NC Championships

Glebe dominated the 2011 National Capital Secondary Schools Cross Country Running Championships winning 5 of 6 races and placing 3rd in the Junior Girls, qualifying all 6 teams for OFSAA at the Hornet's Nest next weekend.

The day started off with the MG showdown between East Champs Canterbury and West Champs Glebe. The upfront battle between Stenman-Fahey / Codrington and Livingstone / Smith looked promising as they reached the 'HILL' but Earl of March's Van Wyk pulled away on the downhill and then powered away from the lead pack coming up and ran unchallenged over the final kilometre to post an 8 second victory over Stenman-Fahey. Smith held off a fast closing Codrington to claim the bronze. The return to form of Tara Robinson gave the Gryphons 3 scorers in the top 10 to help secure the victory, with 51 points. Earl of March packed their remaining scorers within 20 seconds and four places of each other (21st-25th) to narrowly slip past Canterbury for second (71-74) . Franco Ouest (107) picked up the final OFSAA qualifying spot.

Cameron Slupieks (Colonel By) put his lack luster performance from last weeks East Conference Meet behind him. 11th in the East last week, almost 2 minutes behind Kinahan (Lisgar), Slupieks led from the gun and covered the 5220m course almost 3 minutes faster than last week. After Slupieks, things unfolded pretty much as expected, with West Champ Walia (SRB) finishing second, Bernst (Glebe) claiming the bronze and Kinhan (Lisgar) 4th. Slupieks wasn't the only one to improve his placing as a couple of Bernst's teammates had big improvements as well to help Glebe steal the team title from East Champs Beatrice Desloges. Ford moved up to 15th (17th @ West) and Sporell 22nd (28th @ West) and Marshall finished 25th to give Glebe a 20 point victory. Lisgar edged out Louis Riel (98-100) for third.

Illness may have slowed Earl's top runner, Niemi (17th), but her Lion's teammates certainly picked up the slack, including a big run from last weeks #5 Pappas who improved from 35th at the West to 15th at the NC Meet and the LIONS cruised to the largest victory of the day, 43 points (54-97), over West runner up Sir Robert Borden. Glebe and All Saints made it 4 for 4 for the West Conference, finishing 3rd and 4th respectively. The lead pack remained tightly bunched, even up the 'HILL' as all the key players stayed in touch until the final kiolmetre. West Champ Robertson (Brookfield) pulled away slowly to post an 11 second victory over East Champ Scheunert (Garneau), with East runner up Grimes earning the bronze.

What is it with Junior Boys?? At the pre-OFSAA - Haw-X Invite, all runners stayed on course except for the lead juniors, who turned and headed off down the wrong side of the Dome. Despite running the course correctly last week, Howard led his teammate off in the wrong direction at the exact same spot. This time however, the mistake was due to marshall error, as some student spectators, thinking it might be funny to mess up the runners, moved a rope across the course, directing the two AY runners down the wrong path. The marshalls quickly corrected the mistake and the runners corrected the error, but lost some time. Despite losing his lead, Howard reclaimed the lead in the final kilometre and ran to a 7 second victory, while Jarvis, 2nd at the time of the misdirection, finished 5th. Lycee Claudel's Trapeau, claimed the silver ahead of last weeks East Champ McHugh (Hillcrest). Glebe placed all 4 runners within a minute of each other to earn the narrowest margin of victory over East Champs Immaculata (95-99). South Carleton edged Woodroffe for 3rd (109-111).

The Senior Girls race produced the same finish it had a week ago at the West Conference, with Emma Galbraith (Franco Ouest) winning her third consecutive XC gold. Last year's JG Champion Rhead (Glebe) was second while O'Higgins (Bell) won the bronze. East Champ Lindsay Kary (St. Matt) was 4th. Rhead's teammate Derksen improved upon her 8th place finish at the West, placing 7th and Glebe had it's top two in before Colonel By's Weidemann, which proved to be enough to defeat the Cougars for the SG title (66-79). Bell was third with 88, while Ashbury grabbed the fourth and final OFSAA qualifying spot.

The Senior Boys lead pack stayed together through the first couple of kilometres, with 10 - 12 athletes all tightly bunched as they went off down the paths towards the hill. Defending OFSAA Champion Yves Sikubwabo made his move just past the half-way mark, and by the time they came back out of the trails, Yves had a comfortable 15 second lead, which he stretched out to 48 seconds by the end of the race, setting his 5th course record in as many races this season. Alex Behre (Woodroffe) made a strong move through the final 1K loop in the woods to pull away from the chase pack which included Donald (Nepean), Marhsall (Glebe) and Day (Holy Trinity). Only Donald could stay close, while Day, who fell off the group earliest used his powerful finishing kick to mow down Marhsall in the homestretch. Glebe placed all four scorers in the top 17, while west rival Nepean placed 4 in the top 18 to finish 1 - 2 respectively (36-45) and post the two lowest team scores of the day. Colonel By was a close third (56), while Merivale (110) grabbed the final qualifying spot.

NC High School XC would like to thank all the volunteers who put in many long hours to not only put on today's race, but various events throughout the season. Hope to see you all next week at OFSAA!!

Full results are posted on the Glebe XC page