Sean Gray didn’t walk away with the ultimate prize he was hoping for at Saturday’s Nike Cross Nationals.
But he certainly didn’t go home empty-handed.
Against the nation’s best in Oregon, the Portsmouth High senior earned All-American honors with a 15th-place finish, running 15:23.6 under less-than-ideal conditions. Just as he did at NXR two weeks earlier, Gray was the top finisher from the Northeast region. The Virginia commit also became just the third runner from Rhode Island to earn All-American status at NXN.
“I had a lot of confidence coming in,” Gray told dyestat.com after his race. “I knew I could be i the top group. I think with a little better preparation, I probably could have been in contention for the win in this race. But I’m still very, very happy with how my race went and how my season went.”
Gray gave everything he had on the challenging terrain of the Glendoveer Golf Course. He got out aggressively, passing the 1K mark in 2:55.0, and remained firmly in the mix through the early stages. At 3K, he was in fourth place, hitting 9:06.8 — only six-tenths of a second off the leaders and a few strides ahead of pre-race favorite and eventual champion Jackson Spencer of Herriman (UT), who went on to break the tape in 15:01.1.
“I got out very well, just like I wanted to and was in second place around the turn,” Gray told dyestat.com. “I haven’t had a race that gets out that fast all year. Really, that second half of the race was a struggle…I got lactic around 2.5K and was just hanging on to chase pack the rest of the race.”
Congrats to Sean on a tremendous year — and for bringing Little Rhody pride all the way out west.
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A few of our former high school standouts — and one current one — excelled this past weekend at the always-competitive Boston University Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener.
Let’s begin with our lone HS star. La Salle Academy senior Garrett Giroux-Pezzulla finished fourth overall in the Collegiate 400m, blazing BU’s fast oval in a sharp early-season time of 49.41.
St. Raphael Academy alum and Iowa State junior Devan Kipyego placed fourth in the Invitational 3,000m with a near-best 7:51.58. In the collegiate 3K, former Portsmouth standout Kaden Kluth, now a senior at American International, cracked eight minutes for the first time, finishing 16th in 7:57.1. Bates freshman and SRA grad JJ Rocha placed 109th with a PR of 8:33.37.
In the Collegiate 5K, URI sophomore Nick Martin, formerly of East Greenwich, ran a PR of 14:09.99.
On the women’s side, former Moses Brown star Sophia Gorriaran, now a junior at Harvard, raced the mile for the first time since her freshman year. Just as she did in 2023, she finished second — but this time with a significant PR of 4:32.94.
North Kingstown grad and Davidson senior Molly Sullivan had a breakthrough day in the Collegiate 5K, chopping more than 40 seconds off her previous best with a PR of 17:12.01.
