Ten Nauset students qualified for this year’s Mass. divisional track meet, held on May 30 and June 1 at Merrimack College. They joined top athletes from Falmouth, Scituate, and 40 other Division 4 schools in events that Coach Moira Nobili says had her team “showing up for Cape Cod.”
A week later, three Nauset students continued to the Meet of Champions at Fitchburg State University’s Elliot Field. One was junior Violet Roche, who took second statewide in the high jump; the others were 110-meter hurdlers Adian Brown and Isaiah Robinson, both seniors, who finished 21st and 24th in the state, respectively.
Roche jumped 5 feet, 6 inches — a new personal record. Norton’s Zoe Santos was the state champion at 5 feet, 7 inches; Roche’s score on June 8 matched Santos’s previous best.
“I was very calm,” Roche said. “I’d never felt so secure before. I was telling myself this was a bar I could get over. I went for it. I really attacked the bar, and I made it on my first attempt.”
Both Roche and Santos cleared 5’2”, 5’4”, and 5’6” on their first attempts. When neither managed to clear 5’8”, Roche said, the match went into “sudden death”: the bar was moved one inch lower; Santos cleared it, and Roche did not.
Roche’s jump qualified her for the New Balance Nationals in Philadelphia later this month.
Roche said she was holding herself back because of a hip flexor pull at the end of this year’s indoor track season. “My body wasn’t ready, and neither was my mind,” she said — but on Sunday, it seems, they were.
High jump was Roche’s only event at the Meet of Champions — she said she wanted to focus on it after failing all her jump attempts during last year’s meet. While she also competed in the 400-meter dash and the triple jump in 2023 and 2024, she said she preferred to “do really well in one even rather than doing poorly in all three.”
Roche topped the scoreboard at the divisional meet for the women’s high jump at 5’4”, two inches above the closest competitor.
Roche also competed in the long jump at divisionals, setting a new personal record for the outdoor season at 17 feet, 4.5 inches. She finished 11th overall — Gloucester’s Aili Spencer took the gold medal at just over 19 feet.
Brown beat Robinson’s time in the hurdles at the Meet of Champions, 15.55 seconds to Robinson’s 15.77. One week before, at divisionals, Robinson had placed fifth in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 15.06 seconds; Brown was a close sixth at 15.17 seconds. The two of them had enjoyed a friendly rivalry throughout the regular season, often drawing crowds of students to watch them compete during home meets.
Nauset junior Reed Dill broke the school record in the 400-meter hurdles at the Division 4 meet, finishing in 59 seconds flat, sixth overall, with Pembroke senior Luke Lamar taking first place in 53.31 seconds. Dill also tied for 11th in the high jump with Tri-County RVT’s Eli Arriaga, Holliston’s Ky’lee Vargas, Melrose’s Samuel Madden, and Middleboro’s Andrew Falk. All 5 jumped 5 feet, 10 inches.
Dill and his fellow Nauset junior Xavier Andrulot both broke personal records in the long jump at the divisional meet, jumping 20’10.5” and 20’6.25” respectively and earning them 14th and 16th places overall. First place went to Holliston’s Connor Teague, who jumped 23’11”.
Nauset senior Adrianna Morgan was among the top scorers in the discus at divisionals, throwing 99 feet, 8 inches and placing fourth overall. The champion there was Dracut Senior High School’s Zoe Clark, who hurled the discus 127’6”.
Violet Roche’s younger sister, freshman Maeve Roche, set a personal record in the 400-meter hurdles at the divisional meet, finishing in 1:12.30 and placing 18th out of 38 overall. First place went to Canton’s Chloe Dubuisson, who finished in 1:02.95.
“I love my sister so much,” Violet Roche said. “Seeing her succeed as a freshman makes me so happy and so excited for her future at Nauset track. It’s like being on a team with my best friend — we push each other in the best way possible. I feel so proud.”
