Submitted by Matt Diglio, Coach.
On Saturday, Oct. 26, 2019, the Haddam Killingworth High School Boys and Girls Cross Country teams competed at the State Championship meet at Wickham Park and came away with one State title, and one Runner Up finish. The HK Girls team once again came in as the underdog to the heavily favored Immaculate team who was ranked 5th overall in the state and beat H-K handily earlier in the season. Just as in their conference meet, the Girls ran a phenomenal team race to earn the upset victory and win the Class SS State Championship, which is their 3d in the past five years, as they tallied 61 points to narrowly defeat Immaculate who scored 64 points. The H-K girls, who had lost to Immaculate by over 60 points at the Somers Big Red Invitational early in September, earned the victory and flipped the script on Immaculate who had also defeated them at last year’s state meet.
Leading the way for the Cougars, were junior Meara Bodak and senior Julia Callis who placed 7th and 8th in the race in the exact time of 20:49, to earn All State honors. Next to cross the line was senior Lauren D’Amico who placed 14th (21:13) then sophomore Ava DiMatteo 16th (21:21) and freshman Isabel Berardino who rounded out the team scoring by placing 21st in a time of 21:56. Also key contributors to the team victory by displacing other teams’ runners were sophomores Ali Twachtman 31st (22:46) and Brianna Minervino 47th (23:24).
The HK Boys team, ranked #9 in the entire state, also had an outstanding meet as they placed 2nd overall in the Class M team standings – only losing to Tolland, who was the #1 ranked team in the state by a score of 30-67, but easily outdistanced the rest of the teams in the race. The Boys were led as they have been the entire season by junior Matt Jennings who placed 4th overall in a time of 16:37 to earn All State honors for the 2nd consecutive year. Following Jennings, was a pack of Cougars who all finished within 10 seconds of each other: senior Chris Uzwiak 14th (17:14), sophomore Caleb Freeman 16th (17:24) and junior Sean Rutledge 16th (17:25). Rounding out the team scoring was junior Fisher Harris 20th (17:45) who was followed by freshman Mason who, in his first varsity race ever, ran an outstanding race to place 23rd (17:48) and then junior Julian Spector 55th (18:49).
