Ridgefield senior Steven Hergenrother secured his standing as one of the all-time great boys’ high school cross country runners in state history.
That was the main highlight among the many achievements from runners and FCIAC teams during the 2023 fall cross country season.
Hergenrother won four postseason races while leading Ridgefield to the team title in three of them. The Princeton-bound Hergenrother accomplished a Grand Slam of being the individual champion at the FCIAC Championships, both state championship meets, and ultimately the New England Championships. He won the FCIAC race, the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Class LL Boys Cross Country Championships, and the CIAC State Open for the second consecutive year as the defending champion at all three of those meets.
Ridgefield first won the FCIAC Championships. After Danbury won the Class LL state championship, Ridgefield won the team title at the State Open and New England Championships.
Coach Bryan Kovalsky’s Ridgefield Tigers won their New England title in very impressive fashion when Ridgefield and Danbury placed 1-2 on Nov. 11 in Belfast, Maine. Ridgefield won with the team low score of 57 points, Danbury was runner-up with 181, and Xavier, from Middletown, Conn., placed third with 200 points.
Hergenrother ran away from the field and won the 5,000-meter race by about 14½ seconds. He had a winning time of 15:21.87 and Isaac Mahler, a senior at Hall High School in West Hartford, placed second with a 15:36.30.
The Tigers secured their championship when their four juniors placed among the top 39 overall while they finished within 23.85 seconds of each other. Charles Lovett placed 10th overall with a 15:52.98 and the other three scoring Tigers were Magnus Manley (18th overall, 16:01.01), Trevor Fuller (31st, 16:12.79), and Sullivan Dunn (39th, 16:16.83).
Danbury senior Devon Rosemark placed 19th with a 16:03.15 to lead the Hatters to second place. Danbury’s Hatters also utilized a tight four-pack of their final four scoring runners. Christopher Bishop (56th place, 16:30.32), Michael Komisky (60th, 16:32.50), Elias Alvarado (68th, 16:37.78), and Kyle Jeffers (16:47.25) all finished within 16.93 seconds of each other.
Team scores were calculated by adding up the place positions from where the five runners from the teams which were entered as full teams finished in relation to the other finishers from teams with full squads. The place positions of the runners who ran individually were eliminated so they would not factor in the team scoring.
Ridgefield and Danbury previously placed 1-2 in the 2023 FCIAC Boys Cross Country Championships at Waveny Park in New Canaan in a close contest for the team title as the Tigers scored seven less points than Danbury. Both teams had their same five scoring runners who eventually were their respective team’s same top five at the New England Championships. Ridgefield’s five scoring runners placed among the top 16 to score 38 points while the five scoring Hatters finished in places 7-11 for 45 points.
Hergenrother defended his individual championship with a 15:34 over the 5-kilometer course (3.1 miles) and Fairfield Warde’s Parker Broderick was six seconds behind in the second place. Ridgefield’s Manley placed third with a 15:50.
Samuel Zwick-Lavinsky (15:51) and Oliver Samuel (15:51) of Staples completed the top five while leading the Wreckers to third place in team scoring with 97 points.
Greenwich placed fourth in team scoring with 132 points, Fairfield Warde was fifth with 149 and followed in the top 10 by New Canaan (162), Trumbull (164), Darien (224), Wilton (250) and Fairfield Ludlowe (272).
The top 15 individual finishers ran themselves onto the All-FCIAC Boys Cross Country First Team and those who placed 16-30 made the All-FCIAC Second Team.
The 10 other runners who placed 6-15 to make the All-FCIAC First team were, in order: Ridgefield’s Lovett (15:52); Alvarado (15:59), Komisky (16:00), Jeffers (16:02), Bishop (16:03) and Rosemark (16:10) of Danbury; Dunn (16:12) of Ridgefield; David Carillo (16:12) and Harjaap Singh (16:12) of Trumbull; and Greenwich’s Christian Zawislack (16:22).
Those runners on the All-FCIAC Second Team who placed 16-30 were Ridgefield’s Fuller in 16th place; Alexander Cohen of Wilton; Ryan Boulanger of New Canaan; Calum Madigan of Staples; 20th-place finisher Alexander Glenn and Aidan Nelson of Ridgefield; Charles Williamson of Fairfield Warde; Matteo Chiesara of Greenwich; Banks Valentine of Westhill; 25th-place finisher Owen Gluck of Darien; Nathan Maruffi of Danbury; Braden Barger of New Canaan; Alex Neves of Danbury; Chase Nizielski of Greenwich; and Oliver Samuel of Staples.
