The La Salle girls and coach Kelly Martin were at Green Airport Wednesday, awaiting their flight to Oregon for the Nike Cross Nationals. The Rams are hoping for their second straight top-10 finish.
Nearly 50 state champions and some of the top teams in the nation will be lacing up their racing shoes Saturday morning for the Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon.
Rhode Island will have the largest contingent from New England at NXN with nine runners from La Salle Academy at the meet - junior D.J. Principe, senior Matt Bouthillette and the seven members of its nationally-ranked girls' squad.
In their biggest meet of the season, the expectations are high this weekend.
For Kelly Martin and her Lady Rams, it will be their second straight appearance. The La Salle coach believes her latest crew can match (or exceed) her 2014 team's ninth-place showing at the Glendoveer Golf Course, site of NXN.
"I think they are definitely capable of doing what they did last year," she said. "If they run to their full potential, they are definitely a top 10 team. They are looking good right now."
The La Salle girls, who won the state and New England titles this fall, earned their ticket out west after finishing second at the NXN-Northeast Regionals last Saturday. As Martin indicated after that race, it wasn't a good indicator of what her squad is capable of at full force.
The Rams beat Coe Brown Academy in a tie-breaker for second with 125 points, 66 points behind eventual winner, Pennsbury of Pennsylvania. Senior Eliza Rego led the Rams by finishing 16th overall. Sophomore Grace Connolly was 20th and senior Karina Tavares was 34th.
Rego and Tavares are veterans from last year's team and two runners that Martin is counting on to be leaders at Saturday's race.
"I think (the team) can definitely improve from last week. We didn't have our best race," she said. "Eliza should have been top five and Karina had potential for at least 20th. I think they have both have potential for top 30 (on Saturday) if they do what they need to do."
Connolly is also a key runner for the Rams in their quest for a top finish on Saturday. The Barrington transfer was fourth at the state meet this year.
"Grace is an amazing runner," Martin said. "She doesn't let anything faze her."
The five-kilometer course for NXN is one that features a number of twist and turns, including a sharp left-hand turn onto the narrow trails just 150 meters after the start. The goal, says Martin, is to make sure you don't get caught up at the beginning.
"It's kind of one of those things that you just got to go out hard," she stated. "You can't hold back. You just got to go out as hard as you can and fast as you can."
La Salle senior Matt Bouthillette was 165th in last year's race. Head coach Ken Skelly expects the results to be a lot different for his star runner and teammate DJ Principe at Saturday's meet.
La Salle boys' coach Ken Skelly knows all about the opening
part of the course. At last year's meet, his squad, one of the pre-race
favorites, got caught behind the masses and eventually finished 18th.
Principe, the state and New England champion this season, was the Rams' top finisher last year at NXN, finishing 75th overall. Bouthillette placed 165th. Skelly believes the results will be a lot different for his two runners, who were 1-2 at the state meet and finished third and fifth, respectively, at the regionals last weekend.
The Ram teammates got prime position on the starting line, situated right in the middle.
"They have the experience of being there before. They have a better understanding in terms of number of turns," Skelly said. "I think it's just a matter of getting in a good position off the line. They'll be coming in from the middle so they'll have good peripheral vision of who's on the left and who's on the right."
"I definitely think they are capable of top 20," he added. "Both have learned a lot as individual runners the last few weeks, not just the runners that went 1-2 in the state."
Besides a winding course, runners on Saturday will be dealing with similar conditions as last year where the course was wet and muddy from several days of rainfall. The last few days it has been raining in Portland.
"Today we seem to get a break from the showers and the sun came out," Skelly said on Friday. "It's pretty good now but the conditions are going to be fairly comparable to last year. It's still very wet and muddy."
The girls' race for NXN is set to go off at 1:05 p.m. (EST) and the boys will answer the gun at 2:35 p.m. (EST). MileSplit will have complete coverage of the race.