There was more than getting to the finish line and the thought of a gold medal wrapped around her neck that motivated Kiley DeFusco at Sunday’s RIIL Track & Field Championships. For the gifted Cumberland High senior, the thought of celebrating with her teammates on the infield of Brown Stadium was equally as important.
Perhaps even more.
With her extraordinary talent and the weight of her teammates on her side, DeFusco was at her best, her absolute best at the biggest meet of the season. In a meet for the ages, the mega-talented distance runner compiled 25 individual points in an often-unrivaled triple at the elite level to spur the Clippers to their first team title in 36 years, an eventual 69-64 victory over two-time defending champion West Warwick.
How did she do it? Simply the only way DeFusco knows how. In her typical, take-charge-now-and-try-and-catch-me style, DeFusco produced PR performances in the 1,500-meter run and the 800m and then came back with an equally-impressive fourth-place finish in what would be a title-sealing 3K race. If that wasn’t enough, DeFusco was at it one last time, clocking sub-60 seconds for a leg on the team’s 4x400m squad.
“We have always been pretty conservative with Kiley with one or two events, but senior year she wanted to just go all in,” said Cumberland distance coach Kerrie Carpenter. “We knew we were in the conversation about a full Cumberland championship, so we went for it in everything we did.”
DeFusco no doubt went for it, pulling away from a talented field early in the 1,500m, a race she won in 4:29.03. She was seven seconds ahead of Mount Hope’s Jessica Deal, who ran the race of her career with a more than 10-second best of 4:36.88. In one of the most competitive 800m races that state has ever seen, DeFusco was not to be denied again, clocking a six-second best of 2:09.30! Finishing 2-3 with sub-2:13 and PR efforts were Moses Brown’s Skyler Maxwell (2:11.70) and North Kingstown’s Abby Nicolopoulus (2:12.89). Capping off her day individually, DeFusco ran a solid 10:24.28 in the 3,000m, an event where fellow classmate Rose Tuomisto raced to a huge PR of 10:20.23 to secure runner-up honors and freshman Cecelia Ludwig also made the podium by placing seventh overall in 10:27.24.
“Going into the state meet, we knew we had a shot this year and it would take a team effort with everybody chipping in with whatever they could,” DeFusco said. “I really just tried to do everything I could to help out in any way that I could because I knew everyone else was going to do amazing, too.”
A team effort is certainly what helped Cumberland put the finishing touch on its fourth team title in school history. Along with its distance crew, which also included a sixth-place finish from Charli McCue in the 1,500m (PR, 4:44.93), the Clippers had a big meet from Payton Goulding, who collected 18 points by winning the shot over top seed and defending champion Gifty Bediako of Classical with a PR of 41 feet, 7.75 inches and taking second in the discus with another best of 128-1, an event teammate Brynn Patterson collected six more points by placing third with a best of 125-8.
“We’ve be talking about (a state championship) all season,” said CHS head coach Ricky Goodreau. “Is it a thing? Is it not a thing? Luckily we had the pieces play out that we could make an attempt, and we decided to go for it. It really just came together right in the last minute, there. We believe in the girls. We know what they are capable of. Some came in with a plan that they want to quad, want to triple, want to give it everything they had, and it played out perfectly.”
While their fell just five points short of a victory, West Warwick still got the performance they needed to get the job done, particularly from the Raye sisters – Lisa and Xenia. Lisa made it three straight wins in both the 100m (11.64) and 200m (23.76) dashes and anchored the first-place 4x100m squad (47.77). Xenia collected 26 points individually by taking runner-up honors in the 100m (11.83) and 200m (24.14) and making it three straight 400m (54.93) crowns.
During an unforgettable and mega-successful three years at West Warwick, the states were the last time the two siblings will compete in Rhode Island. Only this weekend’s New England Championships and the New Balance Nationals (June 19-22) remain on the slate. Both will be attending the University of Georgia in the fall to continue their outstanding careers at the Division 1 level.
“It been an amazing experience running here in Rhode Island and representing West Warwick High School,” Xenia said. “We’re going to go out, do the same and take what we learned here and bring it up to Georgia.”
“It’s definitely been a really good three years for me, being able to break a bunch of record, national records and just doing my best and PR-ing ,” Lisa said. “I’m really sad this is my last year running (in high school), but I’m excited for bigger things to happen.”
