After a beautiful day for SPAA cross-country, 269 athletes braved wind and cold to compete at cross-country zones in Vermilion last Wednesday, with Mallaig, FG Miller and St. Paul Regional High School all prevailing in miserable conditions to win their respective zone titles.
For the Mallaig Stingers, Haley Kwan finished first in intermediates with Brooke Corbiere coming in second for the senior girls. The school as a whole captured the 1A zone banner for the 10th year in a row, with 1,360 points, more than 200 points over second place finisher Beaux Lac. Now the team is turning its sights onto winning its 10th consecutive provincial cross-country banner.
“It’s kind of a big deal for me,” said coach Claude Cote, who notes this is his first-year heading up the cross-country team. He said he has been stressing to the kids, “We need to prepare for this . . . We’ve done this for a long time. We have that standard now. Most of the students know we have high expectations for them in cross-country, which isn’t a bad thing. I think it’s pushing them to do well, and to perform as a team.”
Fourteen of the school’s athletes will be heading to provincials, and Cote says he hopes each student performs to his or her best ability. “If they have personal bests, there’s nothing more than I can hope for.”
This year, FG Miller showed its cross-country program is definitely on the move, winning the cross-country banner for a second year in a row. The school’s DJ Drobot also distinguished himself, wining third in the intermediate boys category with a time of 21:23, while para athlete Carter Wood finished first in his category.
“We had quite a few injuries right before zones and had about eight kids not run so to still come out and win the banner by about 600 points shows the depth that our cross country program has, which is nice to see,” wrote head coach Jonathan Randall in an email to the Journal. With 1,122 points, FG Miller had nearly double the points as second place finisher JR Robson at 609 points.
Three Crusader girls and six Crusader boys will be going to provincials, and Randall hopes to repeat the success of last year, which saw the team get its first ever top three finish. The school came in third with about 560 points, and Randall believes “we should be close to that again this year.”
The Saints brought out 37 athletes to compete at zones, and finished with the 3A zone championship under its belt for the 15th year in a row.
“We are very proud of this accomplishment, especially considering our school population is much smaller than our 3A competitors in our zone,” wrote coach Hank Smid in an email to the Journal. In individual athlete highlights, the Saints’ Alanna Mounce won a first place finish in the para category, while Alycia Cole came third for junior girls and Arron Gagne came in third for senior boys.
Twenty-three students from the school will head to provincials, which is up from last year’s number at 16.
“This is a nice trend and hopefully it will continue in the future,” wrote Smid. Last year, the students came in fourth in their zone at provincials. This year, he said, “We are hoping to get close to 1,000 points at provincials. If we can do this, then we may be in the hunt for a team medal position.”
Cochrane plays host to this year’s cross-country provincials, which takes place on Oct. 15. Look for coverage in next week’s St. Paul Journal.
