2023 OFSAA Recap

The 2023 OFSAA XC Championships were held on a beautiful fall day at Centennial Park in Etobicoke, ON.  Although the morning began with rain, by the time the gun sounded to start the Novice Girl's race the weather began to co-operate and some very fast conditions were available for all the races.  National Capital runners had some outstanding performances throughout the day and earned the honour of being the 3rd toughest region of the 18 associations from across Ontario.  The day culminated for the NC Region with a Senior Boys Team Title for the Glebe Gryphons.

For starters, a big shoutout to Noah Lamoureux, who became the first NC athlete to participate in the OFSAA Para race in the Intellectual division. Noah, guided by South Carleton Coach Carolyn Connell, placed 20th overall and 16th in the ID category.  

NC Novice Girls Champ Laila Lebel (Colonel By) once again led all NC athletes placing 12th in the Novice Girls race.  Behind Lebel, Riley Daniels (The Element) had an exceptional race, overtaking NC silver medalist Dahlia Loreti down the stretch.  Colonel By used Lebel's low score to turn the tables on the NC Champion Nepean Knights, who were without their top runner, Hume.  

NC Summary:

12. Lebel (Colonel By), 26. Daniels (The Element), 28. Loreti, (Pierre Savard)

14. Colonel By (487), 30. Nepean (698)

Immaculata also turned the tables in the Novice Boys race, besting NC Champs Earl of March.  Mitchel Skelton (Immaculata) was the top NC finisher, placing 22nd overall.  As Daniels had done, Luke Van Brabant (Earl of March) improved from 4th at Cities, to be the NC's second best finisher in Etobicoke, by besting Anik Bonilla (Holy Trinity) by less than a second.

NC Summary:

22. Skelton, Immaculata (22nd), 2. Van Brabant, Earl of March (32nd), 3. Bonilla, Holy Trinity (34th)

14. Immaculata (509), 18. Earl of March (549)

The Junior Girls race produced the first top 10 finish for an NC Team when last year's Novice OFSAA silver medalists from Nepean, placed 9th overall.  Little changed in terms of individual performances as the top 6 NC runners finished in similar order to the NC Championships a week ago, led by Kyra Lauter (Franco Ouest), who placed 17th.

NC Summary:

17. Lauter (Franco Ouest), 21. Van Wesenbeeck (Glebe), 28. Davies (Immaculata)

9. Nepean (419), 22. Glebe (626)

In the Junior Boys race Colonel By's make up may have changed slightly, but the results were very similar to last year when they captured the silver medal in the Novice division.  In fact, there was only a 9 point difference in the team score from one year to the next (241-250)!  Talk about consistency! Led by Owen Siderius, the Cougars placed 3 scorers in the top 40 of the 270 athlete field.  Siderius continued his year long battle with Hillcrest's Charlie Mortimer as there was little to chose between them as the crossed the line with less than a second between the two.  Evan James Rebane (Louis Riel) kept the order of finish the same as the NC Champs and was the 3rd NC athlete to cross the line.  Not to be left out, John McCrae made the Junior Boys race the only race with two NC teams in the top 8, with a 7th place finish, led by Jackson McKercher's 51st place finish.

NC Summary:

9. Mortimer (Hillcrest), 10. Siderius (Colonel By), 24 James Rebane (Louis Riel)

2. Colonel By (250), 7. John McCrae (377)

Grace Streek (Peak Academy) has dealt with abdominal pain while running all fall.  It hampered her in some of her races so much she ran the last k of several races almost doubled over.  At the Turkey Trot, it hurt so badly, she finished almost 2 minutes behind race winner Hamilton (Holy Cross Kingston), whom she bested by 43 seconds at OFSAA.  While the pain was still present, Streek stayed tall and sprinted past NC Champion Lauren Alexander down the final straight to lead all NC athletes to the finish line.  Jocelyn Giannotti (Holy Trinity) and Kate Johnston-Zemer (aka KJZ - Ashbury) also placed in the top 20, making the Senior Girl's race the best finish of any of the races for NC athletes.  Alexander's teammates ran well enough behind her to help the Gryphons place 6th overall.

