BoysOutdoorTrack

 At Monday's CIAC State Open track meet, three of the school's record holders had their last chance of the season to improve their records.  Sophomore Connor Hilbie lowered his current school record another 5 seconds, running 9:44.9 .  Connor ended up 12th in the event, which featured some high quality runners.  Senior Steve Nelson finished out his discus career by throwing 135 feet, coming in 11th overall, but was unable to improve on his school record.  Mark Jolley also competed at the Open in the High Jump but was unable to improve on his school record in his final meet.
This was the largest group of Berlin Boys to compete at the Open in the last 20 years, and ended the best season the BHS Boys have had in the past 20 years, finishing the season with a 10-1 record, five new school records, five ALL-CCC athletes, eight individual Class MM qualifiers, and three individual State Open qualifiers.  

 At the Class MM meet on Friday June 4 at Manchester HS, Senior Steve Nelson, Mark Jolley, and Sophomore Connor Hilbie earned medals at the Class meet and were rewarded with a trip to the State Open.  "This is the best showing by the boys at the Class meet ever.  Qualifying three for the open is the best I can remember."  Nelson took 4th in the discus, Hilbie 3rd in the 3200 and Jolley 2nd in the High Jump.   The Open will be Monday, June 7 at 2:00 PM at Willow Brook Park in New Britain.   Other top performers for BHS included Senior Ryan Bisson and Junior Jimmy Nolan, who both tied for 7th in the Pole Vault.  Nolan cleared 12-0 for the first time and tied the School Record currently shared by Bisson and Dan Neilan.    

Following last weeks nailbiter against Bristol Central, the boys could relax a little in their return to Bristol to Face the Lancers of Bristol Eastern. The boys scored an easy 94 - 56 win while resting a couple of key athletes in preparation for the conference meet and the State Meets.   David Campagna continued his strong performances, leading the team with three individual wins and a part in the winning 4 x 100 m relay, while Connor Hilbie ran two very good times in the distance races, while running without competition and anchored the 4 x 800 m relay.  The throwing team had another good day, led by Nick DeLoia, who won the Discus and Javelin and Jack Banks contributed a third in the Javelin and a third in the Discus,. along with Steve Nelson's second to complete another sweep by our discus throwers.   The boys are in action Thursday at Morgan.

 The BHS Boys Track team came up 4 points short of achieving back to back conference titles.  The Lancers of Bristol Central defeated the Redcoats by the narrowest of margins 79-71.   The meet hinged on two key performances: the Long Jump and the Pole vault.  In the Pole Vault, Bristol avoided a Berlin Sweep of the event when their top vaulter cleared his personal best, 11-0, on his final attempt, to steal 3 crucial points.  Those lost points would haunt the Redcoats when the Long Jump was lost by two inches, another two points taken by BC.  Those 5 points proved to be the difference between winning the conference title and coming in second.  "We came into the meet knowing that we had to do something special in the sprints to give us a chance to win.  I had originally projected that we would only score 67 points (need 75 to tie and 76 to win).  This meant that we needed to be at our best in the sprints - the only events that there was room to improve.  The sprinting duo of David Campagna and Ian VanderGulik really put the hammer down taking 1-2 in the 100 and 1-3 in the 200.  In neither of those events did I think we would be that dominant.