The final competitions of the indoor track & field season matched our top athletes against the nation’s best with the New Balance Nationals and Nike Indoor Nationals held this past weekend. During the four days of competition, we witnessed a bunch of PRs, a few school records, a handful of All Americans and even a three state records
For this week’s HOKA Athletes of the Week, we’d like to recognize four worthy recipients. Congratulations to West Warwick’s Lisa Raye, South Kingstown’s Sierra Thompson, Woonsocket’s Shamrock Thoun, and Barrington’s Joe Adams for this week’s honor.
Raye once again proved that the when the stage is at its biggest, she is at her best. The Wizards’ sophomore broke two state records at NIN by placing second in both the 60-meter dash and the 200m. In the short sprint, Raye came just four thousandths of a second from changing her silver into gold with an all-time best of 7.31. She came back later to take runner-up honors in the 200m, breaking a nine-year-old R.I., mark with a time of 23.53.
The Villa Novans’ Thoun competed at Nike and New Balance. In both meets, he was our state’s top finisher. Thoun was tenth at NIN and earned All-American status at NBN where he unleashed his all-time best of 69 feet, 1.25 inches.
Adams also achieved All American in the weight throw at New Balance. The Eagles’ senior was sixth overall with an all-time best of 68-0.5.
Finally, we have the Rebels’ Thompson. While she didn’t make the top six for All American, mostly because of the simply-stacked field, she did break her own state mark, scoring 3,375 points. Thompson was a mere three points from making the podium.