NC Summary:

12. Streek (Peak Academy), 14. Alexander (Glebe), 15 Giannotti (Holy Trinity)

6. Glebe (419), 14. Ashbury (525)

The final race of the day saw both the best individual performance and the best team performance of the day for NC athletes and teams.  Saul Taler (Glebe) latched on to the back of the lead group and simply refused to let go.  Taler's 7th place finish helped lead his team to victory in the Senior Boys race in a highly anticpated battle with last year's Champions, London Central.  Central had the edge with Individual Champ McAllister and their 2nd, Royce one spot up on Glebe's #2 man Heins, but as we all know so well, it's 4 to score and Glebe's Derek Strachan and Kiefer Melinz-Dupuis, both put themselves infront of Central's third scorer to seal the deal for the Gryphons.  It was the first Senior Boys team title for any NC Team at the OFSAA Championships.  Louis Riel's Daniel Cova was the NC's second finisher, while Heins rounded out the top 3.

NC Summary

7. Taler (Glebe), 12. Cova (Louis Riel), 29. Heins (Glebe)

1. Glebe (193), 26. Immaculata (627)

NC Blogger would like to thank all athletes, coaches and parents for an outstanding season and look forward to next year when the NC Region will host the best at Mooney's Bay for the 2024 OFSAA XC Championships!  

2023 NC Recap

Glebe captured it's 13th consecutive overall aggregate at the NCSSAA XC Title at Green's Creek on Thursday.  The Gryphons won both the Senior Boy's and Senior Girl's races placed second in the Junior Girl's and fourth in the Junior Boy's.  Nepean captured the Overall Girls Title with victories in the Novice Girl's and Junior Girl's, while Immaculata won the Boy's Title, placing runner up in both the Novice Boy's and Senior Boy's races and picking up a single point in the Junior Boy's race as well, placing 8th.  

In the first race of the day, Loreti (Pierre Savard) lead much of the early going, but could not match Lebel's (Colonel By) finishing kick as she pulled away on the last loop of the soccer fields to a comfortable 10 second victory.  McGregor (Immaculata) swapped places with The Element's Daniels from last week to earn the bronze.

Nepean, despite not having a runner in the top 10, packed all four close, lead by Annie Hume's 11th place finish to beat Colonel By for the team title by a single point 79-80 and will head to OFSAA as NC Champions.  Garneau came oh so close with 84, as only 5 points separated the top 3 teams.

The Novice Boys saw the first upset of the day as Earl of March captured the NC Title.  Wagner was the big difference maker for the Lions, having placed 34th last week at the West he improved to 17th in the larger NC field.  Led by 4th place finisher Van Brabant, the drop in points was sufficient to eek out a 5 point victory over Immaculata 62-67.  Immaculata's Skelton won the race over Merivale's Deever, while Bonilla (Holy Trinity) captured the bronze.  Merivale was third with 79 points.

Nepean made it two for two capturing the Junior Girl's race.  Last year's OFSAA Novice Girl's silver medalists showed their grit and had a much more comfortable margin of victory than their Novice Girls, tallying 46 points to runner-up Glebe's 99.  John McCrae made a push to steal the spot from the Gryphons, but came up short with 107.

Lauter (Franco Ouest) followed by Davies (Immaculata) made a strong surge up the Green's Creek hill and started to pull away off the top.  Van Wesenbeeck let them go, but reeled in Davies over the final k, to capture the silver.   

Siderius (Colonel By) made a strong move heading down then back up Green's Creek hill in an attempt to break up the Junior Boy's pack and take the sting out of Mortimer's (Hillcrest) kick.  It was a decisive move that put lots of daylight between him and most of the the field, but not enough to drop Mortimer.  Mortimer had closed the gap by the time they came back out of the trails to the fields and pulled away over the second half of the race to capture his first NC XC crown.  A duo of Rebelles, James Rebane and Gorall, took the third and fourth spots, attempting to give their team the low scores needed for the second qualifying spot, but unfortunately, McKercher and Yakimuch (John McCrae) were not far behind and with the strength of their back end, Harris and Lin the Bulldogs were able to hold off the Rebelles 62-72 to claim the second spot behind the Cougars 42 points.

Alexander (Glebe) and Giannotti (Holy Trinity) played it patient, content to sit in the chase pack, along with Streek (Peak), KJZ (Ashbury) and Jeffrey (St. FX) through the first half of the race, out to the hill and back.  The chase pack slowly broke up over the second half as Alexander was able to overtake early race leader Chiumera (St. PiusX) in the woods before coming out to the fields with a comfortable gap, which she maintained over Giannotti through the finish.  Streek ran through as well to claim the bronze.  Alexander's teammates ran well behind her as Glebe posted a comfortable margin of victory, but it was behind the front running Gryphons that things were very interesting.  At the half way point, only 3 points separated West Champs Paul Desmarais and East / West runners-up Ashbury and John McCrae (135-133-132).  All teams really pushed for those valuable spots over the last mile with Ashbury emerging victorious 110-122 over McRae, with Paul Desmarais fourth with 125.  

