Colocho Tops All in SWC Cross Country Tri-Meet

On Tuesday September 28th the Stratford High School Boys Cross Country team hosted the New Fairfield Rebels and the Immaculate Mustangs over at the David Wooster Middle School campus, which serves as the home course for the Stratford Red Devils.

The afternoon sees the friendly confines of the campus transitioned into a fast and flat 5 kilometer cross country course where runners enjoy a plush grass surface, a newly reconditioned crushed stone trail, and concrete sidewalks adjacent to and passing along Freeman Ave. and Lincoln St.

The race does draw the neighbors to their front yard lawns to enjoy what has become a favorite course to be racing on in the South West Conference.

This Tuesday afternoon saw temperatures in the middle 60’s, earlier heavy rains left the pathways rain soaked, but mother nature cleared the way for partly to mostly cloudy conditions, and no wind.

Each team sent their seven best to the front row of the starting line and the race was underway.

Stratford’s Amos Colocho jumped out in front, opening up a big lead after one-quarter of a mile.

Colocho is having a highlight reel year and today he went up against those always tough northern schools. He proved that his outstanding season is no fluke by taking a twenty second lead as the race passed the midway point.

Immaculate’s Seamus Reidy was second and was running a fine race as well.

Team wise, it was all Immaculate with Cole Ross in third, Matt Reaves in fourth, Ben Gasparrini in fifth.

The sixth spot stayed very close as New Fairfield’s Cooper Piesco and Immaculate’s Trevor Fuller traded steps for the entire race.

In eighth, New Fairfield’s Carrington Flynn followed by Stratford’s Ryan Munoz and Marcus Cavallo.

The story starting to unfold in this one was Stratford holding a lead over New Fairfield with the race now more than halfway over.

Stratford’s Joshua Kydes battled New Fairfield’s Aleksee Gentry with just under a mile remaining meanwhile Stratford’s James Bragg-Phillips had a slight margin over New Fairfield’s Ryan Rodriguez for the all important fifth place finisher between the two teams.

Back to the front part of the race, Colocho toed the finish line leading the entire way in a time of 17:57.

The next five finishers were from Immaculate, Reidy (18:34) in second place, Ross (19:07) in third, Reeves (19:13) in fourth, and Gasparrini in a time of 19:25).

Immaculate’s Fuller and New Fairfield’s Piesco provided the crowd on hand with the closest finish of the day as at the line Fuller (19:50.17) lunged in just ahead of Piesco (19:50.60) for sixth place.

In eighth place New Fairfield’s Flynn in at 19:51.

In ninth place Stratford’s Munoz at 19:54.

Rounding out the top ten Stratford’s Cavallo in a time of 20:46.

For Stratford, the attention turned to the battle between Kydes and New Fairfield’s Gentry.

In a final kick Kydes outlasted Gentry (21:59) in a time of 21:15.

Stratford held a small lead over New Fairfield in team scoring with both teams urging their number five runners as they raced to the finish line.

Those number five runners, Stratford’s Bragg-Phillips and New Fairfield’s Rodriguez, were into the final turn with Bragg-Phillips holding the edge.

Bragg-Phillips went on to finish just ahead of Rodriguez (22:07) with a time of 22:05.

With the Bragg-Phillips finish, the Red Devils claimed the upset victory over the New Fairfield Rebels by a score of 24-31.

The remaining Stratford finishers were Andrew Maldonado (24:49), Raiyan Khrusau (33:39), and Papa Insaidoo (43:22). Kalaba Kibwe pulled up during the race with an obvious lower body injury and is listed as day-to-day.

Final scores on the afternoon, Immaculate 20 Stratford 39, Immaculate 15 New Fairfield 46, and previously mentioned Stratford 24 New Fairfield 31.

Stratford goes to three wins and four losses on the season.

Up next for Stratford, they travel to Reed Intermediate School in Newtown on Tuesday October 5th to face the Newtown High Nighthawks, Kolbe Cathedral Cougars, and the New Milford Greenwave.