For the second-straight season and the sixth time in eight years, the Haddam-Killingworth girls’ cross country team has earned a Shoreline Conference title. The Cougars achieved that feat by topping the 11-team field when the Shoreline Conference Championship took place at Hammonasset State Park in Madison on Oct. 20.

H-K finished with a team score of 39 points to place ahead of runner-up Old Lyme (67) and claim the Shoreline crown. The Cougars saw three of their runners place in the top six at the conference meet, led by a second-place performance from freshman Grace Mitchell.

H-K’s boys’ cross country team turned in a fine showing in its own right at Shorelines. The Cougars finished in second place as a team with senior captain Alex Lara taking third place for the 5K race.

Matt Diglio, who coaches both of H-K’s cross country teams, felt proud to see the girls’ squad defend its Shoreline Conference crown.

“I thought our girls ran really well. We’ve been running well all season long, and we kind of continued that momentum at the Shoreline Championships,” Diglio said. “We knew it was going to be a pretty good meet. There’s some really good girls’ teams in our conference—Old Lyme, East Hampton, and Portland. But we knew if we performed like we were capable of, we should come out with the victory, and the girls did that. They raced well from the start.”

The Cougars’ pack was led by Mitchell at the Shoreline Conference Championship. Mitchell, a first-year runner, finished second in the girls’ race by running a time of 19:07.3. The freshman only finished behind Old Lyme freshman Chase Gilbert, who took first place with a time of 18:07.5.

“Grace is someone who we were aware of last year as an 8th-grader. We knew that she had a ton of talent coming up,” said Diglio. “I tried not to push her too hard early on and kind of let her grow into running a 5K.”

Senior captain Izzy Berardino, the defending Shoreline Conference champion, finished in fourth place at this year’s meet while recording a personal-best time of 19:44.4. Berardino, who serves a senior captain alongside Georgia Cancroft, had never run competitively prior to joining H-K’s cross country program as a freshman. By her junior year, she had become the Cougars’ No. 1 runner.

With all of Berardino’s success, Coach Diglio feels most proud of the leadership that she’s displayed this year, especially in terms of integrating Mitchell into the fold.

“What’s really impressed me this year is her leadership ability,” Diglio said of Berardino. “When you have a freshman on your team come and pass you and have another freshman from Old Lyme running really well, I think it would have been very easy for her to kind of get down on herself, but she didn’t. She realized Grace would make her better and make the team better, and she was OK with that. I think the other girls took the cue from that, and it’s propelled us to bigger and better things.”

Junior Sydney Adelberg finished in sixth place for H-K by posting a time of 20:23.8 at Shorelines. Mitchell, Berardino, and Adelberg earned All-Shoreline Conference First Team honors with their performances.

Freshman Delaney Aronson took 11th place after crossing the finish line with a mark of 20:38.6. Sophomore Keira Sehl-Albert ran a time of 20:45.5 to come in 16th place for the Cougars. Aronson and Sehl-Albert garnered All-Shoreline Conference Second Team accolades.

Senior Kira O’Brien finished in 27th place for H-K with a time of 21:42.7 at Shorelines. Fellow senior Chloe Lacoss finished in 28th place by recording a time of 21:53.8.

On the boys’ side, H-K scored 63 points as a squad to finish in second at Shorelines, placing behind Hale-Ray (36). The Cougars had previously finished first at Shorelines in eight-straight seasons and 11 of the last 12 years.

Last season, H-K scored 43 points to edge out Hale-Ray (46) for the conference crown. However, this time around, Hale-Ray was able to finish the job and outpace the Cougars for the title.

“It’s been a struggle this fall. We’ve dealt with a lot of injuries and illnesses and have never really been able to kind of put it all together. We lost our No. 2 runner [senior captain] Jack Insalaco to an injury. He’s out for the rest of the year,” said Coach Diglio. “Hale-Ray has been running really, really well this whole season. We thought we had a shot at ‘em, but they ran great. We’re definitely disappointed, because this is the first time we lost the Shoreline Championship in eight years. But as I told the boys afterwards, sometimes you get beat by the better team, and that’s what happened.”

Senior captain Lara claimed third place for the Cougars by running a time of 16:42.3 at the conference meet. Hale-Ray senior Michael Kraszewski finished in first place (16:12.0), while Hale-Ray sophomore Matthew Kraszewski came in second place (16:40.0). Lara leads H-K as a senior captain with Insalaco and Joe Giaccone.

“Alex had a great day. He’s someone who came in as a freshman, was not one of our top runners or top freshmen at the time, and he just steadily made improvements year to year,” Diglio said. He’s more of a middle-distance guy—400 is his specialty—but he worked extremely hard over the summer. He trained really hard and had a great day. He wanted to break up Hale-Ray’s No. 1 and 2 and he gave it everything he had, but to finish third, he did his job. We just couldn’t really put it together after him.”

Sophomore Jack Cozean finished in seventh place for the H-K boys at Shorelines by running a time of 16:52.5. Cozean secured All-Shoreline Conference First Team honors alongside Lara.

Junior Luke Hedges took 12th place with a time of 17:27.0. Freshman Daniel McCourt came in 18th place for the Cougars with a mark of 17:44.2. Hedges and McCourt each made the All-Shoreline Conference Second Team. Sophomore Sawyer DiMatteo ran a time of 18:13.6 to finish in 23rd place.

Freshman Alex Frederickson finished in 28th place by recording a time of 18:27.0 for H-K at the conference meet. Sophomore Colton Merola came in 36th place with a time of 18:50.8.

In the JV race, senior Peter Lavelle claimed first place for H-K after hitting the finish line a time of 18:25.9. Fellow senior Ryan Wiese posted a time of 18:44.2 to finish second for the JV competition.

This year’s Shoreline Conference Championship marked the first time that the Cougars has competed in a league meet at Hammonasset State Park. Coach Diglio said that H-K’s game plan going into the girls’ race was for its runners to stick close to one another and use their teammates as marks on the course. The focus for the boys was to mark the top runners at the meet.

“In the years past, it’s rotated around to different high schools. This is the first year of, hopefully, many years to come that it’s at a neutral site like Hammonasset, which is an extremely flat and fast course with no hills at all,” said Diglio. “Hills are one of our strong points that we do a lot of training on during the season, so we knew it was going to be a fast race. I just didn’t want our kids to go out too hard or too aggressive early on.”

H-K now turns its attention to the Class SS State Championship meet that’s taking place at Wickham Park this weekend. The girls’ race begins at 12:55 p.m., and the boys’ race is slated to get underway at 1:30 p.m. Last year, both the boys’ and girls’ teams finished in first place at the Class SS State Championship, marking the second-straight state title for the girls’ squad.

Coach Diglio said that the dedication of Haddam-Killingworth’s student-athletes has resulted in the Cougars setting some ambitious goals. In return, H-K has seen longstanding success on the cross country course.

“The kids deserve all the credit. We’ve tried to establish a tradition for many years where one year runs into the next and kids come in as freshman and they see what they’re being a part of and, hopefully, when they’re a junior or senior, that they can contribute to it,” Diglio said. “They’re a good group of kids year after year, and we have a very supportive parent and alumni group. The kids deserve all the credit, and this year is no exception.”