Exactly How Many State Titles Have Hartford/Tolland County Teams Won?
HARTFORD/TOLLAND COUNTIES, CT — At the CIAC football championship media luncheon Tuesday at the TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, the excitement buzzing among the players from the dozen finalist teams was palpable. The anticipation of hanging a banner proclaiming one’s school “state champions” is an opportunity afforded to a small percentage of the number of student-athletes competing on Connecticut scholastic squads.
As I ate my lunch, I began reminiscing about an historic day in the annals of state high school sports – March 12, 1983. I was a senior at Enrico Fermi High School in Enfield, and spent that afternoon in the now-defunct New Haven Coliseum, watching history unfold before my eyes.
My beloved Falcons were taking on South Windsor in the Div. II ice hockey finals at noon, followed by the Div. I championship game between Notre Dame-West Haven and Fermi’s crosstown rival, Enfield. The Raiders were seeking to become the first team not from Fairfield or New Haven counties to capture the Div. I crown, a southern dominance that began with that tournament’s debut in 1948.
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Sure enough, Fermi topped the Bobcats, 8-5, then Enfield was extended to double overtime before polishing off the Green Knights, 5-4. For one day at least, my hometown had shed the “northern stigma” and become “the hockey capital of Connecticut.”
It was the first, and to date, only time in state history that two public schools from the same town won both titles. It was also the first of just two occasions that a northern team, as shall be referenced throughout this story, earned the Div. I hockey title, the other being Simsbury in 2003.
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Having covered many championship games in more than a dozen sports over the past 4-plus decades, I started pondering the southern domination, which does exist in a number of cases. Off the top of my head, I thought of swimming, tennis, lacrosse and even football as being primarily a success from schools in that region. Being a sports history buff, a fanatic about numbers and a stickler for facts, I decided to start the research process.
I found I was spot on in my perception about some of those sports, particularly swimming. With top-tier programs like Greenwich, Cheshire, Pomperaug and Weston being perennial champions,I knew schools from my area had very few titles … but I didn’t realize how few.
Since the CIAC implemented a boys swimming tournament in 1971, teams from Hartford and Tolland counties have won exactly two divisional championships. That’s right, two: E.O. Smith in 1971, and Glastonbury in 1975. To put that into perspective, no boys swimming team in the northern half of Connecticut has captured a state crown since I was 10 (my next birthday will be No. 60).
Girls swimming is not much different, with just seven titles being claimed by northern schools since 1972, four by East Catholic. Boys and girls lacrosse, which just began CIAC tournament play in 1995 and 2004, respectively, has seen only nine titles cross north of the state capital, five by the Somers boys. Girls tennis, which began CIAC tournament action in 1979, has seen northern teams win 10 titles, led by three each from Glastonbury and long-closed Penney of East Hartford.
On the other hand, non-southern teams have experienced tremendous success in other sports. Regional boys’ and girls’ teams have combined for 451 divisional and State Open titles in outdoor and indoor track and field. Other area programs with more than 100 championships are boys soccer (157), boys cross country (123) and boys basketball (102).
A total of 55 Hartford and Tolland county schools have won or shared titles, including nine which no longer exist, such as my alma mater. Ellsworth High School, which serviced students from South Windsor and East Windsor before those towns opened their own separate buildings, captured 21 state titles, including a dozen in boys outdoor track and seven in boys basketball.
I fondly remembered competing against or watching some of the long-departed schools, such as Penney, Pulaski, St. Thomas Aquinas and South Catholic. A few others I had never heard of, as they ceased to exist long before I was around (Lewis, which was torn down in 1950 and replaced in another location as Southington High School), Bristol (before the split into Bristol Eastern and Bristol Central in 1959) and Manchester Trade (currently Howell Cheney Technical School).
Here are the leading titleholders from the region, including the years the CIAC implemented postseason tournaments:
In compiling this data, I strictly used information on the 27 sports with CIAC-sanctioned tournaments, so endeavors such as rugby, sailing, badminton and even girls ice hockey (which is somehow still not an official CIAC event) are not included.
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