West Conference Championships

Sir Robert Borden captured the Boy's and Overall Aggregates, while Nepean retained their Girl's Aggregate title at the 2018 West Conference Cross Country Championships.  Borden managed to capture the title without winning a single race, but was the runner up in the Midget Boys and Senior Boys, as well as in the Senior Girls.  Nepean captured the title largely on the strength of their Junior Girls whose four scorers all crossed the line together in 8th through 11th spots, while their Midget Girls placed 3rd.

Brothers Cameron and Kyle Porter, of Sir Robert Borden, made winning a family affair as Kyle captured the Midget Boys race in an exciting sprint finish over Jorian Donovan (South Carleton), while Cameron made a strong move with just over a kilometer to go to win by a comfortable 10 seconds over Alvarez (Franco Ouest).  Skye Pellerin (St. Francis Xavier) enjoyed the largest victory of the day capturing the Senior Girls race, 40 seconds ahead of her closest pursuer, Olivia MacAskill (Earl of March).

Results are available on the Glebe XC site

Stay tuned for the NC Preview which will be posted shortly.

East Conference Championships

Colonel By captured the Girl's, Boy's and Overall Aggregates on the trails of Green's Creek at the 2018 East Conference Cross Country Running Championships.  The Cougars won both Midget races along with the Senior Boys enroute to the titles.

Ashbury was the only school to capture two individual titles with Juniors Isabelle Stevens and Luke Allan winning their respective races, in different fashion.  Stevens led from the gun gradually building her lead to over a minute, while Allan seemed content to let Robichaud (Garneau) and Andrews (De La Salle) trade the lead for the first half of the race until, in what has become his trademark move, Allan blasted away with about a mile to go to win by almost 40 seconds.

Results are available on the Louis Riel XC site

Capital Challenge

Glebe were the big winners at the Capital Challenge capturing all four of the team races.  Ridgemont made the Glebe Senior Boys work hard for their money, trailing the Gryphons by the slightest of margins (only 2 points) at the half way point of the race, but Glebe pulled through and widened the gap over the second half to win 19-25 (the Capital Classic does not count individual runners as displacers). 

And a Midget Shall Lead Them

Cara MacDonald (Glebe) despite only being in grade 9 led the way from early in the race to run to a comfortable 16 second victory in the Junior Girls race in 15:44.  She was followed to the line by teammate Ivy Bialowas (16:01) with another Midget Girl, Isabelle Honnegar (AY Jackson) finishing third (16:15) ahead of the front duo from Nepean (Gruson and Lawson).  Glebe captured the team title with their third and fourth (Heffernan-Wilker and Gardiner) in 7th and 8th place respectively.

The Junior Boys race saw a repeat showdown from the Gryphon Open with Luke Allan (Ashbury) and Lief Buxton (Renfrew) opening up a comfortable lead early.  Allan made a strong move coming off the beach and opened up a big gap quickly but Buxton kept him closer than he did at Gryphon, with Allan running to an 8 second victory (13:38 to 13:46).  Fillion (Louis Riel) used a strong finishing kick to over take Pensom (Glebe) to earn the final podium spot.  Newman, Mason and Cino finished 7th, 9th and 11th to secure the team title for the Gryphons

Rosalyn Barrett (Glebe), Skye Pellerin (St. FX) and Teagan Shapansky (Glebe) gapped the field quite early and very little changed over the second half of the race, although the gaps got a little bigger, as Barrett covered the 6k course in 24:10, 26 seconds up on Pellerin.  A following trio of Gryphons Lyons, Macintosh and Moore finished 7-8-9 to wrap up the team title for Glebe.

Glebe's Adam Sanger pushed the pace early to open up a sizeable lead and run to the largest victory of the day, 40 seconds, over runner up Joe Fast (Ridgemont) with a time of 20:12.  Kevin Robertson (Bell) used a strong final K to break away from the chase group to secure third.

