Danbury High School held their 41st annual O’Grady’s track meet on the weekend of April 26th-27th. This meet is a two day event, starting Friday afternoon and continuing all day Saturday. This track meet is well renowned in Connecticut and attracts the highest competition within the state. What makes this meet even more special is that only relays are run. It provides a unique opportunity for teams to compete for one another as a team instead of individual time. Despite the high playing field, Danbury boys track and field pulled through as a team winning the entire meet. One particular relay that deserves recognition is the boys 4×100 meters.
The boys 4×100 meters was composed of Tobeas Kelly, Dominic Atuahene, Nasir Ricketts, and Machai Henry. This powerful relay managed to run a 42.04 ranking them #1 in the state in the 2024 season. These athletes also broke the school record in the 4×100 that previously sat at 42.26. Not only was the school record shattered but these boys managed to secure the meet record as well. The records do not stop there; this relay sits in 4th place as the fastest recorded high school 4×100 in Connecticut’s history.
The first leg of this relay was run by sophomore Tobeas Kelly. But breaking records is not something new to Kelly; he was also a part of the 4×200 relay that broke the school record during the indoor season. The indoor feat served as motivation, Kelly admitted, “coming from breaking the indoor record in indoor and coming back from indoor [they] had all the guys” including Dominic Atuahene, who came back from basketball. Kelly, being one of two underclassmen on the relay stated that it “feels good having those upper guys knowing what they’re doing, bringing their experience down to us and letting them shadow us and show us what to do.” When asked what his purpose was on a relay compared to individual events, he said it’s about “getting your part done, getting the stick to the other guys and letting them do what they do.”
The second leg of this relay was junior Dominic Atuahene, coming back from a winter season of basketball. Atuahene says the key to running a relay is to “trust the guys to get it done, I know they are fast we just got to get out there and get it done.” This 4×100 time was set early on in the season and as championship season approaches and the team attends more invitationals, this strong motivated team aims to get faster. “Right now we are already number 4 in the state; now we need to move up to number 3, number 2, and even number 1,” Atuahene says.
Nasir Rickets received the baton third following Dominic Atuahene. Nasir Rickets was also on the indoor team that broke the school record in indoor. Rickes says that setting another record “really motivated [them] to keep going” and says that they are “trying to go for the state record which is 41.40 and trying to see All American.” As one of two upperclassmen on the relay and the only senior, Rickets says his “role is to really teach them and understand how they feel and to keep them going on deep into the season” and everyone together as family. Rickets says, “It’s different because you need team chemistry with your team and you have to really understand how they feel and how their body feels to adjust,” compared to running individual events.
Machai Henry finished off strong and secured the win for Danbury. Henry has been having a successful season coming out of breaking the school record in indoor in the 4×200. Henry is a strong individual athlete and has secured All-Fciacs and All-State titles in the past. Henry admits that they “had a little motivation from the other team” and was confident they could “beat the school record in general and [knew they] had the guys to do it.” Despite being a promising athlete, when “you have other people that know what they’re doing, it makes it way better compared to having to rely on yourself over,” Henry says. Being one of two underclassmen athletes Henry says, “I’ve been doing this for a long time so it makes sense that we are at this level but it feels good having these upperclassmen showing us what to do.” Henry looks forward to the championship season and is hungry for an individual school record.
This group of extraordinary athletes has a promising season ahead of them going into championship season. As Tobeas Kelly said, it best they are going “to get it down” and look forward to securing the state record next.
