PROVIDENCE — Mother Nature must be a track fan.

How else do you explain that after three days of rain and overcast skies, the sun came out yesterday morning just in time to make sure it would be a beautiful day for the state high school track championships?

Oh, sure, the meteorologists will tell you that it was movement of some highs and lows that produced yesterday’s sunny skies and 90-degree temperatures.

But how often are the meteorologists on target?

I prefer to think that Mother Nature understands that of the 25,000 student-athletes who play high school sports in Rhode Island, nobody deserves a day in the sun more than the 3,000 who participate in outdoor track.

You don’t run track — or, for that matter, heave a shot put or throw a javelin — because you want to see your name in headlines. Usually the most media attention track people get for their accomplishments is seeing their name in agate type.

Track participants don’t perform in front of big crowds like their classmates who play basketball, hockey and football. Springtime baseball and softball games in New England don’t get big crowds, but they’re bigger than the audience at most track meets.

Maybe there are a few parents who can find the time to spend two or three hours at a track meet on a Monday or Tuesday afternoon in April or early May, but, unfortunately, in this day and age there are not a lot of parents who have that much free time. And forget about your friends coming to your track meet. Track meets take time — hours upon hours — and today’s teenagers are playing other sports and doing too many other things to spend hours at regular-season track meets.

“Most people don’t go to the track meets,” said Westerly High junior Rachelle Sylvia.

That’s why yesterday was so important for Sylvia and the 734 other competitors who had qualified for the championship competition.

For there was Sylvia standing on the top of the medal stand after she had won the 400-meter run, waving to her family and friends who were seated among the large crowd in the stands on the visitors’ side of Brown Stadium.

“Today everybody is cheering for you,” added Sylvia.

Large crowds and high school track usually is an oxymoron, but not yesterday.

They started running at 2 o’clock, and four hours later there still were at least 500 people in the stands when Hope High’s Matt Washington completed his amazing high school career by capturing his third individual championship of the day, with a victory in the 400-meter run.

“I looked in the crowd and saw a lot of my family and friends. They really came out and supported me today. This is great,” said Washington.

If the weather is good, the state meet is the day track runners, throwers and jumpers hear the cheers.

That’s why it’s great that Mother Nature is a track fan.

“It’s a beautiful day,” said veteran Hope track coach Thom Spann. “They have a crowd here. This is the only day you get this kind of turnout.”

The irony, of course, is that probably more Rhode Island high school students who take part in track go on to compete at the Division I college level than those in any other sport.

Yesterday at Brown, there was Victoria Flowers and Patrick Onye, the Classical weight stars who are headed to UConn and the University of Indiana, respectively, in the fall. East Greenwich’s Alexa Monti is an All-State soccer and basketball player, but she will be running track at Yale. Jeanne Mack, who closed out her sensational distance career with titles in the 800, 1,500 and 3,000, is headed to Harvard. There were a few others competing at Brown who also will be taking part in Division I track programs, and there were several underclassmen in action yesterday who will be getting recruiting letters from Division I coaches over the next few months.

Despite all of the talent, track people spend most of their high school careers in the shadows. But yesterday they had their day in the sun.

“It’s the best. Every height you clear, you heard hands clapping for you,” said Middletown’s Jacob Matthews after he broke the meet record and tied the state mark with a leap of 15 feet in the pole vault.

“I couldn’t really hear anything during the race. I was just trying to stay focused. But down the stretch I heard them (the crowd) and it motivated me a little bit,” said Westerly’s Andrew Springer after he broke a 23-year-old state record in the 1,500 with a time of 3:55.05.

Of course, you didn’t have to walk out of Brown Stadium yesterday carrying a gold medal to have a feeling of satisfaction. Yesterday, hundreds of teenagers heard the cheers and had the satisfaction of achieving their personal-best performances, even if they finished well behind the champion.

That’s what makes track unique, and yesterday Mother Nature made it even better.

jgillool@projo.com