Berlin Girls Win CCC South Cross Country Championships

The Berlin High School girl's cross country team won its second straight CCC South Championship meet Wednesday. 

"The girls ran a great race,"Berlin coach Steve Soucy said. "We knew going in that it would take a complete team effort to win. The girls all ran fantastic and took seven of the first 12 places in the race." 

Brittany Sullivan finished fourth and Kristen Madeia was fifth and finished within a second of each other. They were followed closely by a pack of three of Taylor Lupini in seventh, Paige Young in eighth and Nicole Grieco, ninth. Stef Parillo and Nicki Sylvain finished a few seconds later in 11th and 12th respectively. 

"I couldn't be happier for the girls as they have worked extremely hard all season long to get to this point," Soucy said. "We still have work to do heading into the State Meet but things are looking good. We beat a very good E.O. Smith team in the overall standings and finished just two points behind state ranked Simsbury."

The Boys finished the day in fourth place in the South. 

"The division was strong this year and we went into the day tied with Middletown and Plainville," Soucy said of the boy's team. "Both teams have strong pack teams and if you don't get a really low number at the top, it is really hard to outscore them.  Our concentration this year has been on team time and the boys moved a little closer to their goal. They missed the school record by about 20 seconds and will be focused on that at the State MM meet."

James Dwyer was sixth and Brendan McLarty was eighth pacing the team once again and Lawrence Betterini turned in a great race placing 15th overall.

Matthew Chisholm of Farmington and Chrissy Bendzinski of RHAM were the overall winners in the CCC Cross Country Championships at Wickham Park in Manchester Wednesday.

Chisholm toured the 3.1 mile course in 16:43.68, while Bendzinski was the only female to break the 20-minute barrier, finishing in 19:48.37.

Individual winners in the girls division were Bendzinski (East), Grace Gothers of East Catholic (North), Nadia Kreciglowa of Bristol Central (South) and Shea William of Conard (West). Team winners were Tolland (East), Glastonbury (North), Berlin (South) and Conard (West).

For the boys, individual champions were Chisholm (West), Colin Sauter of Tolland (East), Patrick Dibble of Manchester (North) and Jon Jankoski of Bristol Central (South). Team champions were Farmington (West), E.O. Smith (East), South Windsor (North) and Bristol Central (South).

Click here for complete results of all varsity and JV girls and boys races.