Capital XC Challenge

It's along way from Timmins to Ottawa, but ESC Theriault made the trip for the first Annual Capital XC Challenge and didn't leave the City empty handed.

Theriault battled with Glebe for honours in the Senior Boys race and eked out a one point victory over the Gryphons, to give Theriault two victories on the day.  Their Junior Girls team, silver medalists at OFSAA last year were bolstered by the addition of two strong Midget Girls runners to booked end the day with victories and head home with $1300 in prize money.  Glebe won the Senior Girls and Junior Boys races and placed second in both the Senior Boys and Junior Girls to finish the day with $1600 courtesy of the Running Room, Run Ottawa and the Ottawa Lions.

Teagan Shapansky (Glebe) and Maxine Dupuis (Theriault) battled together for the first half of the Junior Girls race before Shapansky final gaped Dupuis on the 400m long beach section, and ran to an 8 second victory.  Dupuis' teammates, Kornell, Boileau, and Melancon ran brilliantly behind her finishing 3rd, 4th and 7th to easily outpace Glebe for the team title.

The Junior Boys race saw the tightest finish of the day as Joe Fast (Ridgemont), Jack Pensom (Glebe) and Zachary Meredith (De La Salle) were all side by side with 200m to go.  Fast closed the fastest to edge Pensom by 0.8 seconds with Meredith just over a second adrift of Pensom.  Glebe took the team title from Theriault with Cunningham in fourth, Sanger 6th and a shoeless Saravanamuttoo 14th.

The Glebe Senior Girls were unchallenged as Mei Mei Weston and Keili Shepherd finished well ahead of the competition, with Gryphons Grimes - 8th, Millar - 10th, Welburn - 11th and Barrett - 13th rounding out the Grpyhon's squad that placed 6 runners in the top 13.  Marin Scotten (Sir Wil) outlasted Soroczan-Wright (Colonel By) for the bronze.

Mattheiu Plamondon (Theriault) has been one of the top HS XC runners in the province in the last 4 years, with two OFSAA Gold medals and a 6th place finish his first year as a Senior.  Plamondon's strength showed as he was the class of the field running comfortably to victory in the Senior Boys race, leading his Theriault teammates to victory.  Nico Pedersen (Merivale) and Teagan Harris (Glebe) rounded out the top three.

Results are available on the Sportstats website.