NCSSAA Championships

Glebe Collegiate swept the Girl's races while taking the Junior and Senior Boys races as well en route to the Overall Aggregate at the 2019 NCSSAA XC Championships at the Hornet's Nest.  Footing was sloppy but despite a brief shower during the Novice Girls race, the weather held and was a beautiful fall day for Cross Country.  Isn't every day a beautiful day for XC?

The Novice Girls kicked things off with a tight three way battle between the pre-race favorites, teammates Gormley and Wojtyk (Glebe) and Nepean's Hegan.  Gormley and Hegan traded the lead throughout with Wojtyk content to let the other two push the pace as the trio separated themselves from the pack pretty quickly.  It as Gormley who struck first, just past half way, coming down off the ridge, but the gap never got big enough and she was caught shortly after.  Hegan tried to break things up through the back, twisty, muddy loop behind the Dome, but was unable to shake her pursuers.  Once back out onto the soccer fields Gormley and Wojtyk finally broke away, with Gormley just pulling away from her teammate in the final 50m.  The leading Gryphons were followed by Bennett (11th) and McColgan (16th) to take the team title with 30 points, well ahead of second, East Champs Beatrice Desloges (109) who were lead by 5th place individual Lortie.

Colonel By was considered the pre-race favorites in the Novice Boys and they did not disappoint, placing 5 runners in the top 21, behind their leading duo of Loganathan (4th) and Lacasse (5th), but the battle for the second spot behind them was very heated.  As expected it was the workhorses that often toil in obscurity in the middle of the pack that made the difference in the end.  Four teams, John McCrae, Mother Teresa, Immaculata and Paul Desmarias all finished within 7 points (89-96).  Immaculata placed 2 in the top 10, individual silver medalist Vrankovic and Padoin-Castillo (9th), while McCrae had individual Champ, Legare and Mother Teresa had bronze medallist Kennedy.  While Demarais' top duo was 13th and 14th, Vivas-Moncado and Ledain, their 3rd and 4th, Jalbu (29) and Watt (33) were able to help them capture the team title with a score of 89 points, with Mother Teresa and Immaculata tied for 3rd (94) and John McCrae 5th (96).

Legare pushed hard from the gun and only Kennedy was able to stay close until about 1k, when up the first steep accent to the top of the ridge, he lost his footing and went down.  From then on, Legare was alone out front.  Vrankovic managed to keep him in sight, but Legare was never seriously threatened throughout the race.

The Junior Girl's race saw a tight battle between West Champ Murchison (Mother Teresa) and MacDonald (Glebe) who separated themselves pretty early from their only real pursuers Porter (Franco Cite) and May (Immaculata).  Murchison made several attempts to shake MacDonald but was unable to do so throughout the early going. With only 400m to go, MacDonald went to the front in a bid to steal the race, but Murchison refused to let her go and charged back past MacDonald in the final 100m to take the win.  Porter was able to pull away from May to claim the bronze.

Behind MacDonald, her teammates ran well and secured the victory for the Gryphons ahead of Colonel By, who was once again led by East Champ Ginther, who placed 7th.

Glebe captured the Junior Boys race in expected fashion, with only 37 seconds separating their 1st through 5th runners.  Led by Welburn's 4th place finish, the Gryphon's tallied 40 points, while John McCrae, 3rd at West, had strong runs behind their top finisher, Sendybyl (5th), to turn the tables on Nepean and Sir Robert Borden to nab the second qualifying spot.  Borden's Porter did his part, pushing hard from the front for almost the entire race.  A rather large lead pack stayed closely bunched behind out to the Hill and back, but Porter started to pull away before heading up to the ridge, with only Meredith (De La Salle) able to cover his move.  Meredith waited patiently until the finishing stretch before unleashing his kick to sprint to a small three second victory, but the duo where well ahead of the chase pack in which Beatrice Desloges' Trudel won the race for bronze.

The Senior Girls race saw a lead trio establish themselves quite early in the race with Betty (Lisgar), Pellerin (St. Francis Xavier) and Newlove (St. Peter) setting a quick pace and putting early daylight between themselves and the field.  Heading into the mud maze behind the Dome the three stayed tightly bunched, but when they emerged it was just Betty and Newlove left to duke it out over the final 600m.  Newlove made the first move as they passed the start line area, but Betty found another gear and pulled away over the final loop around the fields.  Pellerin ran solo the final k to capture the bronze.  Bialowas (Glebe) ran solo for much of the entire race, behind the lead trio but ahead of the rest to lead her Gryphons to a comfortable victory.  Just over a minute separated her from Glebe's 4th, Heffernan-Wilker (10th) and Glebe was able to take the win with 29 points over East Champs Lisgar (39), despite Wojtyk's strong performance that put two Lisgar runners in the top 5.

Gryphon teammates Saravanamutto and Sanger set a blistering pace from the gun and opened a 10 second lead over the first kilometre of the race.  Fast (Ridgemont) was patient and waited until the Hill to move his way back into contention.  Cresting the Hill, he and Sanger started to pull away.  Coming down off the ridge a mile later, Fast moved again and from then on, it was him against the clock and Sanger was left in no man's land for the remainder of the race.  Allan (Ashbury) hauled in Saravanamuttoo through the maze but the early quick pace didn't take too much out of the Gryphon as he was able to hold off Allan down the stretch to claim the bronze.  Behind the two medalists, the Gryphon's ran well with Cino (7th) and Pensom (14th) to post the lowest team score of the day (26).  Louis Riel showed off their stuff on their home course putting together a strong team performance to edge out Ridgemont (76-79) for the second OFSAA qualifying spot.  Led by Fillion (5th), the Rebelles 2-4 stayed within 30 seconds of each other with Lejeunesse (20th), Ducharme (24th) and Pollock (26th), which was enough to steal the race from Ridgemont, despite Ridgemont having three (Fast, Omar Ali and Luqman) in before the Rebelles second scorer.

Thank you to NC hosts Ken and Sebastien from Louis Riel for an excellent day of racing and best of luck to the NC athletes heading up to Sudbury to represent their respective schools and our region at the OFSAA XC Championships.

Full Results can be found on the Glebe XC site or louisrielathxc.com








Teresa