Union Catholic's Keandre Kelly And Ciaran Brosnan Go 1-2 In Boys 800; Nathan Lee, Abigail Hennessy Win Miles

By Oliver Hinson of DyeStat

John Nepolitan Photo

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NEW YORK — Paige Sheppard came out on top in a thrilling duel against Jane Hickey and Natalie Dumas on Friday night in the girls 800 meters at Track Night NYC.

Sheppard, a junior at Union Catholic NJ, shot around the final curve and surged past Hickey and Dumas in the final 200 meters, breaking the tape by a convincing margin in 2:02.37. 

At the 400-meter mark, Sheppard was third with a split of 59.55 seconds, and in the first part of the second lap, it looked like she might have been out of the race completely.

“Heading into the back stretch, (Hickey and Dumas) really started to get away from me a little bit,” Sheppard said, “and I was kind of doubting myself and questioning if this was too early in my season.”

Those thoughts faded for her in crunchtime, though.

“Going around that final turn, I realized that I wanted to win more than the doubts,” Sheppard said. 

Sheppard had been excited about this race ever since the fields had been announced, and that excitement grew earlier this week when she learned that Dumas would be in the field. In three years of dominating the sport in New Jersey, the two had never raced head-to-head before Friday night.

Dumas, who raced four events at her conference championship meet on Wednesday and Thursday, didn’t have enough in the tank to answer Sheppard’s move on the final curve. She ran 2:04.00 to take third behind Sheppard and Hickey, who ran 2:03.68 for second.

The boys’race was even more of a display of Union Catholic dominance; teammates Keandre Kelly and Ciaran Brosnan went 1-2 and ran 1:52.08 and 1:52.34, respectively.

Brosnan believed they both could have approached 1:50 with faster pacing. Kelly led the pack with a split of 54.74 seconds through the 400 mark; Brosnan said they had been hoping for a split of around 52 seconds.

“From what I heard, the pacer was supposed to get out a little quicker and carry us through 600, but that didn’t happen,” Brosnan said. “It was a little disappointing… I wanted to run faster, but it it is what it is.”

Kelly has run 1:49.70 this year — he’s one of six high schoolers under 1:50 in 2026 — and Brosnan has run 1:51.84. Three weeks ago at the Arcadia Invitational, the two of them led the Union Catholic 4x800 relay squad to a win and a nation-leading time of 7:32.78. 

Heading into the championship season, that squad is without a doubt the fastest in the country, but the Vikings will have their work cut out for them if they want to challenge Herriman’s high school record of 7:26.12. Union Catholic has four boys under 1:55 this year, and using each of their season’s bests, their hypothetical time would be just above 7:30.

Nathan Lee Spoils Abdi Hassan’s Sub-4 Attempt, Abby Hennessy Breaks Facility Record

With a personal best of 4:01.45 and a plan of becoming the first sophomore to break four minutes in the mile, Abdi Hassan (Rangeview CO) was the headliner for the boys mile.

By the time he and Nathan Lee (Brunswick CT) were battling it out on the home stretch, the sub-4 dream was dead — he came through the 1,200-meter mark in 3:05.95 — but he still looked like he had the race in hand.

All of that was true until the final meter of the race, when Hassan inexplicably slowed down, prematurely celebrating his would-be victory. Lee outleaned him at the line, winning by four hundredths of a second in 4:05.25.

“I thought he had me,” Lee said. “I just wanted to hold onto him… If I had ended up finishing right next to him, I would have run a crazy fast time.”

Lee heard all about Hassan’s plan to break four minutes and with a PB of 4:08.54 coming into the race, he knew he could take a few seconds off of that if he dared to stick with Hassan. He didn’t even start to think about winning until the final 50 meters, and he didn’t know he had it until he crossed the line and looked up at the scoreboard.

For his part, Hassan didn’t appear too upset about the loss; he said he wasn’t surprised at all that Lee came up on him in the final stretch, and he spoke matter-of-factly about the finish; “he got me at the end” was his only comment.

Hassan said he’s more concerned with the postseason; he wants to chase the sub-4 barrier this year, and he knows he’ll have a few more chances to break it at national meets before the season is over. However, he also said that if he gets another shot at Lee, he’ll certainly approach the race differently.

Meanwhile, Abigail Hennessy (Westford Academy MA) won the girls race in 4:35.87, breaking the Icahn Stadium facility record of 4:37.91 set by Christina Aragon in 2015. 

Hennessy also won the mile last weekend at the Penn Relays in 4:38.13, but she said she had a completely different strategy heading into this race. At Penn, she went out conservatively, coming through 809 meters in 2:22.01 and then closing in 66 seconds. On Friday, she wanted to take the opposite approach, so she came through the halfway split in 2:19.11 and tried to hold onto that pace. She did that and then some, getting faster with every lap and closing in 68 seconds.

Behind her, Leah Starkey (Ocean Township NJ), Kaitlyn Estep (Cardinal Gibbons NC) and Maggie McCormick (Bay Shore NY) fought a close battle for second, and Starkey came out on top. She ran 4:43.17, followed very closely by Estep and McCormick, who ran 4:43.23 and 4:43.24, respectively.