Ledyard Track and Field Starts Season With A Wallop

Ledyard track and field athletes defended their home turf against Plainfield and Tourtellotte from Thompson, defeating them across the board in relays, hurdles and field events in the first meet of the season Thursday.

“There will be two commands: ‘runners set’ and the gun,” they were told. Throughout the afternoon, dozens of sets of runners would listen to these instructions as they stood shivering at the start line.

The event was highlighted by a very strong showing by the girls.

Ledyard’s Chenoa Sebastian took first in the 100-meter high hurdles and in the 300-meter low hurdles. Emily Loy claimed victory in the 100 and 200-meter dash. Laura Scahill took a 2:36 victory in the 800 meters. Meanwhile Lindsey Ackley won the mile in a time of 5:53.1 and Cedar Nelson knocked out a 12:18 two-mile win.

Plainfield claimed its lone win with Haley Beausdeill, who edged out Ledyard’s Minnie Zhang by .2 seconds in the 400-meter dash.

The Ledyard girls proved they could run together as a team as well as perform individually, starting with their win for the 4x800-meter relay where Ashleigh Scahill, Cedar Nelson, Lauren Scahill and Lindsey Ackley won with a net time of 10:32.3.

Sebastian ran the first leg of the 4x100-meter relay followed by Ally Loy, who passed the baton to Kaylin Bruciati. Emily Loy finished the event brought the team in to victory with a net time of 52.5 seconds.

In the 4x400-meter relay, Kaylin Bruciati, Minnie Zhang, Laurent Scahill and Lindsay Ackley beat out the competition with a finish time of 4:32.9.

The field events were a unanimous victory for the girls. Emily Loy took first by clearing 15 feet 2 inches in the long jump, with Ally Loy falling an inch shorter for second. Loy did, however, win the high jump, clearing a height of 4’10’’.

Natasha Griffith won both shot put and discus with distances of  37’04”and 101’02”. Triple jump went to Ari Fustini in 27’10”, while first in the while pole vault went to Austin Graber with a height of 7’06” and Brittney Humphries took Javelin in a distance of 87’07”.

On the boys’ side Corey Coates took a mile victory in 5:11.5—edging out teammate Basil Polsonetti by a tenth of a second. Andrew Kline won the two-mile in 11:01.4 while Steve Burger won the 400 in 52.7.

Both the 100 and the 200-meter dash belonged to Joe Carter, who crossed the line in 11.5 and 23.9 in the two events—and won the long jump with a 17’08’’ leap.

The lone victory on the track that did not go to Ledyard was in the 800-meter race, which Plainfield’s Steve LaFlamme won in a time of 2:21.8

At the hurdles, Ledyard put Christof Wegiel in front for the 300-meter hurdle victory in 45 seconds, while his teammate Steve Galloway won the 110-meter hurdles in 16.6.

The victories were unanimous as far as relays were concerned. Ledyard’s team in the 4x800 consisted of Zac Higgins, Corey Coates, Andrew Kline and DJ Eldridge, who won with a time of 9:08.5.   In the 4x100, Joe Carter, Adam Ensley Alex Peterson and Ben Bruciati sped to victory in a time of 46.3. The 4x400 also belonged to Ledyard’s team, which laid out a 3:47.5 with Steve Burger, Ben Bruciati Trevor Poplewko and Zac Higgins competing.

Continuing Ledyard’s wins in the field, Cristof Wegiel supplemented his 300-meter hurdle victory with a win for the triple jump in 36 feet. Chris Zeppieri took high jump while James Richmond cleared the vault at a height of 10 feet. Greg Knight won shot and Javelin with 40’3” and 128’09” Ledyard’s Bobby Chesnut logged the furthest discuss throw in 114’10”.

As the meet continued until 7 p.m., runners huddled in their sweats on the sidelines, standing in the cold wind to cheer on their teammates.

It was an auspicious start for the season—one which would hopefully get warmer soon.

Dave Tetlow, who coaches alongside Kyle Griffith, was starting his 39^th year of coaching track. He was pleased to have seen “a lot of good performances” at the meet. This year, he said, he was looking at one of his strongest girls’ teams yet.

“Every week, we want to get stronger,” he said.

Next Tuesday, Ledyard will test its mettle again in a home meet against Waterford. Thanks to Coach Kyle Griffith for supplying the results.