Many of those top 30 runners then went on to place high in both state championship meets.
The FCIAC had 11 of the 12 fastest finishers at the Class LL state championship meet on Oct. 31 at Wickham Park in Manchester. Fifteen conference runners placed among the top 20, and four Danbury Hatters finished in the top 10 to enable them to win the team title with 59 points, 11 less than runner-up Ridgefield.
Hergenrother’s winning time of 15:50 was three seconds faster than runner-up Mahler of Hall. Warde’s Broderick was third with a 16:18. Benjamin Lorenz of Staples took fourth with a 16:23.
The Danbury duo of Rosemark (16:24) and Jeffers (16:25) placed fifth and sixth, respectively, to lead the Hatters to the Class LL crown. The other 10 FCIAC runners among the top 20 were Zawislack (seventh, 16:36), Alvarado eighth, (16:36), Samuel (ninth, 16:39), Komisky (10th, 16:41), Carillo (11th, 16:42), Singh (12th, 16:43), Lovett (15th, 16:57), Manley (16th, 16:57), Chiesara (17th, 16:57), Fuller (18th, 16:58), Williamson (19th, 16:59), and Dunn (20th, 17:06).
Six FCIAC teams finished among the top eight in the Class LL team scoring. In addition to team champion Danbury and runner-up Ridgefield, Staples placed fourth with 123 points, Greenwich (143) took fifth, Trumbull (178) was seventh and Fairfield Warde (220) placed eighth.
Six days later Hergenrother ran 18 seconds faster on the same Wickham Park 5K course to win the State Open with a 15:32. Newtown’s Sheib Dissa was runner-up with a 15:37 and Mahler took third with a 15:46.
Manley placed eighth with a 16:06 as the second fastest FCIAC runner while Lovett (11th, 16:08), Dunn (29th, 16:32) and Fuller (33rd, 16:38) were the other Tigers who helped Ridgefield win the team championship with 60 points.
Danbury was runner-up with 74 points and led by Rosemark (13th, 16:10), Jeffers (21st, 16:20), Bishop (22nd, 16:20), Komisky (25th, 16:22) and Alvarado (26th, 16:27).
Three more FCIAC runners who placed among the top 30 were Samuel (19th, 16:19), Singh (24th, 16:20) and Carillo (16:34).
After Hergenrother completed his personal Grand Slam when he won the New England Championships race, he was among 201 of the best high school runners in the country who qualified for the Nike Cross Nationals and he placed 29th with a 15:41.1 on Dec. 2 in Portland, Ore.
When Hergenrother won his second State Open race, he became one of just three runners who have been multiple State Open champions since 1996. Glastonbury’s Donald Cabral won his second straight State Open race in 2007 and Conard’s Gavin Sherry defended his title in 2021.
The www.casciac.org website has complete results for the State Open and state class championship meets since 1996. The list of the 27 State Open boys’ winners is below, with the FCIAC winners in bold:
Boys Cross Country State Open Champions
2023: Steven Hergenrother, Ridgefield, 15:32
2022: Steven Hergenrother, Ridgefield, 15:42
2021: Gavin Sherry, Conard, 15:16
2019: Gavin Sherry, Conard, 15:38
2018: Eli Nahom, New Milford, 15:54
2017: Drew Thompson, Fairfield Prep, 15:44
2016: Zakeer Ahmad, Staples, 15:46
2015: Eric van der Els, Brien McMahon, 15:47
2014: Alex Ostberg, Darien, 14:58
2013: Christian Alvarado, Fairfield Prep, 15:31
2012: Henry Wynne, Staples, 15:49
2011: Connor Rog, Fairfield Prep, 15:22
2010: Bryan Fowler, Tolland, 15:50
2009: John Raneri, New Fairfield, 15:40
2008: Tucker Schaefer, Danbury, 16:01
2007: Donald Cabral, Glastonbury, 15:30
2006: Donald Cabral, Glastonbury, 16:02
2005: Jay Koloseus, Guilford, 15:33
2004: Tradelle Ward, Griswold, 15:49
2003: Gavin Coombs, Griswold, 15:21
2002: Ahmed Haji, Conard, 15:54
2001: Steve Mucchetti, Ridgefield, 15:53
2000: Brien McGovern, Fairfield Prep, 15:33
1999: Chris Andrews, NFA, 15:42
1998: Ren Provey, Fairfield, 15:47
1997: Godfrey Berger, Coventry, 16:52
1996: Eric Blake, Lyman Memorial, 16:05