Local Boys Shine at Track Championships; Boys Basketball Prepare for Tournament

Boys Track Championships:

Bryan Fowler led a strong showing by the Tolland boys in the CIAC Class M meet in New Haven Saturday. Yet, his performance wasn't enough to bring the Eagles to the top; Tolland finished fourth overall with Brookfield taking the top honors

Fowler, a senior, won the 3,200 meters in a time of 9:45.91 and was also part of the winning 4x800 meter relay team (8:20.43) that included Ryan Possardt, Matt Menshner and Trevor LaFontaine. Fowler won the State Open cross country meet in the fall.

The 3,200 was dominated by Tolland where, in addition to Fowler's win, LaFontaine finished third and Menshner was fourth.

Enfield also has reason to celebrate today as senior Andrew Buanno won the 55 meters at the Class M meet in 6.63 seconds. Suffield got a sixth place finish from junior DJ LaBarre in the 1,600 meters (4:47.75).

The Class L meet, which took place Friday, was notable for the Windsor girls championship, but the Windsor boys also had a strong showing, finishing sixth; New Canaan won the meet.

Windsor senior Zachary Lange won the 55 meter hurdles in a time of 7.78 seconds. Lange was also part of Windsor's winning 4x200 meter relay team, which defeated Darien by .01 seconds. Windsor finished in 1:34.49. Alexander Smith, Donovan Rodriques and Dwight Meggie were the other members of the relay. Rodriques, Smith and Meggie also finished third in the 4x400 relay along with Kymm Gordon.

Darius Moody also earned points for Windsor in the high jump with a fourth-place finish (6 feet, 2 inches). E.O. Smith senior Toks Oremule finished sixth in the long jump.

Manchester scored 10 points in the Class LL meet Saturday night in New Haven. Seth Devalve finished second in the high jump (6-feet) and junior Shamar Smith was fifth in the 300 meters (37.16).

East Catholic took home fifth place from its 4x400 relay team in the Class S meet Thursday. The team of Andrew Gordon, Shawn Bernier, Thomas Duff and Ryan Kosis finished in 3:41.09.

Hoop Notes:

During a recent profile of Windsor point guard Garey Allen, it was pointed out that Windsor coach Ken Smith doesn't release team statistics because he feels they detract from the team message. In a world where teams and players will go through all kinds of contortions and manipulations in an effort to break individual records this is refreshing. No wonder Smith's teams always seem to play together on both ends of the court.

Tolland picked up a big victory this week with a win on the road against Rockville. The Eagles (6-9) need two wins in their final five games to qualify for the Class M tournament. Their schedule includes winnable games against Rocky Hill and Fermi, but also games against Hartford Public, E.O. Smith and Southington. If the Eagles had lost to Rockville they would face the daunting task of trying get a win against one of those teams.

Windsor Locks is already in the Class S tournament, but the Raiders have more on their mind than simply getting in. They lost in the Class S semifinals last season and, with a five-game winning streak, appear to be peaking at the right time. The fate of their tournament run may depend on how well they shoot from the outside since senior point guard Tim Putnam can be counted on to penetrate and create open opportunities.

An Opinion:

The CIAC's decision to relax its prohibition on Sunday games was sensible considering the effect the winter storms have had on game schedules throughout the state, but it would be a mistake for the policy to last beyond this year. So many parts of the country have lost complete perspective on what high school sports is supposed to be (and we can thank ESPN for that) that we can sometimes take for granted that we live in a place where we've got it right. Sunday should remain a day off high school athletes.