Stratford Boys Cross Country with an Unfolding Upset Story in Danbury

On Tuesday October 1st the Stratford Boys Cross Country team traveled to Tarrywile Park, in Danbury, to go up against the host Immaculate Mustangs and the Joel Barlow Falcons in week four of South West Conference 5K action.

For the fourth straight week runners enjoyed a perfect afternoon. Conditions for racing were mostly sunny skies, a temperature at 70 degrees, with no wind, and leaves just starting to turn different colors.

The course featured many characteristics of an ideal cross country course starting with the rolling hills in the western highlands as the backdrop.

The starting and finishing area served as quite a balcony to enjoy the view as the runners threaded each one of the long rolling hills amongst a sea of prairie grassland. Each running trail was exceptionally manicured defining the route each runner was to utilize in the meet.

The runners also endured numerous wooden foot bridges along with some lanes of compressed gravel. Parts of the run included some rocky terrain and some natural erosion.

After a course walkthrough where runners become familiar with all the particulars it was time to get the race underway.

Race official Steve Houser gathered all three teams and with a blast the runners took off.

In the opening moments each team had at least one runner in the top five including Joel Barlow’s George Manne and Stephen Czerkowski, Immaculate’s Lorenzo Lopes, and Stratford’s Dyllan Asuncion and Zach O’Toole.

Stretching the line out in the top ten it was four Immaculate runner’s, Liam Kirkman, Ryan Martin, Sean Martin, and Michael O’hare with Joel Barlow’s Julian Davies in the pack.

After mile one it was clearly a two person race for the top spot as Asuncion and Lopes pulled ahead by twenty seconds over Czerkowski and O’Toole.

Manne and Martin paired up for spots five and six. O’hare, Martin, Kirkmon stayed within seconds of each other. Davies in the tenth spot.

Lopes and Asuncion were taking turns at being in the lead going into mile number two. Lopes taking full advantage of the home course advantage.

With Davies (Barlow) in the tenth spot going into mile number two the attention to runners three, four, and five were coming into play in team scoring between the Falcons and Red Devils.

In SWC cross country scoring each meet is considered a dual scoring meet. When the totals are finalized the scores will reflect the top five finishers from each school against the top five from a competing school in the meet.
Runners six and seven become tiebreakers for each team in head to head scoring.

Stratford’s Jose Mora was next between the Red Devils and Falcons. He was slightly ahead of Hunter Wildgoose of the Falcons.

Closing in on Wildgoose was Sratford’s Ryan DeVeaux followed by Stratford’s fifth runner Keeson Alonso.

Alonso was being chased down by Joel Barlow’s fifth runner Lucas Janduro.

With the race heading into the two and half mile mark it was looking like a major upset was in the making. Would Alonso hold off Janduro ? Could DeVeaux catch up to Wildgoose?

Back to the leaders Asuncion was clearly ahead of Lopes opening a seven second lead. The hard charging Asuncion with plenty left in the tank and for the second week in a row cruised in the top spot at 17:24.

Asuncion described the course as grueling.

Lopes was second at 17:38. O’Toole was third at 18:18. Czerkowski was fourth at 18:47.

In fifth was Manne at 19:27.

The next four spots belonged to Immaculate along with a meet sweep over Stratford and Joel Barlow.

In sixth was R. Martin at 19:35, in seventh O’hare at 19:48, in eighth Kirkmon at 20:22 and in ninth was S. Martin at 20:26.

Barlow’s Davies rounded out the top ten at 20:49.

All the attention turned to Stratford versus Barlow.

Mora opened up a twenty-two second lead over Wildgoose and turned it on even further at the end with a time of 22:30. Wildgoose at 23:02.

Right behind Wildgoose was DeVeaux (23:08) whose bid to overtake Wildgoose fell short by six seconds.

Four runners in for Stratford, four runners in for Barlow, Alonso making an all out sprint for the finish line holding off Janduro (23:33) even extending the distance, finishing in a time of 23:23.

Alonso secured the big upset victory over Barlow by a final score of 26-29.

Stratford’s Brayden Acevdo finished the race at 30:11 and Papa Insaidoo came in at 38:09.

Final scores on the afternoon, Immaculate over Joel Barlow 23-36, and over Stratford 24-37.

Up next for Stratford, at Brookfield, Tuesday October 8th - 5:00pm, against the Bobcats and the Pomperaug Panthers.