Nuttycombe Invitational Featured Several Former HS Stars

We all know it’s championship time for high schools in Massachusetts with the league championships already underway and occupying most of Saturday with at least a half dozen meets taking place on the weekend.

For collegians, it’s also championship time with the conference meets on the docket this week and the NCAA regional and championship meets in the weeks ahead.

The chances are we could have a few of our former MA stars as contributors at those respective meets.

After competing unattached in his first two meets of the season, former St. John’s Prep standout Nathan Lopez. a freshman at Michigan, was the No. 6 runner for the Wolverines in the Championship race of the Nuttycombe Invitational on Oct. 13. Lopez, who smashed the state two-mile record at the New Balance Nationals this past June, was timed in 24 minutes, 38.7 seconds for the 8K course. As a team, Michigan were 15th overall among the 36 schools at the Wisconsin meet.

In the women’s Championship race at Nuttycombe, Stanford teammates and fellow Bay State greats, Lucy Jenks (Newton South) and Grace Connolly (Natick), were 43rd and 55th, respectively, with 6K times of 20:39.9 and 20:47.3. Sophia Jacob Townsley , a senior at Syracuse and former all-stater from Amherst Pelham, was 87th in the field with a 20:56.8 clocking.

The ‘B’ races featured a few familiar faces, too.

In the men’s race, Wake Forest freshman Aidan Ross (Uxbridge) ran a solid 25:44.8 to finish 38th overall. Rishabh Prakask (Burlington), a senior at Notre Dame. clocked 26:10.5 for the 8K distance. He was a little less than 200m ahead of Michigan frosh Kyler McNatt (Needham), who was timed in 26:41.7.

Stanford freshman Amelia Everett, who was a multiple all-stater and All American at Newton South, was 51st overall in the women’s race where she crossed the line in 22:36.7. She was not too far behind sophomore teammate and sub two-minute 800m runner Juliette Whittaker, who was 39th in 22:28.9.

Nashoba Regional alum Ali Gillooly, a junior at Loyola, was 112th in 23:36.9.

Last month at the Battle of Beantown, former Framingham star and current Harvard freshman Sam Burgess raced to an impressive 24:21.5 for the 8K race to place 12th overall. He ran 25:00.5 at Nuttycombe. Ryan Sarney (Oliver Ames), a freshman at Northeastern, averaged sub 5:10 mile-pace at the Battle of Beantown with a time of 25:45.4..