Hundreds of
student athletes from across the province
met on the starting line at Kivi Park Saturday,
for the 2019 OFSAA Cross Country Championships.
In less than ideal conditions,
these students 18 years of age or younger,
battled through the freshly falling snow for
the chance to be victorious in their respective
division.
Runners
battle elements, each other at OFSAA cross-country
More
from Randy Pascal For The Sudbury Star
Published on: November 4, 2019
You have to give
the kids credit. Braving some of the worst
conditions that OFSAA cross-country has ever
seen, a gathering of provincial runners more
than 1,600 strong trekked their way through
the new fallen snow on Saturday at Kivi Park,
the trails gradually giving way to mud and
very little traction, all with temperatures
ranging right around zero mark.
And while some
might think that all of these factors add
up to a huge advantage for the contingent
of athletes representing schools north of
Barrie, such simply wasn’t the case
— which is what makes the jaw-dropping
performance that was turned in by Confederation
Chargers freshman Carson Crane all that more
amazing.
After not capturing
gold at either the SDSSAA or NOSSA championships
— he finished just back of College Notre
Dame rookie and AAA hockey teammate Alex Pharand
at both events — Crane registered the
top performance by any local athlete, save
the more modestly numbered para grouping,
finishing eighth in his first appearance at
the Ontario high school showdown.
“I knew
that there was going to be some hard competition,”
Crane said on Saturday. “From pre-OFSAA,
where I finished ninth, I knew that I would
have to race really hard to finish 10th. That
was my goal, top 10.”
What Crane likely
did not know was that only a fraction of the
top runners in the province actually made
their way up for the Fielding Memorial race
in early October (unofficially, pre-OFSAA),
and that the majority of local athletes who
earned a top-five finish at that race dropped
down significantly on Saturday when all hands
were on deck.
Racing with spikes
for the very first time, Crane may have actually
benefitted from his hockey background, as
a throng of 255 competitors bolted at the
sound of the gun. “From the beginning,
there were a lot of people in front of me
and beside me, so I had to kind of keep my
elbows up to get into a good spot,”
he said.
“About
halfway through the race, it was all bunched
up, and then it finally broke through, and
it was single running the rest of the way.”
On a local level,
Adam Chebbi of Lo-Ellen also moved up, relative
to his local peer group, placing 58th (15:39.42),
while both Pharand (75th, 15:56.23) and Alex
Chartier of St. Charles College (80th, 15:58.05)
fell victim to the treacherous footing, overcoming
early tumbles before weaving their way through
the pack.
If Crane remains
a tad unaware of the magnitude of his competition,
pretty much the norm for most Grade 9 entries
at OFSAA, Laurentian cross-country coach Darren
Jermyn is keenly aware of the scale of this
event.
“At the
top end, these are very, very high level athletes,”
Jermyn said. “Obviously the top in the
province at the high school level, but many
of them are top in the country at their age
group, and many of them are at the elite level,
where they compete internationally.”
Senior girls
champion Abbey Juhasz (Resurrection CSS, Kitchener)
has already given her verbal commitment to
the Tulsa University Hurricanes track and
field program, a recruiting coup that the
Oklahoma based institution would particularly
appreciate after their Canadian import posted
a victory by some 50 seconds on Saturday.
“I always
look to get to the front pack first and then
when that happened pretty quickly, I was pleasantly
surprised,” said Juhasz, who finished
14th one year ago, but raced while dealing
with some nagging injuries. “After I
opened that gap, I felt really comfortable
at that point and wanted to hold that lead
as long as possible.
“Last year,
I was given a really good chance of winning
OFSAA, before I was injured, just because
of my pre-OFSAA time, which put me as a favourite
to win. Because I was so injured, it did not
work out for me that way. To put in so much
hard work and have it not be possible for
me because I didn’t take good enough
care of my body was really disappointing.”
For as much as
the running conditions were a key topic of
conversation on Saturday, the results, by
and large, carried only a small handful of
surprises, at the front end of the pack.
