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The freshmen boy's meet kicked off on Monday in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. There, top contenders La Salle Academy, Barrington, and Bishop Hendricken aimed to take home the title. The Hawks have come away with many freshmen titles in recent years, but La Salle has been able to take home a few themselves recently. Barrington, however, was extremely competitive with the duo of private schools last year, and this may finally be their year.
Hendricken found their success in the sprints with 26 points, including Jeremy Seidi who won the 100 in 11.49 and placed 3rd in the 200, 3rd in the shot put as well as being a leg of the runner-up 4x100 relay. Hendricken also won the 3k with Jacob Silva running 9:27 to take the win. However, this would only get them 3rd place with 64 points.
La Salle and Barrington went toe-to-toe scoring in nearly every event between the two teams. La Salle took major points from mid-distance and sprints with wins from Marshall Vernon in the 1500 and 800 as well as Garrett Giroux-Pezzullo winning the 400, placing 2nd overall in the 200, and anchoring the winning 4x100 relay. Jumps were a huge help for the Rams as they scored 32 points in the event. This included a win in the pole vault from Judah Mullings, a 3rd place finish in the high jump, and a 3rd and 4th place finish in the triple jump.
Barrington had success in the throws by accumulating 36 points off of Joe Adam winning the hammer, and placing runner-up in the discus, javelin, and shot put. Barrington also placed 3rd and 4th in the 3000 and runner-up in the 4x800 meter relay. In the end, Barrington edged out La Salle 109 to 104.
On the girl's side, the team battle was wide open. Lisa Raye of West Warwick won the same four events she won at Class B just a few days earlier, 100, 200, 100 hurdles, and 300 hurdles, scoring 40 of her team's 48 points for a tie for 5th with Portsmouth.
Westerly won the shot put and won the 4x400 meter relay at the end of the meet, but settled for 4th with 51 points. Just ahead of them was North Kingstown who had 52 points thanks to a 1-2 finish and 18 points in the pole vault leading the charge.
This left Mount Hope and Ponaganset. Mount Hope's Jessica Deal scored 28 points by winning the 3000, 1500, and placing runner-up in the 800. This was not even the most impressive performance on her team as fellow freshman Thea Jackson scored 36 points by winning the long jump, and triple jump placing runner-up in the 100 and 200. This is 64 points between the two athletes alone. However, Ponaganset found success with depth rather than individual champions. This included a 3rd and 6th place finish in the 100 meter dash and a 7th place finish in the 100 hurdles.
Near the end of the meet, Deal's win in the 3000 and Jackson's runner-up in the 200 gave Mount Hope a 5.5-point lead. They needed to finish top three in the 4x400-meter relay for a chance to win the meet. The team fought valiantly and placed second overall to win the meet with 70.5 points over Mount Hope's 68.
Later this week are the Hendricken and Mariner invitationals. Good luck to all those with one final attempt to qualify for states.