Last Thursday, February 1st Danbury’s Track & Field Team traveled to New Haven to compete at FCIACS. The boys track team, after hard work and dedication, returned home with a first-place title. Scoring an impressive 96 points, leaving Greenwich far behind them in second place with only 51 points. Previously in the season, Danbury’s boys had tied for second with Norwalk in the West Division Championship, leaving Staples High School in first. The boys used the opportunity to continue to adapt and process as individuals and a team and attacked FCIACS with full force. The team is highly diverse, entering multiple athletes in every running, jumping, and throwing event.
The boys spent the first half of the season competing at the Armory in New York City and practicing as a team. One of the senior captains, Christopher Bishop, says that “over the season the team has gotten to know each other and built a better team chemistry over the past 3 months that [they] have seen each other everyday.” The win in FCIACS is more than a title; it also “helps strengthen the culture of the team,” added Bishop. The team prides itself on the driven culture they have cultivated. Though the title was a team effort and every athlete who stepped on the track contributed to the well-deserved win, the team awarded the top-scoring athletes as performers of the meet.
Devon Rosemark is a senior on the team and was named the mid-distance and distance performer of the meet. He individually competed in the 1000-meter, where he placed in second place. He was also part of the Sprint medley relay race, where he ran the 800-meter leg and a leg in the 4×400, where both teams placed second. Rosemark expresses that he is “super proud of the team and of all the guys who stepped up and performed super well.” The success of the boys is well earned by the training and the culture that is practiced within the team. Although the training is rigorous, Devon attributes his success to “constantly [training] every day and [coming] to each practice with a purpose.”
The other athlete named performer of the meet was Machai Henry, who placed first in both the 55-meter and the 4×200-meter and third in the 300-meter. What makes Machai Henry so extraordinary is that he is only a sophomore. Though he may be young compared to his competition, Henry explains that he “has been doing this for a while” and finds it “pretty satisfying” to place high in his events. Being that Henry is still in his early years of high school, his goals going into championship season are to “run better times or at least stay consistent, at the very least, and to try to stay at the top of the state.”
It is clear that the boys have been putting in the work all season and are out for nothing but success heading into the championship season. The Hatters are going to travel to New Haven once again for the CIAC Class LL Championship on February 8th, where they look to bring home another title.
