45°
WILTON, Conn. An early-season festival of running takes place Saturday morning when 20 cross-country teams from around the state visit Allen's Meadows for the 23rd annual Wilton Invitational. The first race begins at 9:30 a.m. The girls varsity race is scheduled for 11 a.m., the boys for 11:30.
Besides Wilton, other schools from the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference scheduled to participate are Norwalk, Brien McMahon, New Canaan, Darien, Greenwich and Ridgefield. Boys teams from Fairfield Prep and Weston are also in the field.
Guilford, one of the premier girls teams in the state recently, will also run. In all, over 1,000 runners are expected to line up in six races. In the first state cross-country poll released this week, Prep is ranked No. 1 among boys teams and Guilford is ranked No. 1 among girls.
Prep's Connor Rog will be the favorite in the boys race, which is 2.9 miles. The Jesuits also figure to be in the team hunt along with Darien, which looked impressive in its first win of the season earlier this week. Greenwich's girls will be among the top title contenders, along with Darien.
The meet was moved to October the last two years because it conflicted with Rosh Hashanah. Now in its traditional date, the meet is an early-season indicator for many teams looking to assess what they have. "It has been a crazy season already because of the hurricane,'' Wilton coach Jeff Gee said. "We lost a lot of training time, more than most teams from around the state."
A 1.5-mile race for freshman girls starts the meet at 9:30 a.m. Freshman boys race the same distance at 9:45. At 10, junior varsity girls start a 2.5-mile race, followed by the boys junior varsity at 10:30 with a 2.9-mile race. Varsity girls begin a 2.5-mile race at 11, and the varsity boys finish up at 11:30.
Check clubct.org for more schedule information.
Contact Tom Renner at trenner@mainstreetconnect.us.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Norwalk and receive free news updates.
