The picture should become a lot clearer after this weekend.
While the league meets and the few invitationals that our schools have competed in this cross-country season give us somewhat of an idea on the top teams and individuals to keep an eye on this fall, this Saturday will certainly make easier.
It appears most of our top schools, if not all, will be racing against high-quality competition at three different meets in the northeast region – the Ocean State Invitational in Warwick, R.I., the Bowdoin X-C Classic in Wappinger Falls, N.Y., and the Wickham Park Invitational in Manchester, Conn. Both Ocean State and Wickham Park are sponsored by Marathon Sports and HOKA.
Beginning with the Ocean State Invite, a plethora of schools will be at the 17th annual event, which has attracted schools from Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey and even a couple from the left coast, Utah and California. Most of our teams will be participating in the Varsity, JV and Freshmen races. The Varsity events always produce there share of competitive races. In the featured Championship races, we’ve got a few athletes and teams that were expecting to be battling for those top positions come championship time. In the boys’ race, Narragansett’s Cole Francis, a two-time first-team all-stater, was ninth in this race last year. He’ll be locking horns with some of the best in the region, and even the country with No. 1 seed Jack Graffeo of Westford Academy (MA) in the field. Graffeo, a Foot Locker finalist, owns track bests of 8:51 for two miles and 14.41 for 5K. Teamwise, Smithfield and North Kingstown are fielding full squads for boys, while North Kingstown will be lining up for girls, Based on returnees from last year’s teams, the Skippers and Sentinels rank among the top 10 in the state with the NK girls among a short list of squads capable of winning it all. Skipper sophomore Abbie Tighe won the Frosh title at this meet in 2023 (see above photo). She has potential to mix it up with the region’s best in this race.
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Wickham Park, site of this year’s New England Championships, features our 1-2 finishers from last year’s boys’ State Meet, Bishop Hendricken and Cumberland, who are both entered in the Large School race (3:15 p.m.). The Hawks, who are led by sophomore Colby Flynn, have traditionally made the trip to the Manchester Invitational this time of year. They skipped last week’s meet, perhaps to concentrate on a prime showing at Saturday’s meet East Greenwich, Barrington and Portsmouth, three other top-ranked teams, are competing in the Medium School race (2:15 p.m.). The Patriots’ Sean Gray, currently the No. 1 harrier in the state, is one of the leading contenders for the title.
For the girls, defending state titlist Cumberland is one of the top entries in the Large School race (3:45 p.m.), while East Greenwich will be battling teams in the Medium School race (2:45 p.m.). Both teams are presently unbeaten in their respective leagues.
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La Salle Academy is the lone RI squad that will be in Wappinger Falls, N.Y., for the Bowdoin X-C Classic at Bowdoin Park, longtime host of the Nike Northeast Regionals. The Rams’ Marshall Vernon twice ran at Bowdoin Park last year. He competed in this meet and also at Nike where ran the challenging 5K course in 16:23.70. After a very successful year on the track and a good start to his cross-country season this fall, no doubt he’ll be eyeing a low 16-minute effort, perhaps faster, this weekend.
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