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HVRHS senior Mia Dodge competes in the 100-meter hurdle race at the Class S meet June 2.
Riley Klein
NEW BRITAIN — Mountaineers made the podium at the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Class S track and field championships Monday, June 2.
Sixteen athletes from Housatonic Valley Regional High School qualified for the competition at Willow Brook Park in New Britain.
In team totals, HVRHS boys and girls teams both placed 11th overall in Class S. Individually, five HVRHS students advanced to the State Open meet against the top talent in all of Connecticut.
Gabi Titone runs the 800-meter race.Riley Klein
Class S results
HVRHS Girls
Mia Dodge placed 3rd in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 48.49 seconds. Dodge placed 4th in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 16.78 seconds.
Gabi Titone placed 3rd in the 800-meter race with a time of 2:27.13 minutes. Titone placed 13th in the 1600-meter race with a time of 5:35.16 minutes.
The 4x400-meter relay teams of Harper Howe, Maddy Johnson, Mia Dodge and Gabi Titone placed 4th with a time of 4:17.03 minutes. The result set a new school record for HVRHS.
Harper Howe placed 11th in the 400-meter race with a time of 1:03.16 minutes.
Olivia Brooks placed 19th in the 3200-meter race with a time of 13:15.05 minutes. Brooks placed 33rd in the 1600-meter race with a time of 5:54.50 minutes.
McKenzie Lotz placed 41st in the 100-meter race with a time of 13.85 seconds.
HVRHS junior Simon Markow clears five-feet eight-inches in high jump June 2.Riley Klein
HVRHS Boys
Kyle McCarron placed 3rd in the 1600-meter race with a time of 4:32.82 minutes. McCarron placed 15th in the 800-meter race with a time of 2:10.43.
Anthony Labbadia placed 4th in the triple jump with a distance of 41 feet four-and-three-quarters inches. Labbadia placed 7th in the high jump by clearing five-feet 10-inches.
Ryan Segalla placed 5th in the 400-meter race with a time of 49.80 seconds. Segalla placed 11th in the 200-meter race with a time of 22.86 seconds. Both of Segalla’s times set new school records for HVRHS.
The 4x400-meter relay team of Patrick Money, Ryan Segalla, Anthony Labbadia and Kyle McCarron placed 4th with a time of 3:31.08 minutes.
Simon Markow placed 11th in the high jump by clearing five-feet eight-inches.
Silas Tripp placed 12th in the 1600-meter race with a time of 5:00.33 minutes.
Patrick Money placed 12th in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 16.57 seconds. Money placed 14th in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 43.88 seconds.
The 4x100-meter relay team of Brayan Lopez Gonzalez, Marc Hafner, Cole Simonds and Everett Belancik placed 30th with a time of 48.34 seconds.
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HVRHS senior Lou Haemmerle was selected to the All-Conference team in 2025.
Riley Klein
FALLS VILLAGE — Housatonic Valley Regional High School sent two teams to state tournaments this spring.
Varsity baseball qualified for the Class S tournament as the 21 seed. In the first round the Mountaineers traveled to play 12-seed Haddam-Killingworth High School in Higganum.
The deadlocked game remained scoreless until the final inning when HK won on a walk-off RBI single by Chase Bruno. For Housatonic, Chris Race pitched six and one-third innings and allowed five hits.
Varsity lacrosse qualified for the Class S tournament as the 16 seed. In round one the Mountaineers played 17-seed Wolcott High School. The game, played in Falls Village, was the fourth meeting between the two teams this season. They split the series in the regular season and HVRHS beat Wolcott in the league semifinals.
In the state tournament, Housatonic won handily with a 13-6 decision. The Mountaineers advanced to play top seed Lauralton Hall in Milford. Milford showed why they were the no. 1 team in Class S with a 20-3 victory over HVRHS.
Thus concluded another year of Mountaineer team athletics.
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Mountaineers make State Open
Jun 11, 2025
At states, Anthony Labbadia triple-jumps his way into the New England Championships.
Riley Klein
NEW BRITAIN — Housatonic Valley Regional High School had five athletes qualify for the State Open meet, featuring the top talent in Connecticut Saturday, June 7, at Willow Brook Park.
