With the type of year she’s had so far in her inaugural season of high-school cross country, it only made sense that Cecelia Ludwig would be the first to cross the line at Monday’s RITCA Freshmen State Championships.
As expected, Cumberland’s gifted ninth-grader was all alone coming down the final stretch at Deerfield Park. Ludwig won by nearly 200 meters, securing the victory with a time of 15 minutes, 22.02 seconds for the 2.5-mile course. Finishing within six seconds of each other and taking the second through fifth spots were East Greenwich’s Ali Walsh (16:01.72), Pilgrim’s Juliana Kavanagh (16:03.79), La Salle’s Stella Pelagio (16:06.43), and Classical’s Fiona Hughes (16:07.81).
Ludwig’s time is nearly 30 seconds faster than what she ran to capture the Freshmen race at the season-opening Injury Fund Carnival at Deerfield back on Aug. 31. Since that meet, the Clipper standout has been one of her team’s most consistent performers. Among some of the highlights were a sixth-place finish in the Large School race at the Wickham Park (CT) Invitational and a top showing at the Manchester (NH) Invitational where she was 23rd overall and the third ninth grader on the demanding 5K layout. At Wickham, Ludwig was timed in a PR of 19:23.0 for the 3.1-mile distance.
The two-time middle-school state champion credits her team’s atmosphere for a majority of her success.
“I worked really hard for this and my coach is amazing and my teammates are so supporting,” she said. “It’s like one big, fun group to run with. It definitely helps when you’re trying to push yourself.”
With three of its runners among the top 10, La Salle Academy took the team title with 33 points. East Greenwich was second with 61 points. The Rams’ Pelagio, Gemma Kent (ninth, 17:17.76), Kenya DePina (tenth, 17:17.99), Madison Studley (14th, 17:42.68) and Aleyah Liberato (22nd, 18:39.11) comprised the scoring.
Bishop Hendricken was dominant up front in the boys’ race with Oliver Redmond leading a 1-2-3 finish by the Hawks. Redmond was timed in a triumphant 13:29.91. He was followed by teammates Shepherd Butler (second, 13:46.60) and Aaron Stockford (third, 13:53.23).
Redmond and Butler did the pace-setting from the beginning. Redmond was able to pull away late in the race to grab the victory.
“We didn’t really have a time goal,” he admitted. “We just wanted to push each other as hard as we could; just do the best we could. We wanted to get 1-2 together, and that’s what we did.”
The Hawks defeated runner-up North Kingstown, 26-38, for the team hardware. Classical was third with 144 points. Behind Redmond, Butler and Stockford were Justin Stockford (seventh, 14:23.37) and Christian Nunez (14th, 14:34.81).
