Craftsbury Varsity Track & Field Team
Front row (left to right): Calvin Cacciamani, Cormac Leahy, Alex Califano, Sadie Skorstad, Adelina Ausberger. Middle row (left to right): Silas Hunt, Matt Califano, Ella Gillespie, Rachel Bjerke, Anika Leahy, Roean McLellan. Back row (left to right): Alan Moody, Lenny Stelma-Leonard, Charlie Kehler, Dalton Gravel, Cole Van Winkle. Coach Jess Barber. Missing: Verna Stoddard.
by Ken Brown
MORETOWN – The Craftsbury Academy (CA) track and field team claimed several individual titles and the boys’ team battled Montpelier for overall honors last week at the Harwood Invitational.
Montpelier edged the CA boys’ track and field team 66 to 65.5 last Wednesday at Harwood Union High School as they tune up to defend their 2022 Division IV state championship. Roean McLellan (10.4m) claimed the shot put title over teammate Dalton Gravel (10.34m), with Ronan Moran of Harwood placing third. McLellan won his second individual title of the afternoon in the discus over Gravel with a throw of 34.21m for the Chargers. Colin Snyder of Northfield posted a third-place finish.
Alex Califano dominated the 1500m distance event for CA, besting Harwood’s Cooper Hansel by over 30 seconds. Califano also placed third in the 800m, with teammates Matthew Califano and Silas Hunt coming in with a respectable fourth and fifth place finish. Randolph’s Chase Gardner took home first place honors in the event.
Alan Moody won the 3000m for the Chargers, besting teammate Silas Hunt by nearly 13 seconds.
McLellan capped off his stellar day for CA in the javelin with a third-place finish behind Montpelier’s Steven Supan. CA’s Cormac Leahy came in fourth.
Montpelier and the Chargers distanced themselves from Northfield, Randolph, and Harwood in the overall boys’ standings over the weekend, with three more events left in the regular season before the Division IV State Meet on June 2, at Burr & Burton High School. The Chargers claimed their first boys’ state title last spring for the first time in school history.
Sadie Skorstad led CA’s girls’ team with an individual title in the 300m hurdles, besting Montpelier’s Anja Rand by over a second. Skorstad also posted a runner-up finish in the 100m event and was edged by Beatrice Lake of Randolph by just three tenths of a second.
Ella Gillespie claimed a runner-up finish in the discus event for the Chargers, with Montpelier’s Marie Voisin taking home the hardware. Gillespie also finished third in the javelin event, bested by Margaret Voisin of Montpelier.
Verna Stoddard was the only competitor to finish the 800m event for CA and teammate Adelina Augsberger posted a sixth-place finish in the long jump behind Adrianne Clement of Randolph.
The Charger girls also posted a strong fourth place finish in the team overall last spring at the state meet in Manchester and have a couple more weeks to fine tune their state championship run under first year head coach Jess Barber.
The varsity team was back in action on Tuesday at North Country Union High School and the middle school team will travel to the state capital for the Montpelier Invitational on Saturday.
