Tolland Girls Win Fifth Straight State Cross Country Title

Katherine Deloreto, shown winning the CCC meet last week, captured the individual title Saturday at the Class M championships at Wickham Park. Tolland won the Class M title for the fifth straight year. Photo credit: Tim Jensen

It wasn’t a repeat of the perfect shutout state title of last year, but it was pretty close.

Tolland placed five runners in the top eight to blow away the field in winning its fifth consecutive Class M title in the CIAC Cross Country Championships Saturday at Wickham Park in Manchester.

Katherine Deloreto was the overall winner, covering the hilly 3.1 mile course in 18:34 to outdistance runnerup Jody Dicicco of Berlin by 48 seconds.

Hayley Collins was third, Caitlin Swanson fourth, Michaela Caron fifth and Sidney Perryman eighth for the Eagles, who compiled 20 points to leave runnerup Suffield (111) in the dust.

In 2014, Tolland placed the first five runners across the finish line for a perfect score of 15 points.

Deloreto, a junior, has consistently improved her performances in the Class M meet. She placed 20th in her freshman year, then moved up to third as a sophomore.

In winning its fifth straight championship, the Eagles moved into select company by being just the eighth girls program to win at least five straight titles since 1973.

Guilford holds the record, winning eight consecutive Class M championships from 2004-2011. Two schools have won six straight titles: Montville (Class M, 1978-1983) and East Catholic (Class L, 1980-1982; Class LL, 1983; Class L, 1984-1985).

Other five-time champions besides Tolland are:

• St. Bernard (Class M, 1975-1976; Class L, 1977-1979)
• Litchfield (Class SS, 1992-1996)
• Fitch (Class L, 1998-2002)
• Glastonbury (Class LL, 2004-2008)

Tolland advances to the State Open next Friday, also at Wickham Park, and seeks to become the sixth girls team to win at least three straight Open titles. St. Bernard holds the record with four straight championships (1975-1978), while Montville (1981-1983), Wilton (1990-1992), Fitch (1999-2001) and Ridgefield (2003-2005) each captured three consecutive Opens.

On the boys’ side, Tolland narrowly missed qualifying for the Open, placing third of 27 teams. Josh Bedard will be competing at the Open on the strength of his sixth-place finish in the field of 185 runners. Stephen Sutton (20th), Ethan Davis (24th) and Nolan Alexander (27th) also ran strong races for the Eagles.

The top two teams in each of the six classes make it into the Open, as do the top 12 individuals in each class plus the 30 best times overall that finished out of the top 12.