See a photo gallery of the midget boys’ race on SportsOttawa.com’s Facebook page. By Dan Plouffe
The Glebe Gryphons cross-country running dynasty shows no signs of an imminent end any day soon. Take their midget boys as prime evidence. All four of the Gryphons’ scoring runners crossed the finish line at the national capital high school championships before another school even had two.
Young athletes certainly know about the Glebe XC tradition before they arrive at the First Ave. institute and look forward to being a part of it.
“We heard a lot about Glebe cross-country,” details Gryphons runner Evan Kealey, noting that older teammates of his from the Nakkertok Nordic Ski Club were already reaching the top with the Glebe harriers.
“We were really excited,” concurs Pierre Grall, who’d heard that there was a really good coach waiting for their arrival into Grade 9.
“Everyone pushes each other to greater heights,” he adds.
That was certainly the case for Kealey and Grall at the Oct. 24 city championships as they finished practically side-by-side in fourth and fifth place after matching each other’s pace through the majority of the 5 km race.
“We decided that we’d go 4k together and then just see who wins the last k,” Kealey notes. “We thought we’d leave every man to himself, but we ended up finishing together anyways.”
Glebe’s Ryan Salvino and Joshua Nowlan came in at 10th and 13th respectively, while Nepean’s team of Anaek Jande, Jacob Martire, Nick Cheney, and Richard Burton combined to beat the rest of the field by an equally large point total as Glebe’s winning score to claim the second OFSAA qualifying position.
Franco-Cite’s Reilly McCann outlasted Bell’s Philipe Turcanu for the individual gold medal after a good battle on the Hornets Nest course and throughout the season.
“I’m kind of shocked,” says McCann, who’d finished behind Turcanu at Gryphon Open meet earlier this year but won the city title in 17 minutes, 10.97 seconds. “I thought he was going to catch me. I saw that he was gaining on me.”
McCann would like a top-20 result at OFSAA, while Turcanu is looking at the provincial championships as an opportunity to have a better performance than the one that nonetheless netted him a national capital silver medal.
“I’m going to learn from the mistakes I made. I let him go and didn’t follow him or use tactics properly,” Turcanu highlights. “I’m looking at OFSAA as a second chance to do what I do best.”
Turcanu owns a collection of medals from many other sports too, including cross-country skiing, orienteering, and paddling, which netted him four Ontario peewee category kayak titles this season with the Ottawa River Canoe Club.
“It was so much fun,” Turcanu says of his paddling season. “I have close friends that are very motivated to do well. It reminds me of my running group where everybody just wants to push and get better.”
Running is Turcanu’s prime focus at the moment, he adds, but he enjoys each pursuit very much and isn’t sure where his future path may lie.
“It’s hard to pick, but it’s a challenge I’ll have to overcome eventually,” signals the well-spoken Grade 9 student.
Claiming the final two individual OFSAA qualification positions were bronze medalist Simon Gaudert of Colonel By and South Carleton’s Ian Caughey.