Full results can be found at Sportstats.ca

Louis and the Turkey

NC Athletes had choices on the last day of school ahead of the Thanksgiving long weekend.  Several schools travelled south to Kemptville for the annual Turkey Trot, where dinner and dessert were at stake (with winners being awarded Turkeys and Pumpkin Pies being given away as well), while other athletes got a chance to preview the East Conference Course at the Hornet's Nest during the Louis Riel Invitational.

At Green's Creek, last year's Midget Boys Champion Cameron Porter (Sir Robert Borden) got his season started on the right foot with a comfortable victory in the Junior race, while grade 9 Karina Hageltorn (Paul Desmarais) topped all the girls in the Junior Girls race with an impressive victory. 

The largest victory of the day came in the Senior Girls race where Rebelles Megan Roy ran to a huge victory on her home course.  The Senior Boys race saw the closest finish of the day as Harun Omar Ali (Ridgemont) outlegged Woodford (Nepean) for a 2 second victory. 

In Kemptville, Glebe's Rosalyn Barrett wasn't chicken at all as she lead the girls field from the gun to be the sole NC athlete to capture a Turkey, winning the Senior Girls race.  Also in the Senior Girls race, All Saints captured the team title with top 10 finishes turned in by Lauren Reid and Holly-Ann Shields.  The Glebe Midget Boys and Longfields Senior boys captured second in their respective races while John McCrae hit the podium in the Midget Girls race placing third.

Results can be found on the Glebe XC site. 

pre-OFSAA

Several NC athletes made the trip to Dundas to preview this year's OFSAA course.  The course consists of two sections, one, an open section where athletes start / finish which is flat and open, while the second, across the lake is on hilly trails and gravel paths.  A video preview of the course can be found here.

The top NC finish was turned in by Glebe's Cara Macdonald, who finished 4th in the Midget Girls race.  Complete results can be found on www.xcrunner.ca

Gryphon Open

Competitors at the 2018 Gryphon Open were treated to sunny skies and beautiful racing conditions after several wet days in Ottawa this past week.  Big shout out to West Carleton who made the trip to participate, despite their school still not being open due to the Tornado damage in the Dunrobin area.  We wish all students and athletes affected by the storm the best and hope they can return to some sense of normalcy as soon as possible.  Thank you to all the volunteers who have, and who continue to help our communities impacted by the storm.

The host Gryphon squad looked very dominant on their home course as they captured 5 of the 6 divisions after losing the first race of the day, the Midget Girls, to Colonel By.  The Gryphon Junior Teams, both medallists at OFSAA last year showed strength and depth, with the boys capturing the top two team spots in their race (which uses a multiple dynamic team scoring system). 

Full results are available on the Glebe XC site 

Trinity Invitational

A handful of individuals and the Glebe XC team made the trek to Port Hope for the annual Trinity Invitational to kick off their XC season.  Glebe, the defending 4 time champions retained there overall title, capturing the Junior Girls and Junior Boys race, while placing 2nd in the Midget Girls and 4th in the Midget Boys and Senior Girls races, but this year will have to share the Honours with Thousand Islands (Brockville) as both teams picked up 38 points in the Overall Aggregate. 

The story of the day however for NC athletes was in the Junior Boys race.  After just missing qualifying for OFSAA in 2017, placing 6th on the Glebe squad (and 10th overall at the NC Championships) Sebastien Cino made himself a commitment he would not miss making the team in 2018 and worked hard to ensure it.  In his first race of the 2018 campaign, Cino not only topped all his Gryphon teammates, but the entire 110 runner field down in Port Hope.  Cino hung with the lead pack before breaking away just past the mid-point and building up a comfortable 40m lead by the time the athletes reach Mount Trinity.  Aidan Tulk (Holy Cross - Kingston) made a furious charge over the final 400m but was not able to catch Cino, who hung on for a 0.8 second victory.  

Other medalists included - Adam Sanger (Glebe) 2nd in Senior Boys, Anna-Sierra Heffernan-Wilker (Glebe) 2nd in Junior Girls, Ivy Bialowas (Glebe) 3rd in Junior Girls and Cara Macdonald (Glebe) 3rd in Midget Girls.  

For full results, please check the Glebe XC website