With the championship season creeping up fast—it’s less than a month away—it’s not unusual for some of our top schools to seek competition beyond the borders to test their teams’ capabilities: to see how they respond to bigger fields, different landscapes and some of the region’s—and, at times, the nation’s—best.
East Greenwich made the six-hour trek to the Maine Festival of Champions in Belfast this past weekend. The popular meet is held on moderately challenging five-kilometer terrain at Troy Howard Middle School, which will play host to the New England Championships this fall.
For boys’ head coach Sean Connolly, he got exactly what he was looking for from his team Saturday. Competing against 940 runners representing 79 schools, the Avengers finished second on a perfect day for racing, with sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-60s.
East Greenwich compiled 139 points, just 25 behind host-state Yarmouth. The Avengers averaged a crisp 16:36.54 among their five scoring runners and produced a gap of just 54 seconds.
“We are proud of our runner-up performance at the Festival of Champions,” Connolly said. “The result is a testament to the hard work being put in on a regular basis. Andrew Parisi (ninth, 16:06.58), Quinn Connolly (21st, 16:29.44), Jeremiah Moon (28th, 16:42.11), Nathan Malafronte (29th, 16:43.06) and Tyler Levy (49th, 17:01.49) allowed for the team to make a strong statement. The list could go on. We are evolving as a strong team that’s all in at EG. We look forward to October.”
East Greenwich, which is 7-1 in the Suburban Division, wraps up its dual meet season on Monday. The Avengers travel to Manchester, Connecticut this weekend for the annual Wickham Park Invitational
On the girls’ side, East Greenwich’s Kayla Siedliski was the top RI finisher, placing 12th overall among more than 600 runners with a time of 19:24.95. Avengers teammate Olive Willis was the next across the line, placing 57th at 21:07.90.