The big story of the day was the Glebe Senior Boys who placed all four scorers in the top 6, lead by Taler, who placed second, and Strachan who captured the bronze, with Heins not far behind in fourth.  Cova (Louis Riel) prevented the Gryphon trio from sweeping the podium with a great display of strength as he started to string out the field after coming off the Green's Creek hill and continued to push over the second half to run to a 23 second victory.  Their 15 - 106 victory over Immaculata was the lowest Senior Boys team score NCSSAA history. 

As predicted, you can never count the Immaculata Boys out when they come in as underdogs.  They relish the roll and it was all the motivation they needed to wrest the second qualifying spot away from West Champs Sir Robert Borden 106 - 116.

NC Blogger would like to wish all the qualifiers the best of luck at OFSAA next week and thank everyone for a great season!

2023 National Capital Preview

Apologies for letting the blog slide again this season.  I am having difficulty keeping up, but once again we are back for the NCSSAA Preview! All pre-season results and results from the Conference Meets can be found on the Glebe XC site. The Conference Meets brought beautiful weather and great racing conditions and some very impressive performances.  While there are a few races that look very predictable, there also look to be some very tight battles in the quest for teams to earn a spot on the OFSAA dance floor on Nov 4th in Etobicoke. 

Novice Girls

Laila Lebel (Colonel By) has looked very strong all season.  Besting all Novice competition at the Turkey Trot, Gryphon Open and the East.  Her only defeat came at the hands of two Juniors at the Capital XC where she still reached the podium racing against grade 10s.  Dahlia Loretti (Pierre Savard) had a very impressive victory at the Rebelles Invitational, beating all the Juniors but was well back at West.  Is she just lurking in the weeds or was she sick? Just running to finish? East runner-up Daniels (The Element) and West Champ Cesario (St. Pius X), who along with Lebel finished 1-2-3 at the Gryphon Open, could repeat the performance at NC's unless Loretti was holding back and is ready to fire.  With only Lebel out of the top 5 expected to qualify on a team, every spot will matter.  McGregor (Immaculata), Arabackyj (De La Salle), Crawlton (Franco Ouest) and Blackadder (South Carleton) should duke it out for the final 3 spots.  

Lebel looks to lead her Cougar teammates to victory again at NC's but Nepean's tight packed top 3 of Hume, Chadwick and Renfroe will be very tough to beat.  While not likely have a single counter in the top 10, a 30 second 1 - 3 gap with a 4th, Hutchens, less than a minute back, Nepean should group very well.  Lebel should provide a low stick for Colonel By, but with a 2:30 gap back to their next scorer Amberg, the Cougars will have their work cut out for them.  The Cougars need to keep their back end as close as possible to Hutchens if they hope to upset the Knights.  Both West runner-up Earl of March and East runner-up Garneau will have to improve massively if they hope to steal a spot from the top ranked teams.

NC Blogger Picks

Teams: 1. Nepean (72), 2. Colonel By (84), 3. Garneau (108)

Individuals: 1. Lebel (Colonel By), 2. Dahlia (Pierre Savard), 3. Daniels (The Element), 

Novice Boys

West Champ Deveer (Merivale) and East Champ Skelton (Immaculata) have yet to lock horns this year and that should make for an exciting show down at Green's Creek this coming Thursday.  Deveer won the Gryphon Open a week ahead of the West, besting Skelton's teammate, Lanca, by the same margin Skelton beat him in winning the East.    While Skelton had a rather large cushion, Deveer's pursuers were considerably closer as the West looked to be the deeper of the two fields.  Bonilla (Holy Trinity) should round out the top 3, but Lanca, Lodha (Ashbury), Rose Royo (St. FX), Van Brabant (Earl of March) and Elmasry (John McCrae) can't be counted out.  With Deveer, Skelton and Lanca on top 2 contending teams, a top 8 finish could earn a spot on the OFSAA starting line.  

