East Greenwich boys outdoor track coach Paul Evasick provides this report on the Avengers' great showing at their first invitational of the season:

The Rick Schomp Invitational is an elite invitational for the top 18 athletes in each event for boys and girls. The boys team posted 40 points and placed fourth overall for the day out of 26 teams. The Avengers missed taking home the small division team trophy by 2 points to Westerly.

Several kids had big days with Freshmen Nick Ross leading the way. Nick grabbed everyone’s attention in the 1500 meter run as he improved his personal best time by 15 seconds and posted an automatic state championship qualifying time of 4:10.1. He finished third in a veteran field of runners. Only Andrew Springer of Westerly 4:04.0, and James Sylvestre of Lincoln 4:07.0 finished ahead of Nick. “Nick’s time for any athlete is impressive! But for a freshman it was an incredible day! Nick still is just learning how to run, and should be a formidable opponent for many years to come.”

Junior captain Alex Iwamoto also had a solid day as he garnered three medals on the day. He grabbed his first medal as he anchored the third-place 4X100 relay as they turned in a season best time of 46.1 seconds. He was helped by sopomore Mike Swartz, senior Paul Traficante, and junior Chris Walsh. Alex followed that up by posting a season best 11.5 in the 100 meter dash good for a fifth place finish. Alex capped off his day with a fourth-place finish in the triple jump with a jump of 38-4. All marks were good enough for provisional qualifying to the State meet in June.

Junior captain Wes Evasick hurdled his way back to the top of the state posting an automatic State qualifying time of 15.6 in the 110 Hurdles good for a third-place medal overall. “Wes ran two great heats today, qualifying he set a personal best time of 15.9 which was .5 seconds faster then his previous best and then followed that up in the finals with another PR of 15.6 seconds. Wes is also just getting on track and his times should improve throughout May.”

Sophomore Mark Feigan also ran a personal best in the 800 2:04.3 good for a third-place medal. Junior Ben Drumm finished third with a throw of 128-1 in the discus and fellow weight man junior Tom Davis took fourth in the Hammer 185-7.

"The team really has some special athletes,'' Paul Evasick says. "We are still probably a year away from making some real noise on the state level."

East Greenwich will compete in the Classical Classic on Saturday.