“It wasn’t
actually that cold,” said Darren Jermyn.
“It was more the footing, the footing
was an issue. “But
the top athletes are the fittest athletes,
and they are also the most competitive athletes,
and they find a way to win. Everybody runs
on the same surface, everybody is wearing
a pair of spikes, so the fittest kids and
the fastest kids will win.”
Following are results of the
top three finishers in each race, along with
the top three SDSSAA representatives in each
race:
Senior boys
1st — Mathew Mason (Sir
Wilfrid Laurier, London) — 21:12
2nd — Scott Arndt (Waterloo)
— 21:15.00
3rd — Dakota Goguen
(Sir William Mulock, Newmarket) — 21:20.43
37th — Calum Passi (Lasalle)
— 22:55.93
39th — Kendyn Mashinter
(Lo-Ellen) — 22:57.69
70th — Andre Larocque
(Notre Dame) — 23:29.63
Senior girls
1st — Abbey Juhasz (Resurrection,
Kitchener) — 24:25.40
2nd — Petal Palmer (Mother
Theresa, Scarborough) — 25:15.54
3rd — Jadyn Keeler (Innisdale,
Barrie) — 25:17.41
71st — Meredith Kusnierczyk
(Lo-Ellen) — 28:24.28
101st — Delaney Bourget
(Lo-Ellen) — 29:17.60
135th — Kristen Mrozewski
(Lo-Ellen) — 29:58.62
Junior Boys
1st — Riley Flemington
(Appleby College, Oakville) — 18:17.63
2nd — Heath McAllister
(London Central) — 18:39.54
3rd — William Cowling
(Uxbridge) — 18:41.16
69th — Patrick Wiss
(Lo-Ellen) — 20:30.34
77th — Ian MacKenzie
(Confederation) — 20:40.83
102nd — Emmett Thomson
(Lasalle) — 21:02.46
Junior girls
1st — Sofia Bowe (Etobicoke
Arts, Toronto) — 21:28.27
2nd — Sierra Rodrigues
(St. Michael CSS, Bolton) — 21:36.42
3rd — Chantal Channing
(Orangeville) — 21:37.15
51st — Avery Sutherland
(Lo-Ellen) — 23:23.46
114th — Abby Lanteigne
(Lockerby) — 24:53.00
162nd — Maggie Parks
(Lo-Ellen) — 25:54.72
Novice boys
1st — Erik Unger (Adam
Scott, Peterborough) — 13:56.14
2nd — Noah Booth (Frontenac,
Kingston) — 14:21.97
3rd — Nate Rose (Winston
Churchill, St. Catharines) — 14:24.57
8th — Carson Crane (Confederation)
— 14:49.22
58th — Adam Chebbi (Lo-Ellen)
— 15:39.42
75th — Alex Pharand
(Notre-Dame) — 15:56.23
Novice girls
1st — Kyla Martin (Joan
of Arc, Barrie) — 15:37.09
2nd — Brooklyn Quanz
(Saugeen, Port Elgin) — 15:53.04
3rd — Alex Campbell
(KCVI, Kingston) — 16:05.24
53rd — Sophia Oommen
(Lo-Ellen) — 17:44.37
138th — Gabby Alexander
(Lo-Ellen) — 18:59.64
141st — Mia Toner (Sacre
Coeur) — 19:06.11
Co-ed para
1st — Corey McCaugherty
(Sydenham) — 13:26.21
2nd — Joshua Roberto
(Paul Dwyer SS, Oshawa) — 13:55.31
3rd — Kobe Selman (St.
Catharines) — 13:55.89
7th — Raiden Byers (Lasalle)
— 15:26.64
9th — Riley Cornwaithe
(Lasalle) — 15:44.94
18th — James Butcher
(Lasalle) — 17:21.82
Randy Pascal is That Sudbury
Sports Guy. His column runs regularly in The
Sudbury Star.
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