(All photos by RAPHAEL BIEBER)
raphy8@yahoo.com
After more than 10 hours of competition, six schools earned team titles at the first-time, combined R.I. Class Meets on Saturday. Here’s a rundown of all the happenings inside the Providence Career and Technical Academy field house:
The day concluded with the girls’ Small Schools and the boys’ Class C teams battling it out. Defending girls’ titlist Smithfield captured its 11th crown since 1995 with a 79-69 victory over runner-up Moses Brown. For the boys, it was East Greenwich over Mount St. Charles, 116-80.
Senior Raveyn Fontaine was the only Lady Sentinel to make it to the victory stand, and she did it twice by copping the long jump with a leap of 16 feet, 8 inches and the 55-meter hurdles with a time of 9.22 seconds. Fontaine added a few more points to her squad’s total by placing fifth in the 55 dash at 7.99 and third in the high jump with a four-inch personal best of 5-2, an event junior teammate Morgan McDonald was second with a PB of 5-4.
Smithfield had other top finishes from sophomore Megan Malloy, who was third in the 20-pound weight (45-1.25) and the shot put (31-9.5), junior Caitlin Paredes in the long jump (second, 16-1) and freshman Sydney Bagus in the 3,000 (third, 11:56.73).
Sophomore Darchell Judd of Juanita Sanchez was a winner in the 55 dash, blazing to a time of 7.6. Narragansett junior Carly Timpson copped the high jump at 5-4 and teammate Leia Mistowksi took the weight throw at 51-6.25.
Two records were set in the meet. In the 600, Middletown senior Shannon Hugard broke a nine-year-old mark with a time of 1:39.08. Exeter/West Greenwich senior Tori Ebert etched her name in the books with a distance of 39-2 in the shot put.
On the strength of three of its top distance runners, East Greenwich erased a heartbreaking two-point loss to Rogers last year by taking the team plaque on Saturday. The trio of senior Graham Chapski, senior Garrett Scanlon and junior Tommy Sommers accounted for 72 points of the Avengers’ scoring by sweeping the top three placements in the 1,000, 1,500 and the 3,000. East Greenwich also had runner-up finishes in all three relays (4x200, 4x400, and 4x800).
“It was a fantastic job by all the guys,” E.G. coach Pete Dion said. “Those three (Scanlon, Chapski and Sommers) and then the relay kids. We had (a tough loss) here last year and it took a while to swallow it. I made some coaching mistakes, listened to a couple of my guys and we ended up getting beat by a couple of points. I said we are not losing this next year. It just worked out nice. I had a plan for those distance guys in this meet because I know we are two weeks out from the state meet and I could really try to hammer them and triple them like I have never done before.”
In the 3,000, Sommers led the brigade with a time of 9:25.6, just two-tenths ahead of the third-place finish of Chapski. It was Scanlon’s turn in the 1,500, crossing the line a mere few meters ahead of his training partners in 4:25.6. Chapski took the top spot in the 1,000 at 2:45.7.
“What they did is Garrett is our mile guy so they gave that to him, Grant’s out 1,000 guy and Tommy’s our 3K guy. They just made a deal to give each kid a shot at being the first guy. That’s why they were kind of looking,” Dion said. “I told them to try and not look as much to try and be professional and sportsmanlike. What I told them in the last 1,000 is, ‘Hey, you just can’t look.’ They ran hard but they didn’t kill themselves. They’ll have legs. They’ll be fine.”
The plan for the state meet on Feb. 15 is to allow the trio to shine individually on track & field’s biggest stages. All three runners have a chance to place high, perhaps win, at the championship meet.
“We are not going to go to the last chance. At least those guys aren’t going,” said Dion, referring to next weekend’s last-chance state-meet qualifier. “It’s just perfect for training. Now we have two weeks of good training. We’ll need an extra day to recover from this one. But we’ll get four good workouts or at least three good workouts and then come to states and then we are going to split those guys out. We didn’t run the 4x800 with our ‘A’ team today and probably won’t in the states because our guys are competitive. We can hang with all those other guys in the states. You got to give them an opportunity. We are going to break them up and give them an opportunity to see if they can win one in their events.”
“As a team, we have the distance guys and maybe a relay team,” he continued. “We’re not in the race at all but if we can get a state champion out of those three guys, maybe break somebody that would be awesome. Maybe a couple of second-teamers. That field is loaded. La Salle is stacked. Hendricken has some horses. Just to be in that race and hang with those kids, I mean you are looking at the best distance guys. It’s good to see that and it’s so competitive.”
The second-place Mounties copped all three relays, taking the 4x200 at 1:37.2, the 4x800 with a time of 8:41.3 and the 4x400 with a 3:42.9 clocking. Senior Chris Miele was first in the 55 hurdles (8.07).
