Saint Raphael Academy and star runner Devan Kipyego certainly left their marks at the prestigious Glenn B. Loucks Games in New York over the weekend. Kipyego won the 800m on Friday night with a season best of 1 minutes, 51.83. The SRA senior ran negative splits, covering his final 400m in 55.44. On Saturday, Kipyego split 1:53 for the Saints’ 4x800m squad that finished fifth overall with a state-leading time of 8:02.19. Comprising the remaining foursome was Pedro Mayol (1:59.17), JJ Rocha (2:01.01), and Andrew Worden (2:08.2).
“I wanted Devan to run a couple 800s at Loucks Games to help work on his speed and get ready for his upcoming races,” said head coach Chris Magill, about the Iowa State-bound standout “The plan for the open 800 was to sit back during the first 400 and to take over on the back straight of the second lap. His negative split shows that he is getting fit at the right time. The next day he brought us back as far as he could with a 1:53 split in the 4×800.”
In the girls’ Distance Medley, the Saints posted a solid time of 12:37.66 to place second overall. The quartet included Chandanley Boyce (3:53, 1,200m), Tyla Forbes (1:05.12, 400m), Faith Perry (2:29.59, 800m) and Rory Sullivan (5:09.66, 1,600m).
After this weekend’s Class C meet, Kipyego will heading to the RunningLane Track Championships in Huntsville, AL, the weekend of May 26-27. He’s entered in a stacked mile race where he’ll be be eyeing a possible sub four-minute performance. The current MR of 4:00.76 was set in 2022 by Rocky Hansen of Christ School (NC). Hansen, the top seed at RunningLane, became the latest schoolboy to break four minutes with a time of 3:59.56 at the UVA High Performance Meet two weeks ago.
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Judging by what’s happened so far this season, it sure looks like we are going to have one heckuva State Meet in early June. We’ll get glimpse of what to expect this weekend with the class championships occupying the weekend. Class B (Portsmouth) is our lone meet on Saturday. On Sunday, Class A (Coventry) and Class C (Narragansett) will take place.
As we customary do this time of year, Ocean State Running will provide previews of the class championships with a quick glimpse of each meet, beginning on Wednesday.
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Our long weekend of championship meets will extend into the week with our freshmen state meets. The boys are slated for Monday at Portsmouth and the girls will contest on Tuesday at North Kingstown. According to West Warwick coach Jeff Parenteau, one of the organizers of the meets, the field events will start at 3:30 p.m., and the running events will kickoff around 5-5:15. OSR will be on site, selling meets T-shirts and OSR gear. Cash and credit will be accepted.
