Leading up to Saturday’s Nike Cross Regional (NXR) Northeast Championships, Rory Sullivan admitted she didn’t feel her best in one of the most important meets of her career
“I did a lot of traveling this week, and everything with the holiday, too. I just didn’t feel great on all my runs,” she said. “I was like, ‘Am I doing too much with my training? Is this the right choice?’ I won’t say I had the most confidence going into a race.”
As it turned out, the Saint Raphael Academy senior had nothing to worry about. On brisk afternoon at Bowdoin Park in Wappinger Falls, N.Y., she absolutely made the right choice.
The gifted harrier is Oregon-bound!
Sullivan earned a trip out west for the Nike Cross Nationals (NXN) in Portland next weekend by placing sixth overall with a time of 18 minutes, 50.3 seconds on the challenging five-kilometer course. She was among the top five runners, who were not team that already qualified. In this case, 1-2 finishers Union Catholic (NJ) and North Allegheny (PA), who occupied three of the first five individual placements.
“It feels really great,” she said. “It’s been a goal of mine for a while. To see it happen, it’s just really exciting.”
Sullivan could sense from the beginning that she might be onto something special.
“I felt surprisingly good,” she said. “Once (the race) started, I just tried to do what I do best. I knew there was some really talented girls from Union Catholic and other schools i raced back at Ocean State (Invitational). I just wanted to stay with them, and that’s what I did.”
After level terrain for the first quarter mile at Bowdoin Park, runners are greeted with a mostly uphill climb for the first half of the race before being rewarded with a mostly downhill finish the second half. Sullivan passed through her opening mile around 5:50 and reached the crest of the hill in ninth place.
From there, the recent state champion went to work, picking off runners one by one on her way to the finish. In the eyes of head coach Chris Magill, his star runner ran an “absolute perfect race.” It wasn’t about time the digital clock, it was all about securing her spot to NXN.
“We talked about place. We talked about making it. It was never about splits,” he said. “If you heard the conversation (on Friday)during warmups and all that, that’s what we talked about.”
Sullivan’s performance continues what’s been a stellar season for the SRA all-stater, who had big victories at the class and state championships in the two meets prior to the regionals. She becomes the first girl from St. Ray’s to qualify for the nationals. It’s also the second straight year that the Pawtucket school will have representation at NXN. In 2022, multiple state and national champion Devan Kipyego earned his ticket out west with a victory at the regional meet.
“It was an amazing day for her, an amazing day for Saint Raphael Academy cross country,” Magill said. “That’s our first girl ever to make a national high school event in cross country. We’re ecstatic that, again, for the second year in a row the little school on Walcott Street is the last team standing in cross country.”
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In the boys’ race, La Salle Academy sophomore Marshall Vernon was 14th overall with a time of 16:23.7. Another tenth-grader, Portsmouth’s Sean Gray, finished 24th in 16:33.7.
Chariho’s Erin vonHousen, a runner-up to Sullivan at the State Meet, was 22nd in the girls’ competition with a solid clocking of 19:28.0.