For most events, qualification for the open was determined by finishing top three in an event at the class championships (S, M, L, LL) or being one of the next 10 best finishers in the state.
Open results
Anthony Labbadia placed 6th in the triple jump with a distance of 43 feet one-and-one-quarter inch. The result qualified him for the New England Championships June 14.
Mia Dodge placed 14th in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 47.31 seconds.
Kyle McCarron placed 14th the 1600-meter race with a time of 4:43.71 minutes.
Gabi Titone set a new personal record in the 800-meter race with a time of 2:23.88. She placed 22nd in the open.
Ryan Segalla did not start in the 400-meter race.
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Rolf Schneider, left, and Dave Jacobs, are the speakers at this year’s inaugural First Tuesdays at 7 talk put on by the Falls Village-Canaan Historical Society.
Ruth Epstein
FALLS VILLAGE — Along with the bucolic forest and meadow settings, sightings of wildlife and the ambling of the Housatonic River, residents of Northwest Connecticut are familiar with the wistful strains of the whistles as trains travel along local tracks.
The current user of those tracks that stretch from Pittsfield, Mass., to Danbury is the Housatonic Railroad. Train enthusiasts Dave Jacobs and Rolf Schneider showed Schneider’s pictorial images of that train line during the inaugural session of the “1st Tuesdays at 7” series on June 3. Sponsored by the Falls Village-Canaan Historical Society, the event was held at the South Canaan Meetinghouse.
A railway enthusiast from the time he was a small boy, Schneider traveled extensively in North America and Europe photographing trains. He opened the Berkshire Hills Model Railway Supply in Union Station in 1976, later moving it to a storefront on Main Street and renaming it Berkshire Hills Hobby Supply. It closed in 2019 when Schneider retired.
Jacobs grew up in Falls Village watching the trains pass by his parents’ auto garage business. His love of trains grew and he is known for his photos taken along the Housatonic Railroad line. He is also the administrator of the Facebook page called “Fans of the Housatonic Railroad.”
A bit of history shows the Housatonic Railroad was chartered to operate along 34 miles of track between Canaan and New Milford in 1983. Passenger excursions began the next year. In 1992, Housatonic purchased the northern section of the Berkshire line from Canaan to Pittsfield from Guilford Transportation. In 1993 the railroad bought the remaining southern portion of the Berkshire line, which went from New Milford to Brookfield, along with the Maybrook line from Beacon, N.Y., to Derby.
As the photographs flashed across the screen, the pair gave an ongoing commentary about what was being seen. Many showed the rail cars in various locations across the Northwest Corner. Several were taken at various Railroad Day events in Canaan, a tradition that still continues today. Canaan, because of its historic Union Station and the fact it was once the junction of where two train lines converged, is proud of its place in railroad heritage. A railroad museum is housed in the station, drawing visitors from far and wide.
Schneider recalled that during one Railroad Days’ celebration, an excursion train filled with politicians traveled up from Kent to Canaan. There was an elaborate spread put out for the group. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t invited,” he quipped.
The slides also showed some noteworthy times in the railroad’s past, such as the time a swing boom came loose up in Pittsfield necessitating having to strap it down, only to have to loosen up further down the line. “It tied up every single crossing in Canaan for at least 20 minutes,” remembered Schneider, describing the incident as “a fiasco.” The engineer of that fateful run was in the audience, noting that was a memorable day.
There were some derailments over the years and one set of photos depicted the need to manually turn a huge train car, which was no small feat.
There were also pictures of newly purchased cars over the years, and a regretful shot of a heavily damaged Union Station when it was the victim of an arson fire. Another photo showed a locomotive in 1999 that lost its brakes and rolled onto another locomotive.
Schneider noted that at one point a set of cabooses was bought with the hope of some Canaan businessmen converting them into motel units. They remained for quite a while, but the project fell apart when it ran into zoning difficulties, said Schneider, so the cars were eventually sold off , going to several other locations.
Today the trains carry only freight, with Specialty Minerals one of its largest customers.
Schneider was a familiar face whenever there was a happening involving trains. “If friends called, any time day or night, I’d go running with my camera,” he said.
The next talk on July 1 will feature Peter Vermilyea speaking on the topic of “All Honor to the Ladies: Litchfield County Women and the Civil War.”
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