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Senior Jared Eaton sets a school record in the shotput on this throw last week at East Lyme. The record had stood since 1997.  Photo by Gerry LaMontagne.



Woodstock Academy was clinging to a three-point lead over host East Lyme going into the final event of their season-opening girls’ track meet, the 4x400-meter relay, last week.
The tale of the finish was going to rely on four young student-athletes.
The quartet of Reegan Reynolds, Isabel D’Alleva-Bochain, Isabella Selmecki and Talia Tremblay got the job done with Tremblay winning the anchor leg in a true photo finish, giving the Centaurs a 79-71 victory over the Vikings.
The Centaurs were seeded lower than East Lyme’s relay squad going in and knew they had to push.
One of the team members was feeling under the weather and the Centaurs went on a hunt to find an athlete who could fill in.
D’Alleva-Bochain, a freshman, who already finished first in both the 800 and 1600m races, was available for another event. D’Alleva-Bochain had just finished high jump when Welch sought her out.
The race was close throughout.
Tremblay was running the anchor leg.
It may have been the finishing touch, but there were more highlights during the Centaurs opening meet of the season.
Senior Bella Sorrentino qualified for state competition in both the 100m hurdles and shotput, finishing first in both.
Fellow senior Magdalena Myslenski was first in both the javelin and pole vault while Sophia Quinn won the discus, Tremblay the 400m, Julia Coyle the 3200m and Juliet Allard the 300m hurdles. Allard also took second in the 100 and 200-meter races while Coyle was third in the 1600-meter.
In all, the Centaurs qualified someone in just about every event for state competition
“First meet out and we have all but four events qualified for states – that’s fantastic,” Welch said. “I’m sure we will fill out the rest of them in the next week or so, we will have a full bill going into the states. We came close last year, but this will be the first time for me. This is the batch of kids who came up around Bella and Talia as freshmen and sophomores, and are juniors and seniors now. It’s the strongest version of this team that we’ve had in several years.”
Boys’ track
Jared Eaton had one goal in mind prior to the boys’ outdoor track season. He wanted to put his name in the Woodstock Academy record book. If he didn’t, he wasn’t going to be happy. He didn’t have to wait long.
Eaton eclipsed a Woodstock outdoor boys' track school record that had stood since 1997 with a throw of 52-feet, 7-inches in the shotput in the first meet of the season last week at East Lyme.
 “I was not expecting that at all,” Eaton said. “I thought I was really going to have to fight for it this season but to get it done in the first meet now allows me to set my goals a lot higher.” He broke the record held by Bill Chaput which had stood for 26 years.
“He’s my neighbor,” Eaton said with a smile. “I haven’t talked to him yet, I probably have to reach out to him.”
Coach Gerry LaMontagne said the discussion about the outdoor record started in indoor track.
“We changed his technique. He was a glider last year. He switched to rotational in indoor and was gung-ho about that. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much in the way of progress until later in the spring but he’s really picked up on it and worked hard,” LaMontagne said.
It was a major change for Eaton.
“I changed 100 percent of my throw. I went from a simple glide which is beginner to a spin which is one of the most advanced techniques in throwing,” Eaton said.
He still has some work to do as his effort earned him a second place against East Lyme. He would add a first.
In just his second-ever competition in the event, he finished first in the javelin with a personal-best throw of 154-feet, 6-inches.
Both of those efforts qualified him for the Nationals competition later in the season.
The Centaurs did come up short in the meet as they fell to the Vikings 106 ½- 43 ½.
There were some other highlights.
Sophomore Christian Menounos was first in the 800m in just over two minutes, a personal-best for him and just a few seconds off the outdoor school record.
Menounos also joined Vincente Bastura, Charles Caggiano and Owen Tracy on the winning 4x400m relay team. Liam Wilcox finished second in the 110m hurdles, pole vault and high jump for the Centaurs.
Colton Sallum captured second in the 1600m and Mateusz Chojnicki and Aidan Kane placed second and third, respectively, in the long jump.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy

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