July 1: The Post Spring All-Star team was named, and included senior Sarah Mitchell.
The Connecticut Post featured the SHS girls team and their strong start to the season.
The Post also featured sprinter and long jumper Alex Ivanov
July 6: All SWC and State news was hosted by Joe Tanucci while I was studying in Italy. Find it here.
May 19/20: The SHS girls track team captured the Patriot Division Tuesday by defeating Law. An all-around effort keyed by relay wins secured the narrow victory. Next up is SWCs, where the Class of 2003 takes one more shot at a top finish.
Although the boys team lost to strong Pomperaug and Law teams, they have a large group of qualifiers for the SWC meet, including Alexi Ivanov and senior leaders Matt Fogarty and Andre Keuck. Keuck will look to repeat his indoor triumph in the pole vault. SHS looks to be in good shape despite returning no point-scorers from last year.
May 10: The outdoor track season has begun for Stratford.
Already, the Stratford boys team has posted wins over O'Brien Tech and Immaculate, while losing close decisions to Barlow and Brookfield. The girls team is 7-1 and defeated tough rival Weston this past week.
February 22: Sarah Mitchell finished her indoor career at the State Open with a personal-best 1:41.17 in the 600m, good enough for 9th place. It was over a second better than her race last week.
February 20: Sarah Mitchell finishes her Connecticut indoor career at the State Open this weekend. Seeded 12th in the 600m, a top 6 or better finish would make her All-State and qualify her for the New England championships. Mitchell has already made All-State outdoors in the 400m, and was the runner-up last week in the 600m.
February 15: Stratford High competed at the Class S State championship Saturday, and came out with strong results against a surprisingly strong field. For the girls, Sarah Mitchell rebounded from a sub-par 300m to finish 2nd in the 600m with a 1:42.32 and qualify for the State Open. Melisa Lucia also jumped 14'6.75" in the long jump.
For the boys, Nick Ferraro earned 5th place in high jump, and Alex Ivanov 6th place in the long jump, while in shot put, although not earning medals, Dudley LaPorte threw 44'11.5" and Matt Fogarty 42'5.75", which was nearly 4 feet better than his previous PR.
The SHS boys SMR team struggled against the competition but still beat the school record set earlier this season. LaPorte only finished 7th in the 300m yet nearly broke Joe Tanucci's school record.
Mitchell advances to the Open next week and will run the 600m. Oh yeah, and I finally got her name spelled correctly.
February 14: The Stratford High track teams compete this afternoon and evening at the Class S State Championships at Hillhouse. CASCIAC has the list of entrants for the Class S boys and Class S girls. The same links will also bring you to the results after the meet.
Qualifiers for the meet include seniors Andre Keuck, Melisa Lucia, and Sarah Mitchell. Mitchell is a two-time Class S medalist (300m, 2001; 600m, 2002).
Congratulations to Vladimir Foster from Bunnell who jumped 6'7" (right now, tied for 11th best nationally this year) yesterday to win Class L and now owns the town record in the high jump (old record: Kevin Krankall of SHS, 6'6"). FYI, I put this stuff because any big news from the SWC reflects well on each member school.
February 1: At the SWC Championships on February 1, both teams came through with stellar performances; the boys repeated their 3rd place finish with all new talent and the girls finally cracked the top 5.
Dudley LaPorte (shot put), Andre Keuck (pole vault) and Sarah Mitchell (600m) were all individual champions. The meet, held at Wilton, featured a number of odd distances due to the 150m track, and so several "new" school and meet records were established.
Alex Ivanov captured a 2nd and 3rd, while Nick Ferraro had a 3rd and 6th for the boys, and Melisa Lucia was 3rd in long jump for the girls.
New Milford and Masuk won the boys and girls, respectively, behind their strong and deep distance squads.
Stratford continued its strong performances in the shot put, high jump and long jump. In shot, LaPorte's win was the 5th consecutive year Stratford had a top 3 finisher, Ferraro's 3rd place in HJ marked the 4th year in a row SHS had at least top 3, while long jump had three SHS athletes (boys and girls ) in the top 6 for the 2nd year in a row.
The girls team completed a four-year climb from obscurity to a legitimate contender indoors, to match the success they've always had outdoors, while Coach Sirowich has continually built a strong boys team from scratch each year.
January 25: At the second SWC developmental, strong performances were turned in by most of the team, including a stunning 46'5" shot put by Dudley LaPorte, the 2nd best indoor throw in team history. New qualifiers include Nick Kaltsus in the 50m and Sarah Mitchell in the 600m.
