Glebe midget girls earn impressive fourth place OFSAA debut

Glebe Collegiate’s midget girls team knew every bump, hill, crevice and mud puddle of OFSAA 2011’s course and used that knowledge to their advantage to earn an antique-bronze medal at the provincial high school cross-country championships.
 
Claire Smith (in 19th place), Alexa Livingstone (51st), Tara Robinson (58), Emma Barnett (179), Julianna Rhead (205) and Brianna Beale (alternate) still found the crowded 3 km course a challenge but managed a fourth-place team result in a field of Ontario’s 37 best schools.
 
“It went well. I liked to see someone I knew and then try to keep up with them,” said Robinson. “It was an advantage, we knew the course so well.”
 
OFSAA 2011 was held at Green’s Creek Conservation Area in Blackburn Hamlet. It was the site of both the east and west conference championships as well as city finals this fall. The course was set by Kirk Dillabaugh, who is also the Glebe coach.
 
Illness did not slow down Robinson’s teammate, Livingstone, who finished two seconds faster at OFSAA than she did at the city finals.
 
“I had the flu,” explains Livingstone. “I just wanted to run at OFSAA. The big hill was the hardest for me. My legs were dead.” 
 
Erica Van Wyk of Earl of March was Ottawa’s fastest midget girl, placing eighth with a time of 12 minutes, 18 seconds. Canterbury’s Erinn Stenman-Fahey arrived at the finish line in an identical time as Smith and got the nod for 18th place, while Canterbury teammate Lia Codrington was just a step back in 21st.
 
“That was tiring,” announced Stenman-Fahey soon after she crossed the finish line. “I started out fast but everyone else was going fast.” 
 
She says her team, which had troubles with their bibs at city championships had no problems on the big day. They were “really organized.”
 
Nepean’s Margaux Mclean, who finished 44th, found the course crowded.
 
“I was excited to pass people because the course was really narrow,” she notes. “The start was pretty hard. It wasn’t wide for very long.”
 
Roxanna Kemp (191) and her Franco-Ouest team were thrilled just to be there. As the fourth-place finishers in the city championships, they took one of the extra berths allotted to the host city. 
 
“We did well,” Kemp says. “Our team had never made it to OFSAA. We are happy with how we did. Our goal was just to make OFSAA. It was very busy out there.”
 
McLaughlin’s Chardae Henry won the race in 11:54.7, while London Central was the top team.