National Capital athletes had some very strong performances on a very tough, hilly, muddy and at times treacherous course.
The Glebe Midget Girls started the day off on a good note. Lead by Teagan Shapansky's 8th place finish, the Gryphons scored 287 points to edge East Northumberland by 5 points in a tight batle for the bronze medal that saw third through 6th separated by only 21 points. Shapansky was followed by teammates Rosayln Barrett (34th), Sarah MacIntosh (61st) and Taya Davison (184th).
Glebe's Midget Boys tried to equal the performance of the girls and came very close, finishing in a tie for 5th, but winning on the tiebreaker (higher 4th place finisher). National Capital Champion Brady Johnston-Neilson (Sir Robert Borden) ran a strong race to capture antique bronze, while Jack Pensom led the Gryphons with a 5th place finish and was followed by Henry Morris (53rd), Tom Lane (100) and Aidan Westdal (101).
A scary fall for Weston might have been the end of her comeback attempt, but she bounced up quickly and continued her pursuit, and when Chau had a fall of her own Weston pounced. Chau took considerably longer to get back up and moving and it wasn't long afterward that Weston went charging by and ran unchallenged over the last few hundred metres to the finish line. Weston's teammates Mzia Lee Pottie (87), Suzannah Barrett (89) and Lauren Mouser (126) secured yet another podium finish for the Gryphon Girls.
Philippe Turcanu (Bell) put his poor race at the NC meet behind him in a big way. Turcanu, ran brilliantly up and down the hills of Highlands Nordic to capture antique bronze, finishing 20 seconds ahead of National Capital Champion Jonathan Rioux (Louis Riel) who placed 8th. Sir Robert Borden managed to crack the top 10, placing 10th overall lead by Devon Pegrum (54th) with teammates Jared Poole (78), Lucas Zanetti (105) and Jacob Price (184) rounding out the scoring for the Bengals.
The Glebe Senior Girls have been dominant over the past two seasons and were one of a few of the favorites that performed as expected on the unpredictable terrain. Glebe packed all four scorers inside the top 40. Glebe had a tight pack upfront in Katherine Marshall (10th), Ali Pouw (11th) and Keili Shepherd (16th) who all finished within 25 seconds of each other, with Cassidy Grimes (40th) less than a minute back.
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A bad fall unfortunately put an end to Shona McCulloch's undefeated streak as she was unable to finish the race. McCulloch ran side by side with Champion Maddie Ghazarian for most of the race until about 1K to go when McCulloch started to encounter some difficulties, eventually collapsing with about 600m to go. All NC athletes and coaches wish her a speedy recovery and hope to see her tearing up XC courses again soon.
Franco Ouest ensured that the NC Region put a team in the top 10 in every single race as they finished 8th in a very deep, competitive Senior Boys field, extracting a measure of revenge for their loss to Glebe at the NC Championships. Nicholas Roberts (30), Michael Mather (83), Noah Bouma (131) and Justin Bullock (191) tallied for the Vikings.
Hamam Quider (Woodroffe) was the lone NC competitor in the Para race, placing 10th overall.
NC Blogger would like to once again thank everyone for a great season and congratulate all teams on their success. Full results can be found on www.trackdatabase.com
