Community, high school show support for Northmen 5K's 7th annual event

“I felt everything went great,” noted Vowels, who has been a regular participant in this race – he first ran in it in 2012 when he was seven years old, and in last year’s race, he posted a time of 23:20 that was good for 14th place. “We had a great turnout in the morning with a bunch of runners (signing up) on the day of (the race), and it’s a good thing the rain held off.”

Vowels, who is a member of the track and field team’s 4x100 relay squad, “took the baton” from last year’s race director, Calla Puccetti, who for her senior project, decided to bring the popular 5K back to life and onto the region’s road racing calendar after a five-year absence from it.

“Calla did a great job with it last year and I just wanted to keep it going,” said Vowels, who starred at quarterback for the past three years for the North Smithfield/Mount Saint Charles co-op football team and is going to be a preferred walk-on this fall at Bryant University. “I’ve always run it as a kid until it stopped, and I really enjoyed it. I’m definitely going to be doing it again next year, and I think we have someone who’s willing to do it as their senior project.”

Like a quarterback scrambling out of the pocket, Vowels was inside and outside the middle school during the pre-race signups and T-shirt and bib number pickups, as well all over the athletic complex and the course before, during, and after the race, making sure everything went according to plan. And like all veteran race directors who spend months preparing for their events, the week leading up to it “was spinning,” Vowels said with a smile.

“The T-shirts, the banners, the yard signs for all the sponsors, collecting all the information, and making sure everyone’s on the same page, it was definitely a lot of work,” he added. “And Calla had to do probably double the work last year because there wasn’t a race (for the past five years) and she had to do everything from the ground up.”

Like Puccetti, who is recently wrapping up her first year at the University of Rhode Island, Vowels was backed by a large group of volunteers that he was very thankful to have. Among that group was Puccetti’s father, who served as Vowels’ advisor for his senior project, and the winner of last spring’s race, Nathan Masi, who is a junior on the University of Rhode Island men’s cross country and track and field teams and served as a course marshal on the first mile.

Eden Beauregard, who is a junior on the school’s girls’ cross country and track and field teams, also sang the National Anthem, and several students helped do their part at the signups and pickups, the water stops at the mile and two-mile marks, and the post-race festivities on the athletic complex’s basketball courts.

Vowels and his volunteers received plenty of praise for their hard work at the conclusion of the race, and they certainly impressed a veteran runner who lived 50 miles away from town and took part in the 5K for the first time, Linda Spooner from Sturbridge, Mass.

Spooner, who took part in the 5K with her husband, Josh Spooner, was the top female finisher and took second place overall in a time of 19:51 that was not only the second-fastest time in the course’s history – Smithfield’s Trish Hillery won the women’s title in 2015 in a time of 19:06, but also marked the first time that a female cracked the top three overall finishers.

“It was awesome,” added Spooner, who runs in 70-75 races a year. “They had (the course) perfectly marked; it was exactly 3.1 (miles) on my watch, which is always a plus, and it was just really well organized. It was fun and I liked it a lot. I’m glad I warmed up on the course because I knew exactly where the hills were and I knew that last mile was downhill and could be fast if you had a tailwind.”

Smithfield road racing veteran Barry Bates was the winner, as he led the race from start to finish and broke the tape in a time of 19:23, and taking third place in 20:32 was North Smithfield High freshman Alex Pickering, who is a member of the school’s boys’ hockey and lacrosse teams.

Spooner’s husband, meanwhile, took fourth place in a time of 21:03, and North Smithfield senior Conner McNeill, who is also a member of the Northmen’s track and field team, finished fifth in 21:41.

Nearly two-thirds of the participants hailed from North Smithfield, including Puccetti, who was the third female to cross the finish line and the winner of the girls’ ages 15-19 division in 26:34, and 12-year-old Kara Snyzyk (26:43) and Maya Green (27:02) rounded out the top five female finishers.