By Michael Letendre
It’s been 10 years since the Bristol Central boys cross country team won the CIAC Class L championship – their only title in program history.
And after an excellent top-four finish at the event the previous season, that 2010 squad returned a veteran crew which would have stacked up well against any team across the state.
That team was a shining example of how a championship program operates, with both upper and under-classmen contributing to the title run.
Central earned that Class L championship by defeating Darien by 15 points (71-86) – an excellent margin for a squad that certainly believed it could take home a state title against a crowded field of contenders from the onset of the campaign.
The crew of seniors Mike Duprey, Connor Kelly, Jacob Eschner, along with senior Ethan Washburn and junior Jake Mancini, pulled off an amazing feat on October 30, 2010 in the ultra-competitive Class L race from Wickham Park in Manchester.
“Mike, Connor, and Jacob are three of the most talented runners I have ever coached,” said Central coach Tamara Stafford-Kirk. “ Jacob was a strong cross country runner, but man, he tore up the track, especially at 400 and 800 meters. Mike still holds the Bristol Central outdoor mile record and was undoubtedly one of our best cross country/track runners ever. And Connor just set the standard for us in cross country. His finish wasn’t what any of us hoped but he was the backbone of that team and along with Mike, their leader in so many ways.”
But that team was hardly a three-man crew as it took outstanding efforts from the entire program – Washburn and Mancini in particular – that day to seal the deal.
“Jake Mancini was a very talented runner who battled an injury coming out of summer training that year,” said Stafford-Kirk. “If not for that, he could have easily finished alongside Eschner. Ethan Washburn simply had the best high school race of his career that day. He laid it all on the line and is one of the major reasons we won.”
And the sixth best runner from Central that day, Spencer Johnson, was the future of the Bristol Central program, pulling off a tremendous finish in Manchester.
The squad’s ‘sixth man’ that year, Johnson was in that top five mix of Central’s athletes and one of the program’s top runners by the time he graduated.
“Spencer was just a sophomore but backed it all up with a strong finish,” said Stafford-Kirk of Johnson. “He went on to have one of our best individual Bristol Central cross country careers and is still racing competitively now.”
The Rams were an impressive bunch that went undefeated – scooping up a perfect 16-0 record – and won the CCC South Championship along the way.
That squad also carried a top-10 ranking for most of the season which ended with four runners from Central finishing in the top 14 at the Class L championship.
As usual, the scholastic cross country campaign is a marathon, not a sprint, but by the time the postseason came around, the boys program from Bristol Central was (literally) running on all cylinders and had its collective eyes on that Class L prize.
That championship bid eventually came to pass as Darien and Pomperaug were the only two programs even close to catching the Rams that day at Wickham.
You’ve met the team and in the next chapter of this continuing saga, we’ll go through the results of the 2010 campaign – reliving the triumphs and challenges that the Central program endured over its very special championship run.
