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It was a relatively short regular season for the Woodstock Academy boys’ track team.
It consisted of just three ECC Div. I meets and a couple of Invitationals.
The season, as a whole, comes to a close shortly.
The ECC championship meet, occurred May 20 and was too late for this edition.
The Centaurs will finish up with the Class MM state championship meet on May 29 in Middletown.
“We definitely need to work on the scheduling next season,” said Woodstock Academy boys’ coach Peter Lusa. “We need to fit in some meets with Killingly or some other local stuff. We want to have Pomfret, Marianapolis, maybe Tourtellotte, come in and have some kind of Northeast regional meet. We need more, local competition.”
Woodstock Academy ended its short dual-meet season with a 111-49 loss at East Lyme May 14.
“It was a cold, rainy day so it wasn’t a great day for the sprinters or the jumpers. None of them did as well as they thought but the distance guys came through and ran pretty well. When I asked for a show of hands on the bus, a lot of kids had personal bests. We’re toward the end of the season. We’re getting into shape and we’re peaking when we need to,” Lusa said.
The final boys’ meet of the season was supposed to be at home, but due to the wetness of the throwing areas, it had to be shifted to East Lyme.
“The upside of that is that the boys got to go to East Lyme where the ECCs will be. We got a chance to see the location and got a feel for the layout. We got kids to start to visualize what they need to do and where they need to go,” Lusa said.
The Centaurs (0-3, 0-3) did bring home some first-place finishes from the shoreline.
Kenneth Birlin won the 800 meter race in 2:04.8.
The senior is one of four athletes who have qualified for state competition.
The last chance to qualify for the MM competition was at the ECC championship meet.
Lucas Couture captured a first-place finish at East Lyme in the 110 Hurdles and qualified for state competition at the same time by finishing in 17 seconds flat.
Couture also finished second in the pole vault where he has already qualified for the states.
Ethan Aspiras has also qualified in the two mile. Danylo Ntamwemizi is flirting with a state berth. The senior also took home a first in the shot put with a throw of 40-feet, 9-inches against the Vikings. That left him just 3 inches shy of qualifying for the state meet.
Eric Phongsa took second place in both the 100 and 200-meter races against East Lyme while Nathan Craig was runner up in the 300-meter hurdles and the triple jump. Jackson Dias was second in the high jump.
Marc Allard
Sports Information Director
The Woodstock Academy

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