NFA girls defeat nine-time champ East Lyme, while Vikings' boys have a record-setting day at the track

oNew London — Ted Koziol, the Norwich Free Academy girls' indoor track and field coach, conducted a team meeting Friday that lasted upwards of an hour."Ted really pushes us," NFA senior Hannah Graham was explaining early Saturday afternoon at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, site of the Eastern Connecticut Conference Division I indoor track and field championships."He knows how to have fun, but right now he's serious because he knows we can win, so this week has been more of a locked in week just to be able to pull this one off and that's what we did."NFA finished with 147 points to dethrone nine-time defending champion East Lyme, which was second with 101 points. Woodstock Academy was third with 85.The East Lyme boys meanwhile, set three meet records to win their third straight title with 154 points, ahead of Fitch (113) and NFA (95).East Lyme's Tom Matlock established the shot put record at 60 feet, 9.75 inches to finish first ahead of NFA's Chris Amy, who also eclipsed the previous league best with a throw of 59-8. Matlock and Amy are ranked as the top two shot putters in the state.Also for the Vikings, Sean McCauley was a double-winner (1,600, 3,200), setting the ECC record in the 1,600 in 4 minutes, 25.68, and East Lyme's sprint medley relay team of Aidan Patterson, Jacob Scott, Finian Gates and Kai Ritz broke the meet record with a time of 3:20.67."I'm very happy for the kids," said Koziol, in his second season coaching the NFA girls. "I'm really happy for the academy. The coaches really worked hard with the kids this year to fill some gaps that we had from last year."Last year I didn't know a whole lot of the kids. So I learned what their limits were last year and we told them we were going to push them to the limit this year to try to take the championship and they came through."Graham won the shot put at 34-10 and Lily Gilbert won the pole vault at 10-6 for the WIldcats. NFA's 4x720 team of Sofia Ayer, Paige Brayman, Keegan Levine and Daisy Jeffs won in 9:21.91 and the sprint medley relay team of Caroline Holmberg, Naema Charles, Hayleigh Young and Leah Burchman took first in 4:14.92."Since I was a freshman, the goal is always to win as individuals but actually win as a team, get the ECC title as a team," said Graham, who also excels in the discus outdoors and who has committed to compete at Yale."To be able to get it today, that's exciting because of just putting in so much work as a team. It's not luck or anything; we put in the work every single day."Waterford's Avery Maiese was a double-winner, taking the girls' 1,000 (3:07.42) and 1,600 (5:36.19).Other local individual girls' champions were Darielys Arnold of New London in the 55 dash, Elle Dibuono of Waterford in the 600, Aranza Torres of East Lyme in the 3,200, Hannah Thomas of Fitch in the 55 hurdles and Jayla Washington of East Lyme in the long jump. The Fitch team of Alaina Campbell, Thomas, Grace Cosmopoulos and Hannah Warner won the 4x180 relay.The East Lyme boys have now won state championship in three of the last four seasons, earning cross country titles in 2022-23 and the 2023 indoor track championship. Chris Morth, a former assistant with the program, took over as head coach this year, replacing longtime coach Steve Hargis, who retired."A couple days ago (Morth) talked to us and said we really have to lock in and do our job and I think everyone did that," said McCauley, who called Matlock's record-setting showing in the shot put early in the meet an inspiration."... Tommy killed it. I've been going to track meets with Tom since we were in the seventh grade. It's just really cool to see where we are now. He's showing up and showing out, so I've got to show up and show out."East Lyme also got wins from Patterson in the 55 dash (6.76), Justin Blezard in the pole vault (12-0) and from the 4x400 and 4x720 teams. Gates was a member of all three of the Vikings' winning relay teams and Maddox Grillo-Smith and Ritz two each.Other local winners were Fitch's Porter Carter in the 300 (37.56), Ryan Dunning in the 1,000 (2:38.57), Gianni Colebut in the high jump (6-2) and Zayshawn Griffin in the long jump (21-2), NFA's Kyle Kornacki in the 600 (1:25.81) and Waterford's Elliot Childs in the 55 hurdles (7.94). Fitch won the 4x180 relay.v.fulkerson@theday.com