A Watch List!
I’ve been doing the previews for a long time now. I think more than ever trying to preview what is ahead for Division 3 track and field is not only difficult, it’s fraught with so many unknowns, that frankly the preview isn’t worth the paper it’s written on (OK, the internet it’s written on.) I’ve decided to focus this entry as a watch list, saving the preview for the championships, once we’ve really been able to see what lies ahead.
Girls
The Powerhouses
While predicting the outcome of events which are “down the road” off of data over nine months old is destined for mistakes, there are some individuals who are so dominating it bears necessity to talk about them even before one contest has happened. Hopkinton’s Maddy Lane, Belmont’s Ava Lacasse, Gilford’s Macy Sawyer and Mascoma’s Georgia Kondi are all repeat winners from last season, and will likely be in the driver’s seat in whatever events they contend. We saw some great battles in indoor between Sawyer and Lacasse, with Sawyer upending Lacasse in the 55, and then again in the 300. Sawyer has always been more of a long sprinter and Lacasse on the shorter side, but able to range up to a 400 when needed. The competition where they overlap this spring should emit fireworks for sure.
Kondi and Lane on the other hand tend to be in a class by themselves, with Kondi just missing the elusive 40 foot mark in shot this winter, but winning the D2 championship. She also won disc handily last year and I would expect the only thing to derail this quest to repeat would be an untimely injury. And that would be the same for Lane, as she not only won both the 1600 and 3200, she was a member of the winning 4×800 relay and runner-up 4×400 relay. Not to mention her stellar cross country season and her hidden success this past winter in indoor. I expect these two to share a level all their own.
Wild Cards
I’m going to sort of go out on a limb here and put Gilford’s Pearl Marvel and Mascenic’s Erin and Kaitlin O’Shea in a category I’m calling wild card. Some might say these are not truly wild pics, as Marvel won Division 2 indoor long jump, and the sisters took second in the 600 and 1500 behind D2 stalwarts Samantha Swanbon and Olivia Kavanaugh. However Marvel, only a sophomore, finished 12th at D3s last year, barely breaking 14 feet at the meet. This year she wins indoor D2s jumping more than 3 and ½ feet further. Talk about improvement.
As for the O’Sheas, they have been knocking around the top of D3 since their freshman year, running well for D3. But this winter, not only did they come in second in their events, they made those races. In each case they went for it, running both smarter and more aggressive than I’ve seen in the past. With the 800 wide open, Kaitlin should easily be in the mix there. That’s not a knock on Erin, but most likely, regardless of how the season goes, she’ll have to line up right next to the aforementioned Lane and that’s going to be a tough row to hoe for sure.
Titles up for Grabs
In order to not shoot myself in the foot, rather than predict who will win certain races I’ll let people know what events are wide open (kinda chicken, I know!) And while on paper Long Jump is up for grabs, the aforementioned Marvel is more than a foot advanced of the field. I feel these three events are wide open, as most of the top performers in 2025 have graduated. In both the Triple Jump and 300 hurdles, the top 3 have all graduated. Similarly in the 100 Hurdles, half of the final field have graduated. In each case we’ll see a new winner, but I’d be remiss to try to say who that might be.
Relays
In another stunning take, I’m going to go out on a limb here and make some relay predictions which is always problematic. Where teams can run any combination they want, and not necessarily the team that ran the qualifying time, schools often elect to mix things up, hoping for a better chance to build on their overall team score. However looking over last year’s results, while I don’t want to say I’m 100% confident, I do notice some trends.
In the 4×100, Belmont won by more than half a second with Lacasse on anchor. Not to mention they are the only top 3 team to return their entire roster. Those two checkmarks there have me picking them here early. Similarly in the 4×400, while Belmont won convincingly over Hopkinton and Gilford, both Belmont and Hopkinton graduated out two of their four and will need to replace them. Gilford on the other hand did not, and with Macy Sawyer on anchor, they dispatched the best D2 had to offer this winter and I believe deserve the nod here. And my third pick might be the craziest as I’m going to go with Campbell in the 4×800. While Campbell finished third last year to Hopkinton and Sanborn. Hopkinton lost two and Sanborn lost one; however, the Cougars have had a great winter season and if they elect to run their fastest four in this race, these other teams will need to do the same. It’s a fool to bet against a Hopkinton girls 4×8, and if they wanted to stack it, they should be considered the favorite, but something tells me the Campbell crew is going to be all in on this race.
