Newtown High School track standout Soheib Dissa had quite a showing at the Millrose Games Trials at the Armory in New York City on January 10. Dissa won the mile event in 4:13.83, earning the top event time in the country.

Dissa beat the previous No. 1, Keegan Smith of Knoxville Catholic in Tennessee, by .03 seconds. Dissa took on runners from all over the country with most of the top mile finishers representing New York and the tri-state area, including third-place finisher Luke Schagelin of Morris Knolls, N.J., who finished in 4:13.92.

“He sat in third to fifth place the whole race, and when everyone thought he was out of the event he surged past everyone in the final three meters of the race to beat the first two boys,” Newtown Coach Charlie Taubl said.

The Newtown girls competed in a meet at Yale University’s Yale Track Classic in New Haven January 12 and 13, with relays kicking things off on January 12.

Newtown’s 4x200 competed in the Championship Division and had a two-second personal record (1:50.88) from December with a rookie anchor leg in Jessie Moore. Ella Hall, Abby Manka, and Lola Kessler rounded out the relay.

The distance medley relay comprising Clara D’Amico, Abby Ihlefeld, Brooke Bulkley, and Keira Budge (1200, 400, 800, 1600), took third place in the Connecticut Division in a time of 13:17.59.

Newtown’s 4x400 had a record-setting day in a time of 4:07.53. Grace Lyons, Aashni Shetty, rookie Natalie McLean, and Rachel Albrecht won first place in the Over 600 Division and were third over all 4x400s that competed at Yale. The time qualified them for Nike Nationals and beat the school record previously held in part by coach Carly Swierbut who has worked exclusively with this group.

On day two, Shetty had a significant PR in the 55 hurdles with a time of 9.06, placing eighth overall and qualifying for nationals; she also placed fourth in the long jump.

Lyons (43.27) and Albrecht (43.90) saw large PRs in the 300 meter run. Budge placed 12th in the 1000 with a PR time of 3:11.74.

While Yale saw some great performances the rest of the team did awesome things in their developmental meet at Bethel High. Newtown had 41 PRs, nine new South-West Conference Championship qualifiers and five new State Championship qualifiers.

Varsity distance runners and pole vault standout Lola Kessler will compete at Bethel’s Distance/Pole Vault Invitational during the January 20 weekend.