The New Balance Nationals have arrived.
For four straight days beginning on Thursday, The Track at New Balance will play host to The Fastest Party on the Planet. Few will argue, and most might add the Furthest, Highest and Longest, too. Though that doesn’t quite have the ring of Fastest.
But you get the picture.
As they always do, the nation’s finest track & field athletes will put on a show down in Boston, and we’re expecting several of our Rhode Islanders will, too. Leading up to each day of the meet, we’ll be highlighting what we consider the feature events involving our state.
Here’s what we consider the top events on Friday.
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Boys’ Two Mile
Our top three long-distance runners in the state — La Salle’s Marshall Vernon, Portsmouth’s Sean Gray and Hendricken’s Colby Flynn — will not be on the line this weekend.
But the fourth one will.
Rhode Island’s lone entry in the Championship race is Barrington’s Brooks Mello. The Eagles junior has a legitimate shot at breaking 9:10 if everything works as planned. Mello showed proof of that back on Jan. 9, placing third overall behind Vernon and Flynn at the Yale Track Classic, where he was timed in a PR of 8:35.47.
It will be Mello’s first race since placing 17th in the mile at the New Englands, where he was 18 seconds shy of his PR with a time of 4:33.88. No doubt that will add some motivation to excel this weekend.
Boys’ Distance Medley Relay
This is a race that always draws top competition from coast to coast to the starting line. In last year’s event, Herriman (UT) led seven teams under 10:10 with a winning time of 10:04.76.
We’re expecting much the same this weekend, where running sub‑10:10 is your best chance to earn a spot on the podium. Our lone squad entered in this race, Bishop Hendricken, is not quite in that category. But based on PRs in their respective events, we do think the quartet of David Hayes, Andrew McCarthy, Fred Russell and Colby Flynn are capable of a going under 10:20 this weekend.
We could be wrong, but our guess is that the order will be Hayes running the opening 1,200‑meter leg, McCarthy on the 400m leg, Russell at 800m, and Flynn anchoring the 1,600m.
Girls’ Sprint Medley Relay
The state record in this event is 4:00.84, set 21 years ago by Westerly. We don’t think that record will be challenged this weekend. However, we do think Moses Brown could come within three or four seconds of that mark.
The Quakers have a strong foursome in this relay with Sophia Mocco, Rose Coutu, Kendra Satine, and Skyler Maxwell. When the Bulldogs clocked their amazing time, they had 200m legs of 26.3 and 27.0, a 1:01.0 400m leg, and a blazing 2:06.5 800m anchor by multiple record-holder Samantha Gawrych — the difference-maker in that record.
Based on her season, most notably her winning 1:31.97 600m at the New Englands, we think Maxwell is capable of breaking 2:10 as the anchor. The other legs by Westerly’s record-setting relay appear to match up well with the Quakers’ other three runners. It will be a tall order for Maxwell to accomplish what Gawrych did more than two decades ago, but it will be interesting to watch.
As we often say, you never know.
Boys’ Sprint Medley Relay
At last year’s meet, a time of 3:27.82 earned a sixth-place finish in this race. If results are similar this time around, we believe La Salle is capable of earning All-American honors.
It all makes sense to us now. We were curious why Garrett Giroux-Pezzullo was not competing in the 400m – he’s saving all his strength for this relay, where he’s capable of a sub 48-second leg. Jalen Moseley and Antonio Bearden are each capable of low-22-second splits for their 200m legs, and Eamon O’Brien could run around 1:55 for the 800m leg. Do the math. At their best, this quartet could be running 3:26–3:27 in this race.
The current state mark is 3:29.70, set by La Salle in 2019. That six-year-old record should be history this weekend.
Boys’ Long Jump
The Rams’ Jalen Moseley is currently ranked No. 7 in the country in this event, based on his PR and new state record of 24-3 from the New England Championships. If we go by the original distance of 24-5 that he was told in the prelims, the gifted junior is just three inches behind nation-leader Joseph West III of Texas.
But here’s where things get interesting.
West III and four others currently ranked ahead of Moseley will not be competing this weekend. That leaves Aaron Rich of Lyman Hall (CT) at the top of the field with his best of 24-6.25, and Moseley right behind him at No. 2.
If that matchup sounds familiar, it should. Rich and Moseley were the 1-2 finishers at the New Englands, setting up what could be another showdown between two of the region’s best.
