The Best of 2025
These are the articles we look forward to producing each year—recognizing the top performances that captivated us over the last 12 months in the world of track & field and cross country. It’s a double-edged sword, though. At times, these articles can take an insurmountable amount of time to create. Where do we stop? Who do we choose?
It goes without question that each and every year, our athletes produce a plethora of memorable moments. If we listed them all, it could take hours—perhaps days—to complete. As much as we’d like to include every performance, we simply don’t have the time.
And there’s always that voice in the back of our heads that says we missed a few. For this list, we’re including the top performances that we feel made the biggest impact. That said, we encourage you, our followers, to help us out. In the comment section on this page, share what you believe deserves recognition—those special performances that shouldn’t be ignored.
From us here at Ocean State Running, Happy New Year to you all. We wish you the best in 2026! Our resolution is to continue to do our best in providing quality coverage of these great sports on OSR.
Okay, let’s get started…
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Lisa Raye: Sprinting Into History
We won’t get a chance to witness the greatness of Lisa Raye this season. The West Warwick phenom has earned the necessary high school credits to move on to the Division I collegiate level at the University of Georgia a year early, where success will undoubtedly continue to follow.
In what turned out to be her farewell tour, Raye continued to break records and deliver eye-opening performances at both the state and national levels. The year 2025 featured six more state titles for the West Warwick sprinter, bringing her career total to 23. She also established new state records in five events, giving her an astonishing 11 overall. In addition, Raye claimed gold in the 60-meter dash at New Balance Nationals during the winter season.
There are countless performances that could be highlighted, but the one we feel deserves special recognition occurred on Feb. 6 at the 117th edition of the prestigious Millrose Games. It was there that Raye etched her name into the record books as a national record holder. Competing in the Invitational 60 meters, Raye defeated an elite field featuring some of the nation’s top talent, winning in 7.13 seconds. Her performance broke the previous national record of 7.16, set in 2023 by Shawnti Jackson—one of the fastest prep sprinters in U.S. history—and also stood as a World U-18 best.
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Shamrock Thoun and Vanessa Jones: Weight Throw Domination
In the weight throw, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing our top athletes occupying the podium at various national championship meets, with several taking home individual titles. During last year’s indoor season, Shamrock Thoun was crowned a national champion not just once, but three times. He completed the sweep by earning gold at the New Balance Nationals, Nike Indoor Nationals, and adidas Track Nationals.
At Nike, Thoun produced his all-time best throw, launching the weight 82 feet, 6.25 inches. The Kennesaw State University commit has already shown that 2026 has the potential to be another memorable year. He currently ranks No. 2 in the country after winning the U.S. Marine Corps Holiday Classic this past Saturday with a season-best mark of 80-9.25.
Holding down the No. 1 spot is his fellow in-state rival, Ryan Evans of East Greenwich, who recorded a massive throw of 81-10.68 in his victory at the Beantown Winter Classic.
Also to be added to this blurb is the performance of Toll Gate’s Vanessa Jones. At Nike, she made it a clean sweep by the Ocean State by taking the women’s title with a distance of 58-1.75.
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Garrett Giroux-Pezzullo & Marshall Vernon: La Salle’s Dynamic Duo
There were several stars who helped La Salle Academy earn its 26th team title at the Indoor State Championship last February, highlighted by a convincing 124–111.5 victory over defending champion Barrington. Rather than singling out one athlete, as originally planned, we’re recognizing two who we feel deserve special mention: Garrett Giroux-Pezzullo and Marshall Vernon. Together, the tandem accounted for 45 individual points—and 65 total when relays are included.
On the sport’s biggest stage, Giroux-Pezzullo captured the 55-meter dash in 6.58 seconds and the 300m in 35.39. He also ran legs on the Rams’ first-place 4x200m relay (1:30.94) and 4x400m (3:27.44).
As for Vernon, there was legitimate doubt whether he would be able to compete at all due to a lingering illness that extended into the morning of the meet. The La Salle standout never considered that an option and instead produced a pair of gutsy victories in the 3,000m and 1,500m, successfully defending his 2024 titles.
In the 3,000m, a dramatic dive at the finish enabled Vernon to edge Hendricken’s Colby Flynn at the line, with both runners timed in 8:35.04. The two gifted competitors closed the race with a blazing 61-second final lap. A short time later, Vernon out-kicked Narragansett’s Cole Francis to win the 1,500m in 4:08.26—just 0.62 seconds ahead of Francis. The Stanford-bound runner wasn’t done yet. He added five more points to La Salle’s total by placing fourth in the 1,000m.
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Caleb Satisfield: Clearing Seven Feet
There are personal bests, and then there are milestones reached by only a select few. In boys track, breaking four minutes in the mile is one such benchmark. In the field events, clearing seven feet in the high jump carries the same elite distinction.
On May 24 at the Class B Championships, Barrington multi-sport standout Caleb Satisfield joined that rare company. Satisfield soared to a height of seven-feet even, improving his previous best by six inches. The jump made him just the fourth athlete in state history to clear the height—and the first since 1997, when South Kingstown’s David Arundel set the current state record at 7-1.
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Kiley DeFusco: A Career-Defining Finish
What separates elite athletes from the rest is how they perform when the stakes are highest.
Kiley DeFusco proved she belonged in that category at last June’s outdoor state meet. The Cumberland standout finished her high school career in style, winning both the 1,500m and 800m to lead the Clippers to their first outdoor title since 1989. In both races, she set personal bests by more than two seconds—crossing the 1,500m finish line in 4:29.03 and less than two hours later claiming the 800m in 2:09.30. DeFusco also added 24 points for the day with a fourth-place finish in the 3,000m at 10:24.28.
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Mia Hoskins & Owen Spira: Hammer Throw Excellence
Mirroring somewhat what happened during the indoor season, Rhode Island got the two-for-one deal in the hammer throw at the New Balance Nationals.
In dramatic fashion, Coventry’s Mia Hoskins won the girls’ title. In a back-and-forth battle with eventual runner-up Amelia Bawcombe of Alexandria City (VA), Hoskins earned the title on her very last throw, unleashing a PR of 188-8.
In the driver’s seat from Day 1 of the season, Exeter/West Greenwich’s Owen Spira took the gold in the boys’ competition with a distance of 233-11. He had a top thrown and nation best of 241-5 from his victory at the New England Championships.
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Sean Gray: Cross Country Supremacy
Portsmouth’s Sean Gray had a cross-country season this past fall that few could match in the Ocean State. The Patriots’ senior won the state and New England titles. He extended it further by also winning Nike Cross Regionals Northeast with the second fastest time ever at Bowdoin Park of 15:21.20, and two weeks later, earning All American status by placing 15th at the Nike Cross Nationals in Oregon.
While all those performances could be listed as the top one, we feel his biggest of them all happened on Oct. 4 at the Shore Coaches Invitational. Perhaps the spark the lit to flame for what was to come on the dirt trails, Gray beat a elite field of harriers to claim top honors, covering a very-difficult five-kilometer course at Holmdel Park, N.J., in a time of 15:34.0. Finishing third and fourth, respectively, in the race were Vernon (15:42) and Flynn (15:48).
