Wave wins first ever boys cross country state title

Written by Steven Buono
Saturday, 31 October 2009 15:09

Jake McCauley led the Darien High boys cross country team to the first state title in school history in the sport, coming in second in 17:14 at Wickham Park in Manchester today.

Darien scored 60 points to runner-up Guilford's 73 for the Class MM title.

"Everything kind of went much better than we thought — on paper," said Darien coach of seven years Tyson Kaczmarek, who has seen several second place finishes at states with the Wave. "I mean, we put six guys in the top 20, and there is no way that I thought we could do that.

“Three in the top 20 would have been a good day.”

Alex Reynoso came in seventh.

“Jake did what he had to do, Alex had a huge race,” Kaczmarek said. “I didn’t expect him to be that high.”

And 16th through 18th respectively were Willem Sandberg, Charlie Baird and Michael Johnston.

David Watson was 20th and John Conley 39th, suffering a fall on what was a muddy course.

“What was cool is that we came through adversity,” Kaczmarek said. “John Conley was 18:39 — he fell actually a quarter of a mile into the race, and recovered.”

This was big, because?

“He probably would have been third,” Kaczmarek said of Darien’s standout runner. “So we were able to overcome that, because everybody else (ran) awesome — picked him right up.”

Conley caught a bad spot and got out of rhythm, said Kaczmarek.

“He started thinking about it — that we lost the meet,” said Kaczmarek. “But he didn’t realize we were in good condition, even with him being where he was.”

This happens, like smash-ups in NASCAR.

“I was trying to tell him that every time I saw him,” Kaczmarek said. “But you know, he was emotional.”

See the full story featured in Thursday's Darien Times, and on this site.