National Capital Championships

Glebe Collegiate captured the 2017 Girls, Boys and Overall Aggregate again on the trails of Green's Creek.  Glebe teams won the Midget Girls, Midget Boys, Senior Girls and Senior Boys Titles, while placing 2nd in the Junior Girls and 3rd in the Junior Boys.

Midget Girls

A small lead group of 5, Bialowas (Glebe), Stevens (Ashbury), Heffernan-Wilker (Glebe), Tyman (Mother Teresa) and McCann (Longfields) broke away fairly early and stayed tightly bunched for the first half of the race.  Coming down off the ridge, Stevens, Bialowas and Heffernan-Wilker began to pull away and Stevens made another strong move through the swamp to put herself alone in front and maintained it through the line to win.

Glebe placed all four scorers in the top 15 to win the team title over Nepean 27-49, with Mother Teresa close behind (65).



Midget Boys

A large pack of boys played stayed together for the first half before Newman (Glebe) pushed the pace coming back down onto the soccer fields.  The entire lead group responded and stayed close until they headed out into the swamp.  Porter (Borden) made his move in through the tight twisting trails and came out onto the 600m homestretch with a comfortable lead.  Pensom (Glebe) and Allan (Ashbury) waged a bit of a war around the final lap of the soccer fields, with Pensom pulling away for the silver.

Glebe placed 7 runners in the top 15, and 6 in the top 10 to posted a huge victory over West Champs Borden, with Osgoode stepping up to grab third.

Junior Girls

As expected, Pellerin (St. Fx), Betty (Lisgar) and Newlove (St. Peter) broke away very early and established a large lead over the field.  Not much changed in the order over the second half of the race, although Pellerin made a good strong move after coming down the hill to open up some daylight, with Betty pulling away from Newlove by a similar gap over the final stretch.

East Champs Lisgar posted a narrow 5 point victory over Glebe, who upset West Champ South Carleton to nab the second OFSAA qualifying spot.

Junior Boys

Similar to the Girls, three boys broke away early, with Sanger (Glebe) pushing the pace while Fast (Ridgemont) and Meredith (De La Salle) seemed content to follow.  Meredith fell off the pace a little by the hill, and Fast put in a strong surge up the last little climb onto the ridge to break the race open.  Roy (Longfields) closed the gap over the last K, but was unable to bridge the gap and catch Meredith before the line.

Fast's teammates  ran a great race behind him to seal the victory, while Louis Riel defined pack running within their top three runners finishing within 10 seconds of each other (12-14th) with Pollock only 20 seconds back to secure the second OFSAA spot.  Glebe claimed the final podium spot in a tight battle with Longfields.

Senior Girls

A trio of Glebe girls lead the way to the hill and only East Champ Roy (Louis) was brave enough to try and stay with them.  The trio of Weston, Barrett and Shapansky stayed together until heading into the swamp when Weston broke up the party and spread the group out, with Barrett and Shapansky following in that order.  Behind them Roy was being chased down by Soroczan-Wright (Colonel By), but the early gap proved sufficient as she held on to fourth.

Glebe went 1-2-3-8 to post the lowest winning score of the day at 14, well ahead of second place All Saints, who finished 12 points up on Canterbury (84-96).

Senior Boys

Alie-Lamarche (Gloucester), Zanetti (Borden) and Rioux (Louis) led the charge early in the race and Alie-Lamarche never took his foot off the pedal as he opened a considerable gap coming back from the hill.  Zanetti stayed secure in second while behind him a real battle was brewing for third.  Rioux ran into some trouble, taking a bad fall in the swamp, while Fournier (Franco Cite), Steele (West Carleton) and Pedersen (Merivale) all queued up for the long drive to the finish.  Coming out of the swamp, Steel made the first move and opened a small gap, but Pedersen came refused to let him go as they fought all the way through the line, with Steele holding on to the smallest of margins for the bronze.

In the tightest team battle of the day, only 7 points separated 4 teams at the halfway point with Borden and Glebe tied (73), while Ashbury held a small one point advantage over Nepean 79-80).  The Glebe boys continued to move through the field while Nepean stumbled a bit over the second half, getting nipped by a hard closing Colonel By for 4th.  Glebe posted a 20 point victory (56-76) over Borden with Ashbury holding on to third place.

A big thank you to Seb Lalonde and his Louis Crew for putting on a great meet and best of luck to all NC athletes that have qualified for the OFSAA Championships next week in Petawawa.

Full results are available on the Glebe XC or Louis Riel XC page.

Ridgemont runner, Mesmous Khawla, was published in iRun magazine with her perspective on running.  Please read the article on page 36-37 of the December 2017 Issue.