
The Avon High girls cross country team won its fifth invitational trophy this fall Saturday at the Wickham Park Invitational. (Photo courtesy Bill Stokesbury)
MANCHESTER, Oct. 10 – The Avon High girls cross country has been running at the Wickham Park Invitational for several years. It’s a great opportunity to get familiar with the course that will be used during the CIAC championship meets and to get used to running in races with more than 150 athletes on the course.
In the past four years, Avon has brought home second place trophies from the meet, falling to Suffield, Guilford, Smithfield, R.I., and Londonderry, N.H. This year, the Falcons captured the big championship trophy.
With a strong finish from sophomore Rachel Martin, senior Ryley Higgins and sophomore Sara Leavens, Avon won the seeded race title, beating Southington by just five points, 127-132. Southington’s Gabi Napoli finished ninth but Martin (13, 20:36), Higgins (14, 20:36) and Leavens (17, 20:40) all finished before Southington’s next runner Isabella Scalise (27) to give Avon the edge.
Avon junior Christina Martin (37, 21:26) and freshman Caroline Luby (50, 21:43) rounded out the top five. Sophomore Ashley Martin (55, 21:57) wasn’t far behind, either.
It’s the fifth championship trophy that the Falcons have won this fall. The Avon girls have also won at the Haddad Windham Invitational, Connecticut River Valley Invitational in Cromwell, Nonnewaug Invitational and Hale-Ray Invitational. They finished second to Newtown at the Winding Trails Invitational.
The Falcons (4-0, 4-0 CCC Central White) will close out their dual meet season Tuesday when they race Farmington (2-3, 2-2 CCC Central White) at Winding Trails in Farmington.
Avon is in good position to win the division championship in its first year in the Central Connecticut Conference. Teams earn one point for every dual meet win and one point for each divisional opponent they beat at the CCC championship meet on Wednesday, Oct. 21 at Wickham Park at 3 p.m.
The Falcons, who won the Class MM state championship a year ago, will be challenged if they want to compete for the overall CCC crown. Tolland, Glastonbury and E.O. Smith also raced at the Windham Invitational in the championship race.
Two of the three teams had better combined times that Avon. By combining the times of the first five varsity runners, you can compare teams but it is always interesting and unpredictable to see what happens in such large races. Nearly 200 runners competed in Avon’s race and more than 225 runners were in the championship race.
Tolland had a combined time of 1:38.53, followed by Glastonbury (1:40.57), Avon (1:45.01), E.O. Smith (1:45.03) and Southington (1:45.40).
The Avon High boys cross country team also competed at the Wickham Park Invitational Saturday. Andrew Suter led the Falcons (4-0, 4-0 CCC Central White) by taking 29th in the seeded race field with a time of 17:32. He was the only Falcon runner in the top 50. Avon finished 19th overall in the seeded race.
Gerry deSimas, Jr., is the editor and founder of The Collinsville Press. He is an award-winning writer and has been covering sports in Connecticut and New England for more than 30 years.


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