Junior girls, including Natalie Cerna (488) from St. Mary and Ella Buzminski (430) from Cobourg Collegiate Institute, compete at the Kawartha cross-country meet at Lakefield College School. Photo courtesy of St. Mary Twitter: @SMthunderstruck)
By Jeff Gard/Today’s Northumberland
The Kawartha high school cross-country championships were a great warm-up for local runners last week.
Held at Lakefield College School, which is also the site of the OFSAA championships Nov. 7, the Kawartha meet provided athletes a final big run before the Central Ontario Secondary School Athletics championships – the provincial qualifier – this Wednesday in Brighton.
All runners from the Kawartha region, including those from Cobourg Collegiate Institute, St. Mary Catholic Secondary School in Cobourg and Port Hope High School advance to Wednesday’s COSSA championships. At that meet, the top three teams and five individuals will qualify for the provincial meet.
Make no mistake, cross-country is considered a team sport, even though it’s based on the performances of individuals.
Team results are based on the placings of the first four runners from each school. Top individual results don’t guarantee a team win.
Cobourg Collegiate Institute had three teams place third and another fourth at the Kawartha meet.
The senior girls from CCI have plenty of depth as Norah Urbach placed ninth in a time of 31:16.01, Hilary Johnson 11th (31:54.31), Lea Crowe 18th (33:25.42), Hazel Cullen 19th (34:16.65), Mollie Hogan 21st (34:22.19), Laurel Whitelaw 23rd (35:17.47) and Sarah Eversten 25th (36:40.13).
The race was won by Grace Murphy from Peterborough’s St. Peter’s in 25:36.29.
St. Mary’s Bella Lorefice finished 16th in 33:10.28 and Sydney placed 24th (35:38.65).
In the senior boys race, Erik Unger from Adam Scott Collegiate in Peterborough won the race in 19:34.08. CCI’s team placed fourth with results from Matthew Dafoe in 28th (27:24.99), Martino Lenardon 30th (27:29.62), Avery Speksnijder 31st (27:34.84), Jakob Proos 35th(28:56.98) and Aidan Dixon 45th(31:52.08).
Port Hope’s Nathan Cardinal placed 26th in a time of 27:06.52.
Adam Scott’s Poppy Thomson won the junior girls division in 20:44.70, but the race featured strong individual performances from local athletes as well. CCI’s Jaeden Holden placed sixth in 24:28.69 and St. Mary’s Natalie Cerna was seventh in 24:29.96.
Two more CCI runners weren’t far behind as Ella Buzminski was ninth in 24:53.13 and Rachel Cranston 10th (25:02.82).
There were no junior boys runners from the Cobourg and Port Hope schools.
The results are as posted, however in the novice categories there are some inaccuracies.
In novice girls, the CCI team had a strong performance with a third-place result and that’s with Sophie Harold not finishing the race due to injury. She had recently won the category at the Bay of Quinte Invitational in a course record-setting time.
Harold could rejoin the team Wednesday at the COSSA championships.
Leading CCI to the third-place result at the Kawartha meet were Lauren Wilson in 12th (20:46.23), Brooklyn Upton 23rd (23:26.97), Raylea Ney 31st (24:59.60) and Zoe Mackey 33rd (25:09.43).
Sydney Dobbin from St. Peter’s won the race in 17:20.45.
St. Mary’s Emily Goodal had a strong showing in fifth place (19:50.44) and teammate Ava Liao-McDonnell was 40th (27:39.09). Ella Besslich and Ashleigh Heath also competed for St. Mary’s, but their results weren’t posted.
CCI’s novice boys placed third as William Urbach came in 4th (16:29.42), Jacob Mandeville 22nd(20:06.25), Izaak Avery 31st (23:02.59), Dane Goodwin 32nd(23:30.97) and Austin Gait 37th(25:15.04).
Carson Cameron from Fenelon Falls won in 15:25.44.
Port Hope had three runners in the race, with Ben Tuttle listed as coming in 26th, Kees Boon 27th and Lincoln Crane 24th however they were held up at the start and only ran one lap. All three will race again Wednesday in Brighton.
Watch for results from Wednesday’s COSSA championships.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
