Girls Track 2nd, Boys 3rd at State Open Championship

Just one week after taking home Class L State Championships, both girls and boys Windsor track teams fell short at the State Open in New Britain Monday. The girls had to settle for second place, coming up short seven point behind Hillhouse-New Haven. The boys finished third, 10 points behind champion Danbury and four shy of runner-up Staples-Westport.

Boys coach Joe Bienasz and girls coach Ron Wilson each spoke at length in praise of their athletes, but each acknowledged that a slight turn of events here, a smile of fortune there and the day would have exceeded all expectation. And they admitted the teams they fell short to deserved what they got.

“Our goal, as always, was to win,” Bienasz said. “But you cannot ask for more than what they could do. We definitely had the ability to win but not everything is going to go your way. In the high jump, I expected more points and I expected a few more in the triple jump.

“They did the best they could, and that’s good enough for me. They all ran, threw or jumped their best.”

The boys were in position to win the meet during the last event, the 4x400-meter relay. Danbury and Staples were in the last heat as well. The Warriors, though, finished ninth in the event, despite coming in with the seventh seed (the seventh fastest qualifying time of teams in the competition). They didn’t get off to a good start, did not have great handoffs of the baton and made up no ground. Staples won the event and earned 10 points, to vault past Windsor, and Danbury finished fourth, worth five points. Staples was the No. 1 seed, Danbury No. 3.

Windsor junior Daniel Jamieson, the No. 23 seed, placed third in the 200 with a time of 21.87 seconds. Senior Zachary Langs was third in the 110-meter high hurdles and fourth in the 300 intermediate hurdles, despite feeling weak throughout the day. Langs ran in the 4x100 that was seeded fourth but finished second.

Senior Tosin Edwards, seeded 16th, was sixth in the shot put at 49-feet-7¾ inches. Senior Greg Andrade placed fifth as the fifth seed in the triple jump in 44-7 and eighth  in the high jump at 6-2 as the third seed.

The Windsor girls nearly set two mees records. Even if they had, they still would’ve finished as runners-up. Fact is, the Warriors were one special performance away from winning it all. Instead, Precious Holmes, a Hillhouse sophomore, won the three sprints (100 meters, 200, 400) – a remarkable accomplishment – with Windsor girls also placing in all three.

“It’s hard to compete against a team that has an athlete win three events,” Wilson said. Holmes single-handedly earned 30 of the 63-point team total.

Warriors sophomore Sydnee Over, seeded second, was runner-up to the top-seeded Holmes in the 400, with a time of 53.62, which would have broken the meet record of 55.20 set by Symone Roberts of New Britain in 2009. But Holmes (53.16) gets credit for breaking the record because she won the event. Holmes’s time is the second fastest in America, according to dyestat.com, by 0.01 of a second. Over’s 53.62 is the third fastest in the nation.

“I’m proud of my personal record,” Over said. “I couldn’t have done any better if I tried.”

A record not in dispute is in the 4x400 relay of 3:49.59, breaking the 2006 mark of 3:52.52 by Weaver of Hartford. Over ran lead-off, followed by Brianna Allen, Nastasya Rodriques and anchor Ashley Graves. Wilson moved Over from anchor to lead-off to make all competition chase Windsor. The tactic worked, he said.

“That will make them chase us,” Wilson said. “We had a good first leg, we ran hard. They’re not at their fastest but they’re at the point of peaking right now.”

Senior Chalsea Clark, seeded 16th, was sixth to Holmes in the 100 in 12.38 and she was sixth in the 300 hurdles in 46.86 as the No. 12 seed. Allen, the sixth seed, was eighth to Holmes in the 200 in 25.56. Graves, No. 9, finished eighth in the 400 in 58.28.

The 4x100 relay, seeded third, was runner-up in 49.09, with Clark, junior Janae Wilson, sophomore Courtney Kearse and Allen. The 4x800 of junior Keniece Walker, Rodriques, Medinah Nabadduka and Over won in 9:20.62 after being the sixth seed.

Janae Wilson was third in the long jump at 17-5¾  and sixth in the triple jump (35-11¼ ) as the Nos. 3 and 5 seeds. She injured her hip in the Class LL championships on May 31 and had not trained since.

The top 6 finishers in individual and relay events qualified for the New England Championships June 11 in Burlington, VT.