Just a week before the bigger and more competitive State Meet, our track & field athletes will converge one more time this weekend for the Hendricken and Mount Pleasant invitational meets.
There’s no calm before the storm here. As usual, the competition will be heated at both state qualifiers.
While there are certainly plenty more, here are a few events that should draw some interest at the Mount Pleasant Invite
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1,500m
A few of the key runners that were expecting to be in this race next Saturday at the states are not entered, but we have a few others on the line at this meet that we feel will be in the mix. The top seed is Portsmouth’s Allie Kaull. The Patriots senior often compete in multiple events at a given meet, such as last week’s Class B Championships where she won the 1,500m and 3K and was second in the 800m. On Saturday, Kaull will be focused solely on the 1,500m. An educated guess would be because she wants to run a fast one as her seed time of 4:47.34 is already good enough to get her into the seeded section for the states. The Portsmouth standout will have the competition to push her. Also answering the gun are Cumberland’s Charli McCue (4:50.94), North Kingstown’s Lucy Stowe (4:52.10) and Abbie Tighe (4:52.44) and La Salle’s Olivia Wahlberg (4:54.07), to name a few.
400m
West Warwick’s Xenia Raye has talked about breaking the state 400m record this season. This could be the race she gets it done. Unlike basically all her other meets, Raye is only entered in the 400m. She’ll have some fresh legs. Plus, she’ll have some quality competition behind her. Raye’s all-time best is 54.73, the second fastest all-time in the state behind former Moses Brown great Sophia Gorriaran’s current state mark of 54.10 from 2023. The Georgia-bound senior has a season best of 56.21 from the Glenn B. Loucks Games a few weeks ago. One runner we feel that could give Raye the added push she’ll need at the beginning go for the three-year-old record is Moses Brown’s Skylar Maxwell, who ran a best of 57.08 to take individual honors at the Southern Division Championships. Barrington’s Kate Pearse (58.75) and St. Raphael’s Jayla Grimes (58.94) are two others that should make this race a quick one.
200m
There’s one thing we do know about Lisa Raye at next week’s states. She will not win four events like she’s done the previous two years. Like her sister Xenia, the West Warwick junior is only entered in one event in the state’s final qualifier. In her first qualifier of the season last week at the Class B meet, she ran 12.05 for the 100m in her preliminary heat and was a DNS in the finals. Her other two events that she competed in at the states the last two years, the 100m hurdles and 300m hurdles, she has not run this season and has not entered for Saturday’s meet. Still recovering from a hamstring injury, we’re guessing the three-time All-American will not go all-out with the upcoming nationals in just a few more week. Still. we’re predicting a fast time. She owns a best of 22.73, which is nearly three seconds faster than the next few seeds – Hope’s Zariyah Brown (25.71), St. Raphael freshman Francesca Justin (25.72), the Wheeler School’s Autumn Allen (25.72) and East Providence’s Nazarae Phillip (25.72).
Pole Vault
This event should provide some excitement with perhaps the most talented field we’ve seen in the pole vault in state history. It features Barrington’s Ellie Noonan (11-3), Ponaganset’s Amber Shaw (11-0) and La Salle’s Sydney Brightman (10-9). As of now, the trio ranks Nos. 3, 4 and 6 all-time.
Hammer
As usual, this event will certainly be a competitive one. It features nearly all our state’s top throwers, including three that have exceeded 170 feet this season. – Woonsocket’s Adelaide Caron (179-8), Coventry’s Mia Hoskins (178-7) and Woonsocket’s Isabella Piette (174-4). Both Caron and Hoskins achieved their best at last week’s Class A Championships. For Hoskins, it was a PR effort. Caron has an all-time best of 182-1 from her victory at last year’s New Balance Nationals.
