Champions! Boys Indoor Track Team Takes Div. II Title for Second Consecutive Year
January 12, 2026
Propelled by a historic performance by junior Sebastian Perdrizet, and buoyed by a number of phenomenal individual and team performances, the Thetford Academy boys indoor track team pulled off a stunning upset to win the D-II Vermont High School Indoor Track and Field State Championships on Saturday by the narrowest of margins over heavily-favored U-32.
TA competes at the D-III level in every high school sport except indoor track, where they compete at the D-II level, facing much larger schools. And U-32, a school twice TA’s size, entered the meet as a decided favorite.
Perdrizet led the way, winning four individual events (the 55 dash, the 300, the high jump and the long jump), but the win was the result of many athletes performing at their highest level.
Juniors Jacob Phelps and Connor Sloop finished 1-2 in the weight throw, while freshman Oliver Goodrich finished 5th. Sloop and Phelps also added points to the team total in the shot put, finishing 3rd and 6th.
The meet came down to the final event, the 4 x 400 relay, and all four athletes in that event were competing in their fourth event of the day. In the end, seniors Emmett Terry (who also earned podium finishes in the 55, 300 and the 4 x 200 relay), Daniel Mann (who earned podium finishes in the 4 x 200, the winning 4 x 800 relay team and the 600), Owen Goodrich (who was part of the 4 x 200 relay team) and junior Oliver Emery (who scored for TA in the 4 x 800, the 1000 and the 2 mile) gave TA the margin it needed, as TA edged U-32 by a final score of 115-109.
Other contributors included senior David Thaxton, who was part of the winning 4 x 200 relay team and earned a podium finish in the 300, and senior Wendell Durham and freshman Peter Horan, who ran two legs of the winning 4 x 800 relay team.
The win marked TA’s second consecutive state championship.
Meanwhile, the girls team (juniors Lilian Miller, Lizzie Brown, Aislin Peters and Leah Crossett) earned points with a third-place finish in the 4 x 200 relay, the 4 x 800 relay team (senior Lula Gage, sophomores Lola Squire and Maddie Piecuch, and freshman Meredith Sloop) earned a 4th-place finish, and sophomores Evelyn Hayden and Greyson Beaucage finished 3rd and 4th respectively in the weight throw.
Perdrizet punched a ticket to the New England championship meet in all four events in which he competed, while the 4 x 200 and 4 x 800 relay teams also qualified to compete at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston in February.
Read the Valley News coverage of the Panthers’ win here.
Photos by Matt Hayden
