Stratford's Asuncion and Bunnell's Vaquerano in a Tale of the Tape

On Tuesday September 24th at Bunnell High School, in South West Conference high school cross country action, Stratford’s Dyllan Asuncion and Bunnell’s Alex Vaquerano locked horns, and even arms at times, in what onlookers said was the best race of the season.

Bunnell hosted the Stratford Red Devils, the Masuk Panthers, and Kolbe Cathedral Cougars on a partly sunny afternoon, temperature in the low 60’s, with no wind, and a bit of fall colors starting to show along the 5K course.

The 5K course features many changing ground surfaces. Runners travel over a rubberized track, over to asphalt driveways, onto manicured grass fields, through fine oak tree thorough ways, and finally ending up back on the track to the finish line.
In addition, each runner endured two hills, first on the asphalt driveway known as Bulldog Blvd., and on a second tour around the course, it takes you just off Bulldog Blvd. onto a steep grass hill back again to and around the former Pirhala’s Farm.

The scheduled 5:00 o’clock start went off without a hitch and it was a fast start where the leaders saw each team represented in multiples for quite some time.

Within that group you saw Masuk’s Brayden Hershberger, Kolbe’s Omar Carrion, Stratford’s Dyllan Asuncion, and drafting in the middle was Bunnell’s Alex Vaquerano and Stratford’s Zachary O’Toole.

Vaquerano and O’Toole were flanked by Masuk’s Sabastian Riera and Kolbe’s Jonial Urena. Right up in there was Bunnell’s Andrew Rehm with Kolbe’s Jarius Cadeau and Jeremiah Carrion very close and it rounded up the top ten.

All of those top ten runners formed a diamond pack and it stayed that way for more than a mile and a half.

With the race going into the second mile Vaquerano and Asuncion found another gear and separated themselves from the pack.

They would trade strides going side by side for a quarter of a mile. The intensity of the cross town rivals was felt by the numerous crowd supporters on hand.

Both runners went into the final stretch and put on close to a thirty second lead over the next two runners in the form of O’Toole (SHS) and Rehm (BHS) as those two battled nip and tuck throughout the final stages of the race.

Staying within striking distance of O’Toole and Rehm were O. Carrion, Hershberger, and Riera only six seconds separated those five.

Back to Asuncion and Vaquerano, in the final one-hundred fifty meters, Asuncion had a one arm length lead. Both turned it on as they entered the track for the final one-hundred.

Foot strike after foot strike and still anyone’s race nearing the finish line saw Asuncion advance inches apart from Vaquerano to finish first at 17:21.23. Vaquerano second at 17:21.82. Less than six tenths of a second victory.

For Asuncion it was his first career first place finish.

Even race official Tom Galatie commented “ This kid gets better every time he’s out there”.

For Vaquerano it was his personal best finish time.

So now the race was on for third place overall, would it be O’Toole or Rehm. O’Toole with a three second lead.

Both ahead of hard charging O. Carrion, Hershberger, and Riera.
O’Toole maintained the three second lead finishing in a time of 17:51. The third place finish was O’Toole’s career best.

Rehm came in at 17:54.

O. Carrion slid in ahead of Hershberger at 17:58.97, Hershberger at 17:59.32, and Riera at 18:01.

The race’s attention now turned to team scoring.

It was Kolbe’s Urena (19:03), Cadeau (19:32), and J. Carrion (19:37) paving the way for the Coach John Pfohl led team in a quad meet victory sweep.

In the Bunnell versus Stratford matchup, Bunnell went onto a 24-37 victory with Anthony Ortiz Osario (20:09), Miles Montrasio (20:23), and Anthony Dennis-Eddy (20:56) coming across the finish line to assure the win.

The rest of the Stratford finishers were Jose Mora (22:41), Ryan DeVeaux (23:00), Keeson Alonso (23:28), Kevin Hughes (30:53), and Papa Insaidoo (36:18).

Rounding out the Bunnell finishers were Alden Clark (21:54), Cameron Vadnais (22:03), Michael Reilly (22:06), Holden Adams (22:09), Daniel Caraballo (23:11), Michael Basciano (24:20), and Nick Martino (24:54).

The rest of the final scores on the afternoon were Kolbe over Bunnell 25-31, Kolbe over Masuk 24-33, Kolbe over Stratford 25-36. Bunnell over Masuk 25-30, and Masuk over Stratford 27-36.

Bunnell goes to 3 wins and five losses on the season, Kolbe is 5-3 this season, Masuk is now 3-4, and Stratford is 1-8.

Up next for Stratford, at Immaculate High School- Tarrywile Park, on Tuesday October 1st at 5:00 against the Mustangs and the Joel Barlow Falcons.