the shot put (30’2”). Jianna Blunschi took third in the pole vault and fifth in the long jump. Brooke Wagner landed a fourth place finish in the long jump.

The relays produced big points. Weiner, Wagner, Sophia Taylor and Abigail Miles won the 4x200 meters in 1:52.22, while Weiner, Miles, Taylor and Amelia Rudolph won the 4x400 meters in 4:14.68.

The sprint medley relay team of Wagner, Keira Seibert, Lianne Saussy and Charlotte Carter was second and the 4x800 meters team of Saussy, Sadie August, Campbell Clemens and Campbell McNulty was fourth.

Fourth place finishes were registered by Miles (600 meters) and Carter (1000 meters), while Rudolph took fifth in the 600 and Taylor sixth in the 300. Jane Smith ran a gritty race and took a fifth in a very good 3200 meter field.

Barlow senior Mariella Schweitzer was the biggest star of the meet winning three events, the 300 meters, 55 meter hurdles (new meet record of 8.53) and the long jump (new meet record 17’9.25”).

Next up for the Trojans is the state Class M meet on February 10 at Hillhouse.

Blake Braun on the track. Photo: Terry Tyler

Cooper Capola anchoring the sprint medley relay. Photo: Terry Tyler