By Steve Bigham

MILFORD – David Rod won his third-consecutive meet Monday afternoon, blowing away the competition at Eisenhower Park in Milford by nearly 30 seconds. Newtown defeated Bunnell, 21-38, and Notre Dame, 16-47.

The senior covered the 3-mile course in 17 minutes, 25 seconds, capping an outstanding regular season. Rod is hoping for similar results Friday afternoon as he and his cross-country teammates compete in the South-West Conference championships at Bethel.

Rod is expected to finish amongst the top 12 runners, which would earn him all-league honors. As a team, Newtown is favored to finish third, although it’s never easy to predict where this year’s team is going to end up. Some of the Newtown runners have been up and down this year, making it difficult for coach Rich Pesce to forecast their results.

“I used to be able to write the finish in, but each week we have different guys finishing near the top. You don’t know who’s going to score for us,” he said.

Pesce last led a Newtown team to the league championship in 1996. To do so this season would require a minor miracle. Stranger things have happened, however.

“What we’d have to do is run the very best we’ve run in order of having any hopes of taking a first. We’d also have to have a little bit of help, if that’s possible and it is,” Pesce said. “We also have to be realistic, though. Pomperaug and New Milford are certainly running the best in the league and I’d like to think that we’re the third best.”

Newtown has received a big lift this season by number-two runner Dan Maxwell, who finished third overall on Monday in a time of 18:25. Bunnell’s Steve Malloy was second overall in 17:47.

The up-and-coming Chris DiNoto finished fourth in 19:01 and was followed by Peter Terrance in 19:06.

Dan Phillips has had moments of near brilliance this season for Newtown, but he’s hoping to improve on his Monday’s 9th place finish in a time of 19:29. The Nighthawks’ Richie Richardson finished 10th overall in 19:32, while Tyler Hull was 11th in 19:40.

Ryan Shandley finished 15th overall in 20:06.

Chris Giacalone – one of the team’s more competitive runners – is out for the season with a foot injury.

Team captain Andrew Lysaght is also questionable the rest of the way after sustaining a hip injury. Pesce called Lysaght his most improved runner and said he would have surely been among the team’s top runners had he been healthy.

Newtown will compete in the CIAC Class L meet October 27th and Pesce hopes at least one or two of his runners will qualify for the State Open.

“We will be hard pressed to qualify for the Open as team, but we’ll try to get certain individuals in,” the coach said.

Newtown finished the regular season 12-2.