Connecticut High Schools with Winter State Championships: Where Does Suffield Rank?

With Powerball-mania finally over and President Obama’s final State of the Union address behind us, we shift our focus to one of Connecticut’s gems: winter high school sports.

Scholastic teams are about halfway through their 2015-16 schedules, and are already harboring dreams of qualifying for postseason play and a shot at a state championship.

The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) conducts championship tournaments for eight winter sports: boys and girls basketball, girls gymnastics, boys ice hockey, boys and girls indoor track, boys swimming and wrestling. Boys basketball lays claim to being the oldest CIAC-sponsored title, originating in 1922.

What Connecticut high school has won the most winter state championships?

Far and away, the leader is Hillhouse of New Haven with 64 titles - 22 in boys basketball, 18 in boys indoor track, 15 in girls indoor track and nine in girls basketball.

Runnerup is Greenwich with 42 championships; an incredible 41 have been captured by the boys swimming program, led by legendary coach Terry Lowe. The 1992 Cardinals’ ice hockey team also took top honors in the state.

Locally, Suffield High School has brought home eight state tournament trophies in wintertime - three each in boys basketball (1960, 1985, 2000) and boys ice hockey (1979, 2000, 2015), and one each in boys indoor track (1999) and girls indoor track (2000).

Here are the top 20 Connecticut high schools who have won the most winter titles:

• Hillhouse-New Haven, 64 (boys basketball 22, boys indoor track 18, girls indoor track 15, girls basketball 9)
• Greenwich, 42 (boys swimming 41, boys ice hockey 1)
• Danbury, 35 (wrestling 18, boys indoor track 11, girls indoor track 5, boys basketball 1)
• Darien, 32 (boys swimming 11, girls gymnastics 7, boys indoor track 6, girls indoor track 5, boys ice hockey 2, boys basketball 1)
• Weston, 29 (boys swimming 16, boys indoor track 7, girls indoor track 3, girls basketball 2, boys basketball 1)
• New Canaan, 27 (boys swimming 10, boys basketball 7, boys indoor track 6, girls indoor track 3, boys ice hockey 1)
• Norwich Free Academy, 26 (wrestling 9, girls gymnastics 8, girls basketball 7, girls indoor track 2)
• Wilton, 26 (boys swimming 9, girls gymnastics 7, girls indoor track 7, boys indoor track 2, girls basketball 1)
• Ledyard, 25 (wrestling 19, girls gymnastics 2, boys indoor track 2, girls indoor track 2)
• Weaver-Hartford, 25 (girls indoor track 11, boys basketball 8, boys indoor track 5, girls basketball 1)
• Cheshire, 24 (boys swimming 18, boys ice hockey 4, girls indoor track 2)
• Daniel Hand-Madison, 24 (girls gymnastics 16, wrestling 5, boys ice hockey 2, girls basketball 1)
• Simsbury, 24 (girls gymnastics 18, wrestling 3, boys basketball 2, boys ice hockey 1)
• Staples-Westport, 24 (boys indoor track 17, boys swimming 2, boys basketball 1, girls basketball 1, boys ice hockey 1, wrestling 1, girls indoor track 1)
• Wilbur Cross-New Haven, 24 (boys basketball 14, girls basketball 4, boys indoor track 3, girls indoor track 3)
• Bloomfield, 23 (girls indoor track 13, boys basketball 5, boys indoor track 4, girls basketball 1)
• Fairfield Prep, 23 (boys ice hockey 16, boys swimming 4, boys basketball 3)
• Pomperaug-Southbury, 20 (boys swimming 15, girls gymnastics 3, boys basketball 1, boys ice hockey 1)
• Branford, 19 (boys basketball 9, boys swimming 7, girls basketball 2, boys ice hockey 1)
• Hamden, 19 (boys ice hockey 17, boys swimming 1, boys indoor track 1)

The most championships won by sport, with the first year the CIAC conducted state tournaments, are:

• boys swimming (1971): Greenwich, 41
• boys basketball (1922): Hillhouse-New Haven, 22
• wrestling (1975): Ledyard, 19
• girls gymnastics (1970): Simsbury, 18
• boys indoor track (1931): Hillhouse-New Haven, 18
• boys ice hockey (1948): Hamden, 17
• girls indoor track (1989): Hillhouse-New Haven, 15
• girls basketball (1974): Hillhouse-New Haven and Westbrook, 9

A total of 169 Connecticut high schools, some of which are now defunct, have captured winter state championships. Visit www.casciac.org to access tournament histories by sport or by school.