NCSSAA Championships

The Gryphon Cross Country Team became the first team to ever win all 6 titles at the NCSSAA Cross Country Championships today at Walter Baker Park in Kanata, claiming the Girls, Boys and Overall Aggregates, while Colonel By and Nepean took 2nd and 3rd respectively.

The day got started with the narrowest of margins for Glebe, with a tight battle with West Champs Paul Desmarais in the Midget Girls race.  Both teams notched a team score of 74, with Glebe getting the nod based on the higher 4th place finisher, as Nowlan placed 30th to Desmarais' Godin who was 35th.

Cara MacDonald (Glebe) started cautiously but moved up through the field to run to a comfortable 16 second victory over Hageltorn (Paul Desmarais).  East Champ, May (Immaculata) held off a fast charging Porter (Franco Cite) for the bronze.

Glebe's Midget Boys packed 7 runners within 52 seconds led by Waddington who placed 5th overall.  That was enough to secure the victory over West Champs South Carleton, despite putting their top 2, Donovan (2nd) and Neidre (4th) both in the top 4.

Yannick Meredith employed the same strategy he used at the East as he simply ran away from the field early to post a 26 second victory, the largest of the day.  Borden's Porter sandwiched himself between the South Carleton boys to capture the bronze.

Glebe swept the podium in the Junior Girls race enroute to posting the lowest team score of the day (21).  Lawson (Nepean) worked hard early to try and break up the Gryphon sweep, but Bialowas (1st) and Heffernan-Wilker (2nd) pulled away coming off the steep decent and Gardiner swept past Lawson shortly after to earn the sweep for the Gryphons.

Allan (Ashbury) made his trademark break much earlier after a large pack of boys hung tightly together for the first mile in the Junior Boys race.  Allan broke up the party well before the first hill surging clear of the field and only Fillion (Louis Riel) was game to try and stay with him.  It paid off in the end as he ran to silver, ahead of West Champ Porter (Borden).  Glebe packed 5 runners within 43 seconds, lead by Newman, to secure the team title ahead of John McCrae.

The Glebe Senior Girls secured a sweep of the girls races by putting their 4 scorers all in the top 15, led by individual Champ Barrett.  Betty (Lisgar) hung close to Barrett until the second time up the hill, after which the gap slowly got larger and larger, but Betty's silver led her team to the second OFSAA qualifying spot with a 15 point win over All Saints.  Behind the front running duo, Pellerin (St. FX), Newlove (St. Peter) and MacAskill (Earl of March) battled for the bronze with Pellerin holding off Newlove down the stretch.

Glebe, Ridgemont and Colonel By fought a great battle in the final race of the day, the Senior Boys event, with only 15 points separating all three teams.  Sanger (Glebe) charged hard to the front and ran solo for much of the second half of the race.  Robertson (Bell) put in a solid effort over the second half to narrow the gap from 10 seconds to only 3 seconds by the line.  Cox (Colonel By) did his best to put his team in the mix by moving up to capture the bronze.  While the Gryphons held a narrow lead throughout the race, Ridgemont's Edwards picked 10 spots in the final K to help move his team past Colonel By, into second place, only 6 points shy of the Gryphons.

We would like to wish the best to all NCSSAA athletes moving forward as the prepare to represent their schools and our region at the OFSAA XC Championships in Dundas, ON

Full results can be found on the Glebe XC site.