Suffield surprises Avon girls at Wickham; McHugh wins seeded race

Avon’s Maddie McHugh won the seeded race at the Wickham Invitational Saturday.

MANCHESTER, Oct. 12 – The Avon High girls cross country team has been looking to get challenged all season. The defending Class MM champion Falcons upgraded their schedule adding the Stratton Brook Invitational in Simsbury and the Ocean State Invitational in Rhode Island. 

They found some more competition closer to home Saturday at the 32nd Wickham Park Invitational. And it is from a familiar foe. 

Suffield surprised Avon, 76-96 to win the girls seeded race at the Wickham Invitational. There are three races at Wickham – the seeded race, unseeded race and the championship race. 

Avon, which completed its dual meet season on Wednesday at 13-0 with a 27-29 win over Suffield at Fisher Meadows, had three runners in the top 11 in the seeded race but it wasn’t enough. Suffield (12-1) had two runners in the top 10 but won the race with three runners in 19th, 21st and 23rd place. Avon’s fourth and fifth runners were in 38th and 40th place, about 40 seconds behind. 

Avon junior Maddie McHugh won the seeded race by 19 seconds with a winning time of 19:45 over the 3.1 mile course that will be the course at the CIAC championship meets on October 26 and the State Open. Junior Molly Hamel (20:19) was sixth with Sara Stokesbury (20:43) finishing in 11th place. 

For Suffield, Monique LaBarre was fifth in 20:17 with teammate Nina Begley eighth in 20:29. Katie Baker (19), Lauren Izabel (21) and Laura Sweeney (23) ran well along with Erin Kost (30) for the Wildcats. 

Avon’s Christina Martin (38) was about 40 seconds behind Sweeney with teammate Ryley Higgins (40) finishing a second behind Martin. 

Avon (13-0) and Suffield (12-1) will battle for the NCCC championship on Wednesday at Windsor Locks High School. Each team earns one point for each dual meet victory and one point for each team they beat at the league championship meet. If the two teams finished tied, the tiebreaker is the finish at the NCCC meet. 

The Canton girls also competed in the seeded race at the Wickham Invitational. They finished 15th with Eliza Chekas leading the way with a 34th place finish in 21:42. Emily Briggs finished 47th. 

McHugh’s performance was Avon’s best individual performance at the Wickham Invitational since Rachael Rosow was second in the seeded race a year ago in 19:56. Last year, Avon was second in the seeded race behind Smithfield, R.I., 137-171. In 2008, Avon’s Claire Smith was also second in the unseeded race with a time of 19:51.

In the boys races, the Canton boys were 16th in the seeded race, led by James Yost, who finished eighth in 17:11. His twin brother, Dean, was 20th in 17:45. 

The Avon boys finished 18th in the seeded race, led by Collin Pritchard, who was 31st in 18:00. Andrew Suter finished 38th in 18:07.

2013 Wickham Invitational results