Strong Showing for Indoor Track at the Rhode Island Classic

The Christmas/New Year's break is always replete with holiday tournaments, tournaments that do a double duty of sorts. These competitions can, in a sense, serve as both unofficial "openings" for the winter sports season and as valuable opportunities for coaches to place their teams into the cauldrons of serious competition. Players are put into a position in which they have to respond to competing at a higher level, and coaches have the opportunity to see what they've truly got at the outset of their respective schedules.

Both our hockey and basketball teams successfully faced those challenges in their holiday tournaments. While the nature of indoor track is much more a synthesis of individual (competing against your own marks) and team competition, the holiday tournaments themselves can be even more important, given their direct impact on the eventual state meets. On Saturday our guys once again put on their typical strong performance in the Rhode Island Classic, both on the track and in the other events.

The Hawks were not entered in every one of the scheduled events but placed very well in the ones in which they did compete. In the Boys' 4 X 200 Meter Relay, our team of Power Kanga, John Cute, Ronnie Gaynor,and Nick Stravato placed second with a time of 1:35.44, but were unfortunately disqualified much later on in the program - even after medals had been handed out, in fact - due to a controversial lane violation, which, of course, does nothing to discredit their performance. Other top finishers for the day on the track were the 4 X 800 team of Colin Tierney, Jared Boulanger, Avery Ingegneri, and Grant Gauthier (1st place with a time of 8:23.87) and the freshman/sophomore 4 X 400 team of Joe Swift, Kwity Paye, Avery Ingegneri,and Bobby Bordieri (1st place with a time of 3;47.94). Other results for runners were as follows:

4 x 400 - 6th place - Ian MacLeod, Chris Cambio, Dylan DiLibero, John Clavin
Shuttle Hurdle Relay - 2nd place - Gage Powell, Liam Vetter, Dan Medici, Brendan Dillon
Fresh/Soph Sprint Medley Relay - 4th place - Joe Swift, Bobby Bordieri, Kwity Paye, Michael Kiernan Mile Run - 3rd place - Colin Tierney

The Hawks' team of Alex Cerbo, Ben Nelson, and Connor Hurst took first place in the Shot Put Relay, highlighted by Cerbo's toss of 52 feet...:

...and the team of Alex Cerbo, Chris Celona, and Eddie Barber took third place in the Weight Throw Relay, with one of Celona's tosses seen here:
All in all, then, it was a pretty successful holiday run for our winter sports guys. Stay with The Network for as much coverage as we can muster for all winter teams.

Don't forget - Hawks hoops vs. Smithfield, tonight, LIVE, right here on The Network.