NEW CANAAN – The Staples boys and Greenwich girls’ teams are the defending team champions for the 2018 FCIAC Cross Country Championships which will take place Thursday afternoon at Waveny Park.
The boys’ varsity race is scheduled to begin at 2:45 p.m. The starting pistol for the girls’ varsity race should be fired off about 30 minutes later around 3:15 p.m.
Staples boys coach Laddie Lawrence is in his 50th year with accolades that have made him a national Hall of Fame coach.
He has a strong group of intelligent runners who are packed quite tight amongst each other in most meets and chances are good that the Wreckers will win their third consecutive crown and give Lawrence his 13th overall FCIAC title.
The Danbury boys team has the record of 21 conference boys’ championships.
Staples was unbeaten in 15 meets and the West Division champion during this regular season.
Fairfield Warde won the East Division at 14-1, Danbury was 13-2 and those two teams are the strongest challengers to dethrone Staples.
Trumbull was 12-3, Ridgefield 11-4 and New Canaan 10-5 as the other boys’ teams to hit double digits in wins.
It appears to be wide open with no clear favorite regarding who will enter the finishing chute first in the boys’ race.
Andrew Malling of New Canaan won a recent quad meet by 30 seconds with a time of 12:58.8 over Ridgefield High School’s four-kilometer course. He’s been running strong and is a candidate to be the individual champion.
A good example of that tight Staples pack running was the final regular-season home meet on Oct. 9 against three other teams. Nicholas Taubenheim won with a 17:29 on the Staples home five-kilometer course, just a second ahead of teammate, Teddy O’Kane, and there were five more Wreckers within 17 seconds of Taubenheim’s time as Staples took the top seven places in the meet.
The Ridgefield, Trumbull and Danbury girls’ teams all had 14-1 records in the regular season to finish atop the West Division.
Ridgefield and Danbury are both strong candidates for the team title while defending conference champion Greenwich (12-3) could pose a legitimate challenge along with Trumbull.
Staples and New Canaan both finished 10-5.
Danbury senior Lauren Moore, last year’s runner-up in the FCIAC Championships, Mairead Clas of Darien, Greenwich’s Mari Noble and Ridgefield’s duo of Gabriella Viggiano and Tess Pisanelli are runners expected to be in or near the lead pack.
Moore had a time of 14:52 over the 4,000-meter Waveny Park layout last year while Viggiano was just one second behind her in third place when they were both juniors.
Clas won her most recent tri meet by 48 seconds with a clocking of 17:31 over a 4.4K course while Noble won her last tri meet by a full minute with a 19:21 on a three-mile course
Viggiano won her most recent quad meet with a 14:48.9 on the 4K course and Pisanelli was just just .4 of a second behind Viggiano.
Ridgefield, which won four of the five conference team championships from 2012-16, has the record of 13 FCIAC championships while Wilton has won nine for the second most.
The ceremony of presenting awards to the championship teams and the top runners who make All-FCIAC takes place at 5 p.m. where the community pool is located.
This event was moved back a day from its original date of Oct. 17 to give the course an extra 24 hours to better dry out after recent heavy rains. The course is a nice mix of grassy fields and trails in the woods.