See SportsOttawa.com’s Facebook page for a full album of photos from this race.
By Charlie Pinkerton
The NCSSAA senior boys cross-country championships were dominated by athletes from the Ottawa Lions Track-and-Field Club. One after another they crossed the finish line at Walter Baker Park in a showing of the club’s supremacy in the high school running circuit. The top 5 finishers, at least, were all Lions.
Last year’s 2nd place runner at the city championships, Adam Sanger (Glebe Collegiate), finished in 1st place.
“It’s nice, (my Lions teammates) push me,” Sanger said, adding that his goal is to finish in a top 15 spot at the upcoming OFSAA meet.
Kevin Robertson (Bell) finished in 2nd place, two spots ahead of Joe Fast, last year’s junior boys OFSAA champion.
“I think Joe kind of got burnt out from the early pace and I was just able to keep it going,” said the Grade 12 Robertson.
The Grade 11 Fast said it’s a problem he’s struggled with all year.
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“This whole season I over trained a bit,” Fast said. “I didn’t recover enough between workouts and then I would have to take time off and it’s just been a mess. My legs have just never been there. I’ve felt bad the whole season. But you know, you come out here for the team, so it’s alright.”
Fast’s Ridgemont team (58 points) came in 2nd place behind Glebe (52). Both teams qualified for the OFSAA cross-country championships.
“I’ve learned things about my training, I can fix that and hopefully I can come back on top next year,” Fast said.
As well as Sanger, Glebe scored points off runs by Callum Saravanamuttoo (7), Jack Pensom (12) and Mitchell Hayden (32). Tom Lane qualified to be the team’s fifth runner at OFSAA (34).
Fast, Muhammad Luqman (10), Harun Omar Ali (14) and Kamar Edwards (30) were Ridgemont’s point-scorers. Younis Taieb (39) qualified to be the team’s fifth runner at the provincial championships.
Other individual racers who qualified for the OFSAA championships were Colonel By’s Will Cox (3), AY Jackson’s Colby Frost (5), De La Salle’s Zachary Meredith (6) and Nepean High School’s Theodore Woodford (8).
Find more coverage of the 2018 NCSSAA XC Championships via: https://sportsottawa.com/2018/10/26/glebe-gryphons-win-all-six-division-titles-at-the-city-high-school-cross-country-championships/
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