NEW CANAAN – After a one-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic which canceled the event last autumn, this year the runners, coaches and fans are happy about the return of the FCIAC Cross Country Championships at New Canaan’s beautiful Waveny Park on Wednesday afternoon.
The Ridgefield High School girls and boys teams are both contenders to win team championships while the Staples boys could also be in the mix as a strong challenger to Ridgefield’s Tigers.
The boys varsity race is scheduled to begin at 2:50 p.m., followed by the girls varsity race about a half hour later at 3:20 p.m.
The Ridgefield boys team had not sent out its strongest lineup for a few of the conference’s quadrangular meets in the regular season as coach Bryan Kovalsky kept some of his top Tigers out of those meets to get in some extra hard training workouts with a focus pointed toward the championship meets.
One meet in which his better runners did run in the regular season was the Sept. 29 meet, given that New Canaan was the host team at this same venue of Waveny Park.
Ridgefield runners Benjamin Mickool, Steven Hergenrother, Matthew McDonough and Jack Dovaras finished 1-4, respectively, and all within 5.12 seconds of each other. That strong quartet could prove to be vital.
Ridgefield was very good last year and would have done very well in FCIAC and state championship meets had they taken place.
The FCIAC officials, coaches, race officials and meet director Jay Egan combined to implement a plan to give close to 300 runners a postseason race at Waveny Park last season. There were three girls and three boys regional championship races which adhered to the mandate of no more than 50 runners per race.
Ridgefield placed its five scorers, including Mickool and McDonough, among the top eight to easily win the FCIAC Central Region boys championship.
Zachary Taubman has had a very strong year for Staples and teammates Benjamin Lorenz and Jalen St. Fort have been solid as well. Taubman had the highest finish of FCIAC runners at the Wickham Park Invitational and Lorenz was the fourth fastest.
Fairfield Warde’s Parker Broderick was the second fastest conference runner. Greenwich’s Zachary Jelinek and Christian Zawislack were the third and fifth fastest from the FCIAC, respectively, at that Wickham Park Invitational.
Nathan Cramer won the FCIAC East Region race last year to lead Fairfield Ludlowe to the team championship and this year he won the regular-season race against Staples, finishing ahead of the Taubman-St. Fort tandem which had finished 1-2 in three other meets for Staples’ 15-0 Wreckers this year.
That Sept. 29 meet at Waveny Park was also a quad meet for the Ridgefield, Danbury, Trumbull and host New Canaan girls teams and that featured several of the best girls from the conference.
Ridgefield senior Katherine Rector won that 4,000-meter race with a time of 14 minutes, 28.3 seconds to lead the group of the five scoring Tigers which placed among the top nine.
Stephanie Quieroz (14:47.52) of Danbury was runner-up, Trumbull’s Kali Holden (15:05.21) placed third, and Ridgefield’s Deirdre Flanagan (15:17.25) was fourth.
Fairfield Ludlowe’s Anna Keeley, Wilton’s Emily Mrakovcic, Darien’s Mairead Class and Staples’ Josie Dolan are all strong runners based on what they’ve all accomplished this year and in the past.
Keeley won the FCIAC East Region race last fall. Mrakovcic was the FCIAC Central Region individual champion.
Clas placed second to Greenwich’s Mari Noble two years ago in the last FCIAC championship meet and then Clas was runner-up to Noble again in last year’s West Region race.
Wilton veteran coach Jeff Gee tabs coach John Goetz’ Ridgefield Tigers as the favorite to win the girls team championship. They went 15-0 in the regular season.
“Ridgefield is solid. They’re really solid,” Gee said. “They’re one of the top three or four teams in the state. I’d be surprised if they win by less than 20 or 25 points.”
Gee said Fairfield Ludlowe, Greenwich and Trumbull are also solid teams and he has a hunch that Ludlowe might be the top candidate as the runner-up team.
There are six races scheduled.
The boys freshman race is the first one at 2:15 p.m., about 15 minutes before the girls freshman race at 2:30 p.m. The last two races are the boys junior varsity race at about 3:50 p.m., and concluding with the girls junior varsity race in the 4:15-4:20 area.