The New England Championships have come and gone and now it’s on to the northeast regionals of the Nike and Foot Locker Nationals, which will be held at their respective venues on Nov. 23 and Nov. 30.
But before visiting those meets, let’s revisit a little what happened at Wickham Park over the weekend.
In the boys’ race, three of our runners finished among the top eight placements with La Salle’s Marshall Vernon (second, 15:14), Portsmouth’s Sean Gray (third, 15:24) and Hendricken’s Colby Flynn (eighth, 15:42) occupy the spots. Rhode Islanders have endured some success over the years at the regional meets. This certainly ranks right up there from an individual standpoint.
Over the last decade, it’s happened thrice where we had an Ocean State trio place in the top 10. In 2019 at Wickham, La Salle’s Jack McLaughlin, and Hendricken teammates Evan Reynolds and Luke Henseler went 2-5-10. Four years earlier, it was La Salle’s dynamic threesome of DJ Principe, Jack Salisbury and Matt Bouthillette that accomplished the feat at Thetford Academy (VT). Principe won the first of two straight titles at the 2015 meet with Salisbury placing fifth and Bouthillette taking eighth. No surprise, La Salle won its third straight team title that year and one of five during a seven-year stretch from 2013-19.
By the way, we did the math for the five teams that competed in the boys’ race at the New England’s this past weekend. Had we scored the meet by states and not schools, Rhode Island would have finished second behind host Connecticut, with the Nutmeg State defeating its neighboring rival, 35-52, New Hampshire was third with 68 points. In all, CT had 13 harriers in the top 25. Talk about protecting your home.
On the girls’ side, how about Cumberland’s runner-up finish to Champlain Valley Union (VT). The last time that was done was in 2018 when La Salle was also second to Champlain Valley. The recent state champions had all five of their scorers under 20 minutes and a gap of just 1:02 between their one and five. Will we see the Blue & White at the Nike Cross Regional Northeast at Bowdoin Park on Nov. 23. It appear this team has a shot to earn a trip to nationals in Oregon on Dec. 7.
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Kudos to Ocean State Running’s social media guru Nessa Molloy, the head boys’ and girls’ coach at the Wheeler School. Over the weekend at the Canterbury School in Connecticut, the boys’ squad captured the team title at the NEPSTA Division III Cross-Country Championships. The Warriors edged Wilbraham & Monson Academy (MA), 102-109. In the girls’ competition, Wheeler was third overall with 140 points. Montrose School (MA) won the crown with 64 points.
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Good luck to all our high school alums competing in their respective cross-country regional championships this weekend. The Division 2 regionals were held on Nov. 9. Div. 1 is set for Friday, while Div. 2 will take place on Saturday. Click on the link below for more information.
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Mark Sunday, Dec. 29 on your calendar. That’s the date of the inaugural Winter Warrior Indoor T&F High School Invitational, Details for the meet, which is presented by Marathon Sports and New Balance, will be coming out soon. One thing we do know for sure is the invite will be held on the lightning-fast oval of The TRACK at new balance.
