Canton well represented in 122nd Boston Marathon

Canton’s Sean McNeil crosses the finish line to win the 2017 Newport Half Marathon.

The 122nd running of the Boston Marathon gets underway at 10 a.m. this coming Monday in Hopkinton, and among those set to depart from Main Street on the famed 26.2-mile course are 18 registered runners from Canton.

This year’s local contingent, according to the official entry list posted by the Boston Athletic Association, consists of seven men and 11 women, ranging in age from 22 to 58. The majority of the Canton marathoners are starting in the fourth and final wave, which consists of a mix of lower-tier qualified runners and non-qualified charity runners. However, Canton also has a few entrants assigned to higher waves, notably 26-year-old Sean McNeil, who earned a starting spot in the coveted Wave 1/Corral 1 along with other top qualifiers, and 36-year-old race veteran Louis Raffetto, who will be starting his 12th Boston Marathon in Wave 1/Corral 4.

McNeil, a 2009 Canton High School graduate and former college hockey player at Stonehill, earned his starting position by virtue of his winning performance in the 2016 Newport Marathon, where he bested a field of more than 800 runners with a time of 2:45:50. He has since gone on to win the Newport Half Marathon — beating out an even bigger field of 2,100 competitors — and last April he completed his first ever Boston Marathon with a time of 3:02:06.

McNeil said he’s “very excited” to be competing again in the world’s most famous long-distance running event. “Last year was my first Boston Marathon so I’m hoping to learn from the experience,” he said. “It’s not an easy course.”

McNeil said he runs competitively but also because he enjoys it, and if he has one goal for Marathon Monday, it is to improve on his personal-best time of 2:43:53, which he set back in 2016 in winning the Hyannis Marathon.

As for Raffetto, he too belongs in the competitive class of runners and has posted some stellar marathon times throughout his career, including a personal-best 2:29:25 at the 2010 Boston Marathon, where he finished 71st out of more than 22,000 runners, and a 2:30:09 in 2009 that was good for 50th overall.

Race veteran Louis Raffetto will be running his 12th Boston Marathon.

Raffetto has posted slightly slower times in his last two Boston Marathons but has never gone above 2:58 and has an 11-year average of approximately 2:43. A Canton resident since 2013, he is a fixture on the local road racing circuit and has won all of the major town running events, including the Canton Road Race (formerly Reebok Road Race), Canton Fall Classic, and July Fourth Road Race, for which he currently holds the course record.

Besides McNeil and Raffetto, Canton’s other top marathoner set to compete this year is 42-year-old Andrew Wilkins, a 10-time participant who has flirted with the three-hour mark and will begin in Wave 2/Corral 1, and three-time participant Maryann Johnson, who is starting in Wave 3 after finishing right around the qualifying standard for her age group in the previous year’s race.

This year’s crop of local marathoners also features several first-time participants who are running in support of a charity, including Canton High graduates Meghan Lennon ’13 and Haley Gaughan ’12 and Thayer Academy alumna Morgan O’Brien ’12.

Lennon, a former three-sport athlete at CHS who went on to star on the lacrosse team at Endicott College, is now a nurse at Mass. Eye and Ear and is running in support of Operation Airway, which aims to provide airway reconstructive surgery to children in the U.S. and abroad.

Gaughan, also a former three-sport athlete, is running in support of the Boys & Girls Club of Boston as a member of Team John Hancock, and O’Brien, a former standout soccer player, is running as a member of Teddy’s Team (launched by Patriots legend Teddy Bruschi) in support of stroke and heart disease prevention. An events manager for a Boston area nonprofit, O’Brien decided to run for Teddy’s Team in honor of her “Heart Hero,” her uncle John O’Brien of Canton, who is on the road to recovery after suffering a severe heart attack.

Also gearing up for Monday’s marathon is another Teddy’s Team alumna, Kendra Butters — daughter of Canton town accountant Kathy Butters — who will be running for the second time after completing the course three years ago in honor of her grandmother, a stroke victim.

Other Canton residents set to run the marathon this year for a charitable cause include: Stephen Teague on behalf of Brigham and Women’s Stepping Strong Team; Theresa Regan with the Samaritans, a suicide prevention organization; Caitlyn Weller on behalf of the Children’s Advocacy Center of Suffolk County; Leah Sansone for the Boston Firemen’s Relief Fund; Michelle O’Hara with Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital’s Race for Rehab team; and Brian Grant for the Boston Bulldogs, a running club for individuals recovering from addiction.

To search the entry list for specific marathon participants or for detailed event information, visit the Boston Marathon page at www.baa.org.

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