In a tight race in the 55 dash, Narragansett sophomore Michael Silvestri out-leaned Moses Brown’s Nick Snow at the line to win with a time of 6.72 to his rival’s 6.76. Snow didn’t go home without a victory. He came back a little more than an hour later to claim the 300 title with a time of 37.6. The Quakers also had a first-place effort from senior Amos Cariati in the 600 (1:26.1).
Class A/Large Schools
In the state’s strongest division, Bishop Hendricken won its 22nd straight title by defeating North Kingstown, 112-87. La Salle Academy was third with 75 points.
The highlight of the meet was another sterling performance from junior Lee Moses in the long jump. Moses leaped a distance of 23-0.25, a scant half-inch further than his division-winning distance at last Saturday’s Suburban meet. His effort on Saturday moves him into eighth in the national rankings.
The Hawks’ Colin Tierney continued his dominance in the 3,000 by taking that event with a quality time of 8:44.7. La Salle’s Dan Paiva was second (8:47.8) and Hendricken’s Michael Potter was third (8:57.8). Hendricken also had a win from Alex Cerbo in the shot put where the senior had a PB of 53-7.75.
North Kingstown posted a pair of impressive times in the 4x400 (3:30.3) and 4x800 (8:11.9) relays and also had individual triumphs from senior Dallin Smith in the 1,500 (4:14.2) and Zachery Emrich in the 600 (1:24.9).
La Salle’s Jack Salisbury had a career best in the 1,000 with a nearly two-second win over North Kingstown’s Ian Connors. Salisbury was timed in 2:35.2. Connors finished at 2:37.1. The Rams’ Sean Greene matched his division-winning leap of last week by clearing 6-6 in the high jump.
In the dash, it was Mount Pleasant’s Randolph Zieh that garnered gold with a 6.6 clocking.
Two teams that will be squaring off in an expected heated contest at the states finished 1-2 in the girls’ Large School meet with La Salle topping Classical, 113-92. The Rams’ Karina Tavares was a double-winner, earning titles in the 1,500 (4:44.93) and the 1,000 (4:48.99).
Classical senior Maddy Berkson won the 600 with ease with a fast time of 1:34.42. She was also second in the 1,000 at 3:05.34 and was the anchor for the Purple’s first-place 4x400 squad (4:13.98).
Classical’s dynamic duo in the field events, Alva Hicks and Bianca Donadio, took the top two placements in the shot put and the 20-pound weight. Hicks was 37-0 in the shot and 50-9.5 in the weight. Donadio’s distances were 36-1 and 48-3.5, respectively.
The Purple’s Alicia Holloway copped the 300 (43.41) and finished second to two-time state titlist Maria Bolibruch of North Kingstown in the 55 hurdles. Bolibruch won the event with a time of 8.54, just .01 ahead of Holloway.
Class B/Medium Schools
The Classical boys defended their title in the Class B meet by overtaking Barrington, 128-102. It was the Purple’s 31st crown in the school’s history.
Senior Abdul Lateef-Orulebaja collected 20 points for Classical by placing first in the 55 hurdles (8.07) and the long jump (21-0.5). Ilan Rich, the state’s top sprinter, won the dash at 6.64.
In the high jump, Middletown’s Jacob Reilly matched his best with a leap of 6-6. Shea sophomore Fabio Gomes was a victor in the 300 with a time of 37.63 and Barrington’s Adam Kelly earned the title in the 25-pound weight at 75-9.75.
In the girls’ competition, Pilgrim surprised Barrington, 107-93. The Patriots’ Rebecca O’Donnell, a senior, won twice by taking the 55 in 7.67 and leading a 1-2-3 finish in the long jump with a distance of 17-0.25. Junior Melani Brunelle was third in the long jump and copped the high jump at five-feet even. Senior Maddison Caron captured the weight at 43-0.75 and was third in the shot at 30-9.5.
Barrington collected 72 points of its total from the 600 to the 3,000. Megan Verner-Crist was a double-winner. She edged teammate Julianna Portelli in the 1,000 with a 3:12.81 clocking. The senior also took the 1,500 at 4:54.34. In the 3K, Portelli was first across the line at 10:51.56. The Eagles’ Abby Livingston coasted to the 600 title with a time of 1:41.13. She also ran a sub 60-second anchor on the triumphant 4x400 relay squad (4:17.86).
“I had mapped it out on paper that we were going to score 92 points and that would be enough to win. We scored 93 and we lost by 14,” Barrington coach Steve Turgeon said. “What are you going to do? They had a fantastic day. They scored 11 points in the 300 that I wasn’t expecting them to get, but my girls across the board had an absolutely fantastic day.”
