How do you choose just two when you have a weekend like this? It’s simple. You simply don’t. For this week’s HOKA Athletes of the Week, we’re picking three very worthy recipients. Congratulations to Barrington’s Ethan Knight, Chariho’s Erin vonHousen and West Warwick’s Lisa Raye for this week’s honor.
We’re going to start with Raye for the sole reason that the Wizards’ sophomore established a new state record. In fact for the 55-meter dash, she not only broke it once, she did it twice. Competing in the short dash at Saturday’s East Coast Invitational, Raye broke her own RI mark by clocking 7.04 in the prelimins. That proved to be just the intro. Less than an hour later, that record was demolished by its holder when the West Warwick phenom captured the finals with a stunning meet record of 6.94. Raye also was a winner in the 55m hurdles at 8.42 and set a MR in taking the 200m where she was timed in a triumphant 24.52.
We couldn’t ignore the day that vonHousen had at the Yale Track Classic, too. The Chargers’ senior was a double winner down in Connecticut by taking the 3,000m and the 1K. In the longer race, vonHousen nearly broke 10 minutes with a five-second PR and state best of 10:00.65. She came back later and went under the three-minute barrier for the first time in the 1,000m, securing gold in the five-lapper with a time of 2:57.14. That time also moved her to No. 1 in the state and was eight seconds faster than her previous best.
Finally, we have Barrington’s Ethan Knight. The Eagles’ senior was a three-time champion at the East Coast Invitational. He began his day by anchoring the school’s first-place shuttle hurdle relay, which was timed in 31.08. Individually, Knight won a close race with teammate Bobby Wind in the 55m hurdles where he beat Wind by one hundredth of a second with a PR of 7.49. The multiple all-stater concluded his day by taking the 400m, edging New Bedford (MA) Voke’s Daniel Ward at the line with a time of 51.44.