What events will the rest of the division aim for?
It will be interesting to see how the season breaks down and where athletes choose to concentrate their energies. With certain events registering a clear set of favorites will athletes trend towards other events that are a little less crowded? For instance, Erin O’Shea ran down in distance a bit for indoor and put up a solid time in the 1000. Would she be inclined to focus on the less crowded 800 meter field? We will see. Regardless of what those other athletes not mentioned by name choose, it’s going to be an exciting spring for sure.
Boys
The Powerhouses
Division 3 is well represented at the top of NH on the boys side as well. Looking at the D2 indoor meet, we had Monadnock’s Peyton Joslyn win the 1000 and was runner up in the 1500. There was a fantastic battle between Mascoma’s Barnaby Diehn and Belmont’s Brady Filteau in the shot, with Filteau throwing consistently early to put the pressure on. These names will be big again this spring, where Diehn will benefit by having another top seeded event to add with disc. Filteau will be right there pressing all the way.
With Joslyn, I’m not going to say he should be considered as the top seed from the 800 to the 3200, as his dad wouldn’t like to have him hear that, but some might think, with good reason, that those sentiments are true. But remember the fall when other members of the boys distance scene had, sending five individuals to New Englands with Fall Mountain’s Elijah Bodanza, PCA’s Christian Barnes, Newfound’s Colin Foster and Hopkinton’s Max Goupil making up that group. While I think they all respect what Joslyn has done, none of them are going to make it easy for him.
The Wildcards
There was quite a bit of attrition at the top due to graduation so it will be interesting to see what shakes out in many of the other events. Much like the ladies the 110 and 300 Hurdles are wide open, with both last year’s winners and most of those fields having graduated. Much like Pearl Marvel wasn’t too much of a hot take, Inter-Lake’s David Walker would not be one either, other than his absence from the indoor scene. Last year he only contested the Long Jump at D3s, electing to use his division leading jump to get him directly into the Meet of Champions. With the winner and runner up in LJ graduated, it will be interesting to see what Walker elects to do his senior year, if he is even contesting either event this spring. I hope he is.
Another wild card might be the Jacob’s, Jacob Gonzalez of Sanborn and Jacob Dunn of Kearsarge who both made the final of the 110 hurdles, but either didn’t start the finals or false started the finals. It will be interesting to see how they progress this spring. It may be that these races are as wide open as they seem.
Great Battles
Along with the already aforementioned shot put show down between Filteau and Diehn (and Mascoma’s Colin Myers), the battle in the 100, 200 and 400 should be fantastic. With some powerhouse seniors graduating last year, these events aren’t only wide open but extremely competitive. The difference between the top remaining athletes are 0.58 in the 100, 0.34 in the 200, and 0.84 in the 400. There should be some great battles in these races.
Relays
Unlike the girls, I’m not really willing to got out on a limb here, as I feel we’ll see plenty of substitutions for the division meet vs. who they run during the season. But one hot take could be Saint Thomas Aquinas winning the 4×800. They really came to life this indoor season at the mid distance races and if they haven’t thought about trying to put together a quality 4×8 for D3s, maybe me writing it will inspire them. Finishing third in indoor, with only D2 distance powerhouses Oyster River and Coe-Brown in front of them, and running 8:42 in the process, I imagine the thought has crossed their minds. We will see.
And while I didn’t mention it in the wildcard section, remember the names Oliver Schartner, Aaron Hughes and Dominic LaRose, with Hughes having won the 600, and Schartner and LaRose finishing 3rd in the 1000 and 600 respectively. While those middle distance races could be crowded, these names should be bobbing along the surface.
Again, prognosticating what will happen in a sport that has eighteen different events that host 16 individuals per event (except the 4×800 with 12), that’s potentially up to 416 athletes per gender, so knowing with any sense of clarity is a bit foolhardy. I’ll say we have our strong contenders, the next best and leave it at that.
