2009 National Capital Cross Country Championships

Merivale won the Boy's Aggregate, while Nepean won the Girl's, enroute to sharing the Overall Aggregate. Each team scored 24 points to edge out Glebe with 22. All three teams had tied the previous week at the West Conference Meet. The Meet had some excellent performances and a few surprises to dish up, but the overriding story for the year will be H1N1. Early flu season decimated some teams chances, and wiped out almost half of one teams entire roster. Of the 922 athletes entered in the meet only 647 managed to make it to the finish line.

Midget Girls
Borden's girls were the first to be effected by the flu. Despite their top 3 running very well (4-7-10) led by Kayla Adenok, they were without a forth scoring runner. Bell had some adversity to overcome as well as their #4 had badly sprained an ankle at a soccer match, but without Borden in the team competition ran to an easy victory 63-113 over South Carleton. Bell's Samantha Klus broke away early and was never seriously challenged in running to a 6 second victory over Bridget Hayes (Mother Teresa), with East Champ Lindsay Kary (St. Matthew) capturing the bronze.

Midget Boys
West Champs Glebe was hit by the flu early, but had #3 back in the line up for the race, but he cleary wasn't recovered. Despite top 20 potential, Nathaniel Sneyd-Dewar struggled home in 73rd place, leaving the door open for East Champs Louis Riel, whose one through four all ran exceptionally well, led by Zach Sukunda (4th) to hold off West runner up South Carleton, led by Kyle McCleery (2nd) 78-96. Mickey Day (Holy Trinity) won the race in 17:07 for a 20 second victory over McCleery, while Rubin Kataki (Merviale) earned the bronze.

Junior Girls
The most impressive win of the day came from the Glebe Junior Girls who did almost exactly the same thing as they had done the previous week packing all 5 runners in the top 17 places, paced by Charlene Rhead who earned the bronze to finish with 40 points. Individual Champion Emma Galbraith led her Franco Ouest team to the second OFSAA qualifying spot, while Mel Campeau (Louis Riel) earned the individual Silver medal.

Junior Boys
Merivale's junior boys packed their 2 through 4 within 50 seconds (10-15-18) behind individual Champ Palamar to capture the Junior Boys team title with 44 points. East Champs Beatrice Desloges earned the second spot with 69 points. Nepean's Scott Donald followed Palamar to the line for the silver with Colonel By's Sebastien Saville earning the bronze.

Senior Girls
Despite missing their top runner (Beanlands), last years OFSAA junior girls bronze medalists Colonel By managed to steal the Senior Girls race by a single point from Nepean 64-65. All Saints' Joanna Brown, the defending OFSAA silver medalist once again started conservatively and steadily moved through the field, taking over just before the halfway point and running to a comfortable 21 second victory over Heather Slinn (Hillcrest) and Isabelle Kanz (Garneau).

Senior Boys
Borden made up for the disappointment at the beginning of the day by ending it with a bang. Three of the four Borden runners improved on their placings from the West meet despite the larger fields (6-8-22-24 vs. 5-12-14-23) to hand Merivale their first defeat of the season against NC competition 54-60. Kieran Day matched the victory of his younger brother defeating East Champ Andrew Towle (Ottawa Tech) while Colonel By's Ian Holstead captured the bronze.

FULL RESULTS