Merivale, Immaculata and Earl of March all match up very well and the two NC reps should come from these schools.  Merivale is most vulnerable in the larger NC field as the gap between Deveer and his teammates is over a minute and a half, while the Earl has a tight packed top 2 in Van Brabant and Zabarah (4 seconds at West) and then another two relatively close Chen and Preuss just over a minute back.  While the gap between Chen and Preuss was small, there were 7 places between them at West.  Preuss needs to close that gap in order to gain the valuable points needed to upset the Mauraders,  Immaculata will counter with Skelton and Lanca, and although the gap is a little bigger between the two, there won't be many scorers between them.  Rioux and Smith crossed the line together and only finished a minute back, giving Immaculata the tightest grouping of the three teams.  

NC Blogger's Picks

Teams: 1. Immaculata (70), 2. Merivale (85), Earl of March (90)

Individuals: 1. Deveer (Merivale), 2. Skelton (Immaculata), 3. Bonilla (Holy Trinity) 

Junior Girls

There were a few girls who spent some time in the summer, honing their speed on the track and it shows!  Both Lauter (Franco Ouest) and Van Wesenbeeck (Glebe) missed the podium last year at NC's but look to be fighting for the top spot this year.  Both girls had impressive victories at their conference meets.  Lauter won the Captial XC and was the top Junior at the Rebelles Invitational, while Van Wesenbeeck captured the Gryphon Open and was runner-up at the Turkey Trot.  Lefavire (Louis Riel) and Allibon (John McCrae) also look to be contending for top 5 spots but were outside the top 10 last year.  Defending NC Champ Davies (Immaculata) continues to look strong and was only 2 seconds back of Lauter at Captial XC and 20 seconds back of Van Wesenbeeck on two occasions this fall (West and Gryphon Open).  Behind these 5 we have a couple of Knights (Petrescue-Commene and Forestier) who were part of Nepean's OFSAA Silver Medalist Novice team last year, so a top 10 finish might put you in the conversation for the O-Show in November.  Look for Murphy (Pierre Savard), Taft (AY Jackson) and Bergevin Hemsing (De La Salle) to fight for those last individual spots.

OFSAA Silver Medalists Nepean packed well again at West and look to be heavy favorites coming into the NC Meet.  With only 90 seconds separating 1 - 4, they should easily defend their title and punch their ticket.  Last's years runner-up Glebe looks to hold on to the second spot.  With individual favorite Van Wesenbeeck, they have four more potential scorers packing within 30 seconds, but they will be far enough back to make it interesting.  If John McCrae can get a big run from Rockburne, to close the gap on her teammates, John McCrae could steal the spot.  

NC Blogger's Picks

Teams: 1. Nepean (38), 2. Glebe (82), 3. John McCrae (91)

Individuals: 1. Van Wesenbeeck (Glebe), 2. Lauter (Franco Ouest), 3. Davies (Immaculata) 

Junior Boys

Look for a repeat of the East Conference finish with Mortimer (Hillcrest), Siderius (Colonel By) and Walker (Colonel By).  The boys were 1-2-3 as Novice last year as well, but expect Mortimer to turn his gold to silver this year as he heads to the start line undefeated this season, including two close victories over Siderius. Behind this trio are a several pairs of runners challenging for team titles, with McKercher / Yakimuch (John McCrae), Gorall / James Rebane (Louis Riel) and Bou /O'Hare (Glebe).  The latter are unlikely to upset the individual order of things, but could make things messy in the team race.  Depending on the how the team battle shakes out, Lee (Mother Teresa), Recoskie (St. Joseph), Gimby (South Carleton), McIntyre (West Carleton), and Chelgoum (Gisele Lalonde) could be in the mix for a top 5 individual finish.  

The team battle however looks anything but decided.  Colonel By are the OFSAA Silver Medalists from 2022, but only return with the impressive 1-2 punch of Siderius and Walker.  After that, things drop off with almost a 3 minute gap back to their 4th at East Bordovsky.  All four teams have close 1 -2 finishers before a gap back to 3 - 4.  West Champs John McCrae pack them the closest, with only 90 seconds between 1 - 4 and had the lowest team score of the day at West tallying only 23 points.  Lead by West Champ McKercher and runner-up Yakimuch, they will spot the front running Cougar's and Rebelles a few spots, but there are so many more points be be gained on the back end.  They could find themselves heading to Etobicoke as NC Champs. Glebe and Louis Riel were only 3 points apart at East behind Colonel By, but they both need big runs to catch John McCrae. Glebe's back end Johnston and Eaton need to be ahead of McCrae's Lin and Harris, but that is a big ask.  Louis' fate rests in their 4th, Backman who was 4 minutes behind at East.  He'll need to close that gap for the Rebelles to have a chance.  