School records at the meet were set by both the boys and girls Sprint Medley Relay, and Sara Leventhal broke the indoor records in both the 1000m and 1600m.
Next week is the SWC Championships, with both teams looking to have strong results. The boys are looking for a 4th straight top 5 finish and the girls trying to crack the top 5 for the first time indoors
January 18: The 2003 Yale Classic brought the elite from the East region, including recent All-Americans from New York and Connecticut, and SHS sent its own contingent of athletes there. Among several qualifying performances, the biggest was Alex Ivanov's 19'8" in the long jump, a mark surpassed only by Joe Tanucci indoors.
January 11: The indoor track team had a very strong performance at the SWC Developmental meet Saturday at Staples. Among the stars of the day were Andre Keuck, who broke the school record in the pole vault with his winning 9'6" , and Dudley LaPorte, who had state qualifying marks in the 300m and shot put.
December 21: The SHS indoor teams ran at the Hillhouse Invitational, where Sarah Mitchell was 2nd in the 400m, and the 4x200 girls team set a new school record. Alex Ivanov ran the 3rd fastest 55m time in school history, while Dudley Laporte qualified for SWCs in the shot put.
December 14: The indoor track team competed at Yale. Already, several individuals have qualified for SWCs and states.
December 8: The 8th season of indoor track at Stratford High has begun. Key returnees include seniors Sarah Mitchell, Melisa Lucia, Sara Leventhal, and Alison Janoski for the girls, who are poised to have a breakthrough year for the program. The boys return, among others, senior Matt Fogarty and junior Matt Melhouse after losing nearly every top scorer from last year.
November 28: On Thanksgiving Day, Matt Melhouse and Dan Babis competed in the inaugural Stratford Turkey Day Trot 5K. They finished 2nd and 3rd in their age group, with Melhouse finishing 12th (19:55) and Babis 23rd (20:47) in extremely cold and bitter conditions. The race was won by former Bunnell star Ryan Pancoast. Full results on hitekracing.com
October 26: The Stratford XC teams ended their season at the Class Championships at Wickham Park. After the meet was nearly postponed due to downpours, a very muddy and generally slow course was run. Dan Babis finished 69th out of 148 runners in Class M with a time of 20:38. The race overall was close to a minute slower than last year. For the girls, Sara Leventhal ran 21:22 in the Class MM meet.
The SWC proved it is one of the better conferences in the state, as Barlow won the Class M boys championship, while in Class L New Milford defeated Staples to win.
October 17: At the SWC Championships in Bethel, both teams struggled against poor course conditions and a strong field. Newtown captured the girls title in a wide-open race. New Milford won the boys crown for the fourth time in five years in the most dominating performance in conference history.
Matt Melhouse, Dan Babis, Rob Ross, and Alison Janoski all ran very strong races against what looked to be the most balanced field the SWC has produced in its 8 years.
October 8: On Tuesday, the Stratford XC teams had their final regular season meet of the year, hosted by Lauralton. Sara Levanthal ran a personal-best 18:34 to finish 10th. Her time was 38 seconds faster than last year.
Full results have not been posted online by the newspapers yet, so if anyone has them, they would be greatly appreciated.
September 24: Tuesday, the teams hosted their only home meet of the season. The boys team fell to New Milford and Barlow, but earned their first win of the season by defeating Masuk. The girls team had solid performances from Sara Levanthal and Alison Janoski on the difficult and sometimes confusing course.
September 21: On Saturday, the XC teams competed at the Bethel Invitational against one of the strongest fields at any Connecticut meet this year. While both teams struggled in the heat, it can only prepare them for the SWC Championships, also at Bethel.
September 18: At Weston, Sara Leventhal and Alison Janoski finished 6th and 7th, the second consecutive top 10 finish for the pair. Both teams suffered defeats, however.
September 10: On Tuesday the cross country team competed in their first meet of the season at Newtown. For the girls, Alison Janoski was 8th, Sara Leventhal finished a career-best 9th place, while sophomore Dan Babis paced the boys in 12th place on a difficult course, followed by Rob Ross in 17th. Both teams lost to all three opponents, just falling short against Immaculate.
August 26: The new XC season begins at Stratford. Key returning runners are seniors Pat Noonan, Sara Leventhal and Alison Janoski, as well as sophomore Dan Babis and junior Matt Melhouse, who led the boys team at SWCs last year.
August 24: The annual MADD Dash 5K was held in Stratford. Dan Babis ran and finished 81st of more than 400 in a time of 21:23, over a minute faster than his time the year before.
