It’s the calm before the storm.
This weekend’s slate is a little scarce for Rhode Island athletes with Friday’s Blackstone Valley Invitational the lone meet on the schedule. Cumberland will be defending its title on both the boys’ and girls’ side. The meet features teams from the northern area of the state, such as Lincoln, Burrillville, St. Raphael Academy, Woonsocket, Davies Tech and Shea.
Burrillville’s Betsy Dumais will be looking to win her second straight individual crown. That will be a tall task with the Clippers in the field. The two squads met this past Monday in a Northern Division opener. Dumais finished third behind the Cumberland tandem of Nichole Barger and Amy Laverty. Barger was timed in a personal best of 19:11 for the 3.1-mile course, just two seconds ahead of Laverty. Dumais crossed the line in a still-impressive 19:20.
In the boys’ race, senior Will Mardo is the top returning runner. He was second in 2013 behind graduating senior Alex Southiere. The Clippers, ranked among the top six statewide, are coming off a sweep of Burrillville, North Smithfield and Woonsocket on Monday. Cumberland junior Sean Laverty, who had a PB of 16:16 for the 5K distance with a win in the Copland Race at the Injury Fund Carnival back on Sept. 6, is the favorite to snare individual honors.
The Blackstone Valley Invite begins at 4 p.m. at the Cumberland Monastery. MileSplit RI will provide coverage of the event. How will the teams fare on Friday afternoon? MileSplit RI will give a preview on Thursday with a pair of Virtual Meets that will include the competing schools.
Next weekend begins a series of multiple invites that our schools will be competing in over the next two months. Several R.I. squads will be heading down to Goddard Park on Oct. 27 for the Ocean State Invitational, a top regional meet that attracts middle school and high school teams from throughout the northeast (and beyond). Other teams, like nationally-ranked La Salle Academy, will make the trek for New York for the popular Bowdoin X-C Invitational.
The following Saturday, Oct. 4, a good number of our schools will be scattered at three different meets with the Maine X-C Festival of Champions in Bangor, the Manchester Invitational in New Hampshire and the Great American X-C Festival in North Carolina.