NC Blogger's Picks

Team: 1. Colonel By (48), 2. John McCrae (65), 3. Louis Riel (70)

Individuals: 1. Mortimer (Hillcrest), 2. Siderius (Colonel By), 3. Walker (Colonel By) 

Senior Girls

Chiumera (St. Pius X) has not lost an NC competition in her XC career and she looks to carry on with that in 2023.  Her only serious threat will come from East Champ Alexander (Glebe), whose only previous race was a 5th place finish at McQuaid in Rochester, NY.  Gianotti (Holy Trinity) has been Chiumera's closest pursuer with only 10 seconds separating the two at Capital XC, but that grew to 30 seconds at West.  The Hornet's Nest course favors athletes that can break away before the twisty forest loop, but can also be dreadfully cruel to athletes who go out too hard.  Alexander should be able to close on Chiumera down the stretch, but if the gap is too big coming out of the woods, it'll be over.  Streek (Peak), Jeffrey (St. FX), Villeneuve (Paul Desmarais) and K-J-Z (Ashbury), and Knight (Franco) will duke it out for the last spots on the OFSAA start line.  With only Alexander and Villeneuve likely on a team, it's unlikely any others will be able to wrest a spot away for a ticket to OFSAA.

Glebe lost 4 of 5 from their OFSAA Silver Medalist Senior team last year, but return their #1 Alexander, who will likely lead the team to victory over the Green's Creek Trails.  West Champs Paul Desmarais looks to have a solid hold on spot number 2, but West runner-up John McCrae and East runner-up Ashbury, who also won the Rebelles Invite on the Championship course will look to upset the front running favorites as all teams have rather large gaps between their top runners and their 4th.  The 3rd and fourth runners, Waddington / Sutherland (Glebe), Di Lello / Olszewski (Paul Desmarais), McKenna / McQuinn (John McCrae) and Turner / Bruce (Ashbury) hold the keys to their team's success.

NC Blogger's Picks

Teams: 1. Glebe (65), 2. Paul Desmarais (105), 3. John McCrae (132)

Individuals: 1. Chiumera (St. Pius X), 2. Alexander (Glebe), 3. Gianotti (Holy Trinity)

Senior Boys

Cova (Louis Riel)  is on a mission.  Since his defeat by Taler (Glebe) at NC and OFSAA last year, Cova has not lost to anyone from the NC region.  Taler is the defending OFSAA Junior Boys Champ and the only one with a chance of upsetting either one of these two is Strachan (Glebe).  Glebe may pack 4 in the top 6 with Heins and Melinz-Dupuis only broken up by Smith (Immaculata).  With Glebe almost assuredly winning the team title, and Immaculata, Louis, Garneau and West Champs Borden all fighting for the second team spot, 6 of the top 10 could qualify on teams, making a top 10 finish  enough grab a spot on the OFSAA starting line.  Smith, Cohen (Louis Riel), Max Wilson (Woodroffe), Barrett Goold (Sir Robert Borden) and Padoin-Castillo will fight for those spots.

Glebe went 2-4-5-6 at East with only 0.8 seconds separating their 1 - 4.  With Taler and Heins 1 - 3 in the Junior Boys race at OFSAA last year, they certainly have what it takes to not only win the NC Title, but challenge for the top of the podium at OFSAA. The battle for the second qualifying spot will be very interesting. Despite not having a runner in the top 10 at East, Garneau only finished one point behind Louis Riel.  The Junior Boys OFSAA Champion Immaculata Boys team found the step up to Senior a monumental task as they finish 4th at East, but only 7 points out of second.  We found out last year though that the Immaculata Boys show up when it counts, as they came into cities last year having been beaten by Louis only to win Cities and go on to OFSAA gold.  West Champs Borden are similar to Garneau in that they will not have a top threat, but will try to mix things up.  Louis has the up front talent, but will need a big run from Abou-Arraj if they hope to finish runner-up to Glebe again.  Once again, the fate of all four teams rest with their 4th.  

NC Blogger's Picks

Team: 1. Glebe (15), 2. Borden (143), 3.Louis Riel (145)

Individuals: Cova 1. (Louis Riel), 2. Taler (Glebe), 3. Strachan (Glebe)

Best of luck to all NC Athletes!