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While
the city cross-country championships contested
one week earlier certainly provided a general
handicapping of the Sudbury and area talent,
there were still a handful of notable shuffles
in the placement as the NOSSA races were staged
Wednesday on St. Joseph Island.
Nowhere was this more apparent than in the
novice (Grade 9) age bracket, where both the
boys and girls races saw a flip-flopping on
the top two slots in moving from SDSSAA to
NOSSA.
Trailing Monique
Fitzmaurice (LEP) by nine seconds at Kivi
Park, Marymount freshman Lucia Salmaso turned
things around on the island located in the
St. Mary’s River, just outside of Sault
Ste. Marie, edging her local counterpart by
eight seconds to claim gold.
An avid runner
for several years now (and fledgling triathlete),
Salmaso is as devoted to her craft as any
Grade 9 student in the city.
“My coach
(Dick Moss) would look at my times and he
would tell me that I was getting better,”
explained Salmaso, who still entered the race
with relatively guarded optimism.
“He made me work on
some hills in the bush and that helped a lot.”
The other caveat to the NOSSA
meet versus the one hosted in Sudbury was
the re-introduction of the mass starts, with
athletes now fully capable of tracking the
whereabouts of their stiffest competitors
from start to finish. If nothing else, it
forced one and all into some sense of race
planning, with a 70-runner novice girls field
much different from what the locals would
have experienced with the staggered starts
last Wednesday.
“It was a little bit
nerve-wracking and intimidating seeing all
of the other girls line up on the line,”
noted Salmaso. “I just focused on trying
to get out first, just so that I’m not
stuck behind people or stuck in a big group
of people. In the middle of the race, I started
slowly pulling away from people.
“In the middle, everyone
settled down into their own pace and that’s
when I realized I wasn’t that close
to anyone anymore.”
For a 14-year-old whose presence
at local races is as common as many adults
two or three times her age, the new high school
setting brings with it the need to gradually
gain some perspective of the field.
“For Sudbury Rocks and
those kinds or races, I know who most of the
well-known athletes are here, so I know who
I should stick with,” said Salmaso.
“But with OFSAA and
these high-school runs, I don’t know
who is going, so it’s different.”
Different was also the feeling
for fellow novice Nicho Labrecque of Lo-Ellen
Park. A longtime hockey teammate and cross-country
trail adversary of city champion Adam Urso
of St. Charles, Labrecque flipped the script
at NOSSA, besting his friend by five seconds
(he was 16 seconds back at SDSSAA).
“This year, he beat
me at all of the prelims and city championships,
but I caught him today,” said Labrecque.
“All of the other races were time trials,
so I wasn’t really sure what time I
needed to run. In today’s race, I was
right with him and was able to run with him.”
If there was one recurring
theme to the race impressions of the Sudbury
contingent, it was definitely the landscape
that would great the competitors right from
the start line.
“It starts off with
a big hill, so I started off looking for Adam
to stick near him,” explained Labrecque.
“One guy joined us and I had planned
to try and take off about two km into the
race.
“Adam and the other
guy were going back and forth and battling
and they looked pretty tired, so up the hill,
I took off. I thought it was a good time to
make a move since I knew that Adam could out-sprint
me if we were close in the final kilometre.”
Even those with far more race
experience than the young novices were struck
by the challenge they faced out of the gate.
“I was terrified when
I first saw that hill — all of us were,”
said Lo-Ellen senior Liam Lacroix, with a
laugh. “We pulled up in the bus and
said, ‘do we have to run that?’
“But honestly, it wasn’t
that bad once the adrenaline was pumping.”
After finishing fourth at
city championships, the 16-year-old former
student at St. Paul Catholic Elementary School
came through with his best performance of
the season, narrowing his gap on teammate
and front-runner Kaeden Ward to just 16 seconds
after finding himself almost a minute behind
just one week ago.
“I just wanted to be
able to see Kaeden (throughout the race),”
suggested Lacroix. “We’ve been
in close competition last year, but I haven’t
been doing a well this year. That was my goal,
just to see him.”
Ironically, it was Kaeden’s
father, as much as anyone, who allowed this
goal to become a reality for Lacroix.
“I was never serious
about running until Grade 9 when Mr. Ward
(Colin, Lo-Ellen head coach) got me into it,”
said Lacroix. “I’ve been hooked
since then. Since I started at Lo-Ellen, I’ve
been following Mr. Ward’s ways. It has
just been that way. ” He most definitely
has had company. Lo-Ellen captured the team
banner in four of the six divisions, finishing
second in the other two.
Following is a complete list
of the top three in each race as well as any
top ten finishers from Sudbury:
Novice girls
– 1st:
Lucia Salmaso (MMT), 17:07
– 2nd:
Monique Fitzmaurice (LEP), 17:26
– 3rd:
Gracie Dale (LEP), 18:03
– 6th:
Tessa Ranger (HOR), 18:45
– 9th:
Maija Nener (LEP), 19:16
Novice boys
– 1st:
Nicho Labrecque (LEP), 15:11
– 2nd:
Adam Urso (SCC), 15:16
– 3rd:
Wes Buell (WFSS), 15:21
– 6th:
Hudson Crowder (LEP), 16:09
– 8th:
Max Portelance (CND), 16:17
Junior girls
– 1st:
Maren Kasunich (MSS), 18:44
– 2nd:
Lauren Pineau (LCS), 19:43
– 3rd:
Syla Swords (LEP), 20:48
– 4th:
Georgia Lepage (STB), 21:36
– 8th:
Finlay Cuza (LEP), 23:16
– 9th:
Isabelle McKague (LEP), 23:17
– 10th:
Bay Jones (LCS), 23:19
Junior boys
– 1st:
Sam Rice (LEP), 17:39
– 2nd:
James Bertrim (LCS), 18:18
– 3rd:
Brodie Pennie (MSS), 18:25
– 4th:
Owen Dobson (LEP), 18:37
– 5th:
Nolan Kuhlberg (LEP), 18:50
– 6th:
Liam Binks (LCS), 18:56
– 8th:
Jacob Barney (LEP), 19:14
– 10th:
Callum Baron (LCS), 20:28
Senior girls
– 1st:
Michelle Pilon (FC), 24:40
– 2nd:
Hannah Heimonen (SH), 24:51
– 3rd:
Emilie Mirfield (ESCA), 25:56
– 5th:
Avery Sutherland (LEP), 26:30
– 6th:
Sophia Oommen (LEP), 26:37
– 7th:
Payton Brear (LAS), 26:46
– 8th:
Sarah Lanthier (LEP), 26:59
– 10th:
Ali Bertrim (LEP), 27:32
Senior boys
– 1st:
Kaeden Ward (LEP), 20:45
– 2nd:
Liam Lacroix (LEP), 21:01
– 3rd:
Owen Roney (LCS), 21:36
– 4th:
Brandon Radey (LAS), 21:53
– 9th:
Nicolas McGee (SCC), 22:36
– 10th:
Travis Annett (LCS), 22:42
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