It didn’t matter the time on the digital clock. The only thing that mattered to Dan Romano at Saturday’s New Balance Ocean State Invitational was his placement at the finish line.
For the junior from Mansfield High (Mass.), that placement was right at the front.
After patiently holding back for most of the Championship Division race, Romano secured first place by surging to the lead with 200-meters remaining en route to a triumphant 16 minutes, 8.04 seconds for the generous, five-kilometer layout at Goddard State Park. He held off a tight challenge from Connecticut’s Parker Timmerman of Brookfield (second, 16:12.56) and fellow Massachusetts’ rival Jamison Koeman of Whitinsville (third, 16:12.97).
“I was just going for place,” Romano said. “I was just trying to beat the kid in front of me.”
Unlike last year where competitors had to deal with a muddy and wet course from a nighttime and early morning of rainfall, Saturday’s race brought cloudless, sunny skies to the Warwick park. Although he was the first to break the tape in the featured race, Romano’s winning effort was actually the second fastest of the afternoon.
Connecticut’s dhahran Velasquez of Capital Preparatory was the quickest among the nearly 500 that competed in the three varsity races. Velasquez was the only runner to dip under 16 minutes, taking the Division I title with a time of 15:56.65. The talented senior was a comfortable 45-second ahead of second-place finisher, James Murphy of Weston (Conn.), who finished second at 16:40.3.
Team-wise, it was Bishop Feehan that came away with the crown, defeating Capital Prep, 99-118. The Shamrocks’ Steve Scala was tenth overall at 17:00.25. Rhode Island had two harriers among the first 15 with Exeter/West Greenwich’s Mike Dampier taking fourth at 16:48.16 and Barrington freshman Mars Bishop finishing 14th in 17:08.29.
Junior Quincy Cooney of Chelmsford captured his second straight title in the Div. 2 
race. Breaking away from a small pack at the midway point, Cooney breezed to a time of 16:11.83.
“At a mile and a half there was a pack of four or five of us,” he said. “I took off and they didn’t respond and I just kept pushing. I was looking to win. I won last year and I wanted to do it again. I was just trying to do the same thing as last year, poke my head at the front of the pack and push the second half real hard.”
With three of its runners among the top 12, Chelmsford won the team plaque by outscoring runner-up Brewster (N.Y.), 92-106.
Romano, who was tenth at the 2012 Div. 2 MIAA Eastern Division State Meet, maintained contact with the lead pack the entire distance of the Championship race. He was in sixth at the two-mile mark, passed in 10:32.
“That was a little slow,” he said. “Other than that, it went pretty well.”
North Kingstown senior Dallin Smith was the first Rhode Islander in the elite competition. He placed 13th overall with a time of 16:28.87.
“I was happy but I was hoping to do better,” he said. “Last year I got seventh. It was tough conditions, adjusting to the hotter weather. That kind of threw me off a little bit.”
Smith, who ran a PR of 16:14 at the Injury Fund Carnival three weeks earlier, was content with his performance.
“My goal was to get top 10 and get a PR and I came pretty close to both,” he said. “With the conditions and how I felt, I am pretty happy with how I did.”
In the team competition, Mansfield posted a convincing win for the title with 73 points. St. John’s Shrewsbury and Lexington were second and third, respectively, with both Massachusetts’ squads compiling 115 points.
