Just who are the top athletes that will be competing at Saturday’s Meet of Champions? Throughout the week, Bay State Running will preview all the individual events at this weekend’s competition, scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m., at the Reggie Lewis Center. Here we feature the girls’ middle & long distance events.
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1,000m
The field in this race features 11 runners that have broken three minutes this season. Holliston’s Carmen Luisi comes in as the top seed with a best of 2 minutes, 53.25 seconds from her victory at the Northeast Invitational last month. Right behind the Panther senior are Westford Academy’s Abigall Hennessey (2:54.94), Plymouth North’s Macey Shriner (2:54.95) and North Andover’s Erika Wojcik (2:55.24). Luisi is also scheduled to compete in the mile, where she is the No. 5 seed. At the Div. 4 Championship this past Sunday, Luisi pulled off the double by running 5:02.58 for the mile and 2:58.24 for the 1K. With just about 30-minutes rest between the two events, can she run faster in this race on Saturday? She will certainly need to if she wants to break the tape at the end? Among several others in this race, Hennessey, Shriner and Wojcik will all be on the line with fresh legs. That means a time in that low 2:50 range will probably win this race. We’re predicting a close race in this one. Whether or not Luisi will be able to contend with her other talented rivals after the mile might be the bigger question.
Mile
In this race, we could still have a pack of at least three or four runners, perhaps more, still in contention in the late stages. The No. 1 seed is Wellesley’s Charlotte Tuxbury, the only runner in the field that has broken five minutes this year. She has a top time of 4:57.37, which she did at the John Thomas Terrier Classic at Boston University in late January. At Reggie Lewis, Tuxbury clocked 4:59.23 to capture her specialty at the Bay State Conference Championship on Feb. 7. Tuxbury, who clocked 5:00.44 to win the Div. 2 meet on Friday, is the clear-cut favorite. But it won’t necessarily be easy for the Raider senior. The field includes several runners in the low five-minute range, including Newton North’s Ciara Evans (5:00.19), Brookline’s Audrey Seeger (5:00.41), Belmont’s Dana Lehr (5:02.12), Luisi (5:02.88), Westfield’s Megan Moran (5:03.98) and North Quincy’s Aluna Coogan-Coyne (5:02.82). In a race like this, you know several will have sub-5 on their mind. Evans ran her best to take the recent Div. 1 meet. Seeger finished second to Evans at that meet and ran her PR to take runner-up honors to Tuxbury at the Bay State Conference. She’ll have plenty of motivation to excel with her two nemesis in the field. Look for a potential big race from Luisi on Saturday. She has indicated a season-ending goal of breaking five minutes. Will it be this weekend? Could we also see a big race from her teammate Maggie Kuchman, who ran a solo 5:05.45 to take the MSTCA State Qualifier on Feb. 10, a race she won by 15 seconds?!? She’s a No. 9 seed with that time, but is certainly capable of faster with the level of talent that will be answering the gun this weekend.
2 Mile
We expect a competitive race here. Billerica’s Gianna McGowan and Brookline’s Lucia Werner are the 1-2 seeds in this event and the only runners that have broken 11 minutes, McGowan has a best of 10:54.91, while Werner checks in with a PR of 10:57.60. Central Catholic’s Madeline Courtemanche (11:03.75) and Nashoba’s Caroline Collins (11:04.63) are the next two seeds and runners we feel have a chance to win on Saturday. McGowan placed second to Moran at the Div. 3 meet on Saturday. Werner ran her second sub-11 on Friday to win the Div. 1 title. She might be the slight favorite in this race.
