Weston girls, Bunnell boys defend SWC track titles The Trojans scored 132 points and held a comfortable lead for much of the meet. Barlow scored 81 to lead a pack of teams fighting for second, followed by Brookfield in third with 74, New Milford in fourth with 71, Newtown in fifth with 67 and Oxford in sixth with 64. To win eight league championships in a row, and holding that tradition, is something special. Weston raked in the points in the field events, with Emily Savage winning the long jump (16-3.75), triple jump (35-0) and the pole vault (12-6) and Chloe Shapiro winning the high jump (5-0). The Trojans also won the 4x100 relay, with the team of Amanda Matluck, Sarah Dietzman, Nathalie Feingold and Whitney Farber finishing in 49.94 seconds. Djenne Parris of Brookfield, Gabrielle Richichi of New Fairfield and Taylor Drayton of Oxford each won two individual events. Parris repeated as the 200-meter champion -- and broke the SWC meet record she set least year -- with a time of 26.03. Richichi ruled the distance events, winning the 1,600 in 5:01.32 and the 3,200 in 11:13.57. Jess Wojnicki of Immaculate finished a close second in both those races. Drayton defended her shot put and discus titles, winning the shot put with a throw of 37-4.5 and the discus with a throw of 121-6. Barlow's Lindsay Doyle won the 100-meter hurdles in 16.06 and finished second to Bethel's Alexandra Hernandez in the 300 hurdles. Barlow's Grace Blackwell won the 100 meters (12.78), New Milford's Sierra Grazia won the 800 (2:20.42) and Brookfield's Paulina Harron won the javelin (112-0). New Milford won the other two relays, with the Wave's 4x400 team of Hannah Tower, Helen Bayers, Grazia and Meghan Dietter capping the meet with a victory in 4:02.43, and the Wave's 4x800 team of Tower, Bayers, Saige Grazia and Jessica Noteware cruising to the gold with a time of 9:34.61, nearly 18 seconds faster than anyone else in the event. On the boys side, Bunnell scored 127.5 points to win, holding off second-place Bethel (103.5), third-place New Fairfield (78.5) and fourth-place Weston (71.5). Isaiah Arthur-Brown won the triple jump for Bunnell with a jump of 42-10.25, leading a Bulldog domination of the event. Devante Teel took second, Ruvens Exantus third and Kendal Streeter fifth as Bunnell opened a little breathing room in the team standings. [...] for Bunnell, Terrence N'Dabian won the 400 (50.44) -- followed by Ian LeComer in second -- and the 4x100 relay team of Roney Polynice, Arthur-Brown, N'Dabian and LeComer won in 43.03 seconds. Bunnell had lost two dual meets during the regular season but beat both those teams in the championships. For the second straight year, New Fairfield ran undefeated through the regular season but watched Bunnell hoist the SWC championship plaque. New Fairfield's Carter Johnson and Brookfield's Austin Pacific each won two individual events. Johnson swept the hurdles events, winning the 110 in 15.54 and the 300 in 40.73. Bunnell's Exantus placed second in both those events. Pacific defended his discus crown, winning with a throw of 168-7, and added a shot put title to his collection, winning that event with a throw of 49-0. Immaculate's Andre Chappuis defended his 100-meter crown, winning in 11.07 seconds and edging Bethel's Josh Barrera by four-hundredths of a second. Barrera turned the tables on Chappuis in the 200, however, edging the defending champ with an SWC meet-record time if 22.39 seconds. Oxford's Cameron Swift edged Newtown's Jake Feinstein by just four-hundredths of a second to win an exciting 1,600. Not to be denied a gold, however, Feinstein ran wild in the 3,200 to defend his title with a winning time of 9:41.22, more than 12 seconds ahead of Barlow's Logan Fulton. New Fairfield won the 4x400, with the team of Anthony Cammarota, Robert Cheng, Johnson and Ryan Thomas clocking in at 3:26.16. Notre Dame's Jacob Heaton won the high jump (5-10), Brookfield's Eric Shaker won the long jump (19-7.75), Oxford's Brennan Diaz won the jvelin 172-6 and Weston's Will Crum won the pole vault (12-6). SWC TRACK AND FIELD CHAMPIONSHIPS Newtown 34; 11. Jake Feinstein, Newtown, 4:22.57; 3. Jake Feinstein, Newtown, 9:41.22; 2. Mitchell Russo, Newtown, 9:57.32; 4. Josh Novicky, Brookfield, 5-10; 6. (tie) Theo Aris, Barlow; Eric Shaker, Brookfield; Luke Muller, New Fairfield; and Griffin Teed, Bethel 5-8. Triple jump: 1. Ralph Stroccia, Newtown, 126-0; 6. Pole vault: 1. Nick DiBartholomeo, Weston, 12-0; 3. (tie) Kenneth Darrah, Bethel; and Connor Mulcahy, Weston, 11-0; 5. Newtown 67; 6. Reagan Cerney, Newtown, 13.36. Reagan Cerney, Newtown, 57.61; 3. Melissa Buccino, Newtown, 16.11; 3. Melissa Buccino, Newtown, 48.17; 5. Newtown 4:09.48; 5. Triple jump: 1. Amy Anoyha, Newtown, 31-11.25; 5. Micaela Nowacki, Newtown, 30-11; 6. Amy Anoyha, Newtown, 116-4; 4. Micaela Nowacki, Newtown, 111-11; 5. Pole vault: 1. Jenna Calandro, Newtown, 12-0; 3.

A long-held tradition of prayer before government meetings in some area cities, including Danbury and Bridgeport, could be reconsidered as the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up the issue. Americans United for Separation of Church and State sponsored the lawsuit on behalf of two New York women who objected to the practice in Greece of inviting clergy to speak before the town board's regular meetings. Retired Danbury Fire Chief Phil Curran said he tries to offer prayers before City Council meetings that are nondenominational, often invoking the words of former presidents in his speeches. John Olson, a member of Bridgeport's City Council and a retired minister with the United Church of Christ, said he objects to the prayers that are routinely said before regular council meetings, sometimes offered by clergy but often by council members.

While lower Fairfield County braced for "carmageddon" Monday morning, the Metro-North Railroad commute was largely business as usual for riders in western Connecticut and across the state line in Putnam County. Fresh from a weekend filled with fears of "carmageddon" -- and warnings from officials to set out early or not at all -- by the time commuters hit the road Monday morning, they found conditions about the same as any other work week. After a day that began with her alarm clock ringing at a painfully sunless hour, the news that Metro-North's New Haven Line would be back to full service by Wednesday was all Marcia Brown wanted to hear; Amtrak will resume full service Wednesday in the Northeast corridor, officials said. With local New Haven Line service shut down because of the crash just up the road, Fairfield commuters such as Brown and Waldman, who ride the train to New York for work, added a bus ride to Stamford as part of their morning routine Monday. Even for those who start their mornings on a train platform, Monday's commute turned out largely uneventful, albeit slightly different. While Malloy was concerned that 30,000 extra cars taking over the lanes of the Merritt Parkway and Interstate 95 would turn southern Connecticut's highways into "a parking lot," the morning drive was fairly typical for a Monday. While a typical Monday commute doesn't start until 6 a.m., INRIX, a data and technology company that tracks traffic information, found that drivers left earlier than usual Monday morning, some as early as 5:30 a.m.