~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
Thank you very much to Ottawa Orienteering for presenting the Ottawa Sports Pages’ XC Week! Orienteering is like cross-country running, with a few extra exciting twists and turns. Find out about the adventure that awaits you here.
NCXC24: Glebe receives biggest scare yet but holds on for 14th city cross-country championship in a row
OttawaSportsPages.ca will be posting recaps and photo galleries race-by-race each weekday from Oct. 25-Nov. 1 leading into the 2024 OFSAA XC Championships. Scroll down for links each of those stories.
The Glebe Collegiate Institute Gryphons came close to being cursed by city championship #13, but they escaped with their 14th consecutive grand aggregate team title in a row in a contest that went down to the wire with the Colonel By Cougars at the 2024 national capital high school cross-country running championships on Oct. 24 at Walter Baker Park in Kanata.
“Colonel By, they beat us last week (at the east conference championships), so I was really worried,” recounts Glebe coach Kirk Dillabaugh, whose senior boys earned the decisive team points by a three-point margin over the Cougars. “We knew they were going to mount a serious challenge, so it’s just really exciting.”
There were exceptionally tight races for many titles and qualification positions for the OFSAA provincial championships, which will be held in Ottawa on Nov. 4 at Mooney’s Bay.
As hosts, the national capital association receives twice as many entries as it would for an away OFSAA. The four schools with the lowest team score in each division (calculated by adding their top 4 runners’ placings) qualified five runners each, while the 10 best individuals who didn’t qualify with their teams secured their place on the provincial start line.
A total of 928 runners competed across the six novice (4 km), junior (5 km) and senior (6 km) girls’ and boys’ events, plus five more raced in a para event won by De La Salle’s William Dagher.
The tussle for the top of the team podium was fiercest in the junior girls’ competition, with all three medallists finishing within one point of each other.
After tying with individual gold medallist Laila Lebel’s Colonel By Cougars at 91 placement points, the Garneau Gaulois were awarded first place thanks to their higher-placing fourth runner Maeva Monrose, while Glebe placed third just one more point back at 92.
First place was decided by just one point in the novice boys’ team event as well, with Garneau edging Colonel By. Twin brothers Onyx and Zain Sineus from Canterbury finished 1-2 individually and can officially say that the speed training they initially undertook to help them on the basketball court has proven fruitful in an unexpected way.
Another chapter of the Daniel Cova/Saul Taler showdown story was written in the senior boys’ division. Glebe’s Taler took their latest matchup, but Cova’s Louis-Riel Rebelles showed potential to follow in the 2023 OFSAA-champion Gryphons’ footsteps with a 46-point team victory over solid entries from Glebe, Colonel By and Immaculata.
For the first time in over a decade, the Glebe Gryphons were dethroned as queens of the senior girls’ category, with the Nepean Knights crowned champs just ahead of a gigantic group of galloping Ashbury Colts girls. St. Francis-Xavier’s Bridget Jeffrey’s first career national capital medal came as individual champion in her senior year.
The four members of the Colonel By novice girls’ team all finished within one minute and 16 seconds of each other to top the standings by four points. John McCrae’s quartet wasn’t quite so fortunate and missed out on an OFSAA berth by three points, although individual champion Alexandra Harris will still represent the Bulldogs at provincials.
Earl of March’s Luke Van Brabant grew five inches and jumped up three places over last year to win his race, while Merivale earned a solid junior boys’ team title, propelled by multi-disciplinary cyclist Carter deVeer’s second-place individual finish.
The Ottawa Sports Pages will be posting recaps and photo galleries race-by-race each weekday from Oct. 25-Nov. 1 leading into the 2024 OFSAA XC Championships. See those via the links below.
Daniel Cova captures first OFSAA cross-country crown at home in final high school XC race
When Daniel Cova crossed the finish line at the 2024 OFSAA Cross-Country Running Championships this afternoon at Terry Fox Athletic Facility, he was emotional, exhausted, sick to his stomach, and… totally elated. Competing in the last cross-country race of his high school career, the Grade 12 Louis-Riel Rebelles runner took the lead within the first kilometre of the senior boys’ 6 km provincial final and never gave it up. READ MORE…
HIGH ACHIEVERS: Home-course advantage could spark another memorable Ottawa individual race win as OFSAA cross-country returns to capital
Here’s an important message for Ottawa high school office administrators: there will be a minimum of 180 students absent from class on Monday. This is legit. And they all have the same reason for missing classes or tests or meetings for the first day of the school week. The OFSAA cross-country running championships will return to Ottawa on Monday for the third time since they started in 1955. READ MORE…
Senior Boys: Louis-Riel scores largest team win of the day against strong field, targets OFSAA gold next
There is a rebellion planned for Nov. 4 in the nation’s capital, but this uprising has nothing to do with politics. That’s the date the Louis-Riel Rebelles senior boys have marked down to take their best shot at winning their school’s first provincial high school cross-country running title when Ottawa hosts OFSAA XC at Mooney’s Bay. READ MORE…
Senior Girls: Nepean ousts Glebe from top spot in senior girls’ team standings for first time in a decade
The last time the Glebe Gryphons didn’t win the senior girls’ team competition at the national capital high school running championships, Tillie Pender was in kindergarten. Now in Grade 11, Pender and her Nepean Knights assumed the title of city cross-country queens on Oct. 24 at Walter Baker Park in Kanata as they dethroned the dynastic Gryphons, who’d won nine straight championships dating back to 2014. READ MORE…
Junior Boys: National road cycling medallist Carter deVeer shows swiftness on foot to lead Merivale to city crown
It was another day, another medal for Carter deVeer at the national capital high school cross-country running championships. This one was unique for him, however, because it was a golden medal with a runner on it as he celebrated a first city title with his Merivale Marauders junior boys’ team. READ MORE…
Junior Girls: All 3 podium teams separated by just 1 point in tremendous tussle for top
If you were to pick the most important runner in a field of 136 competitors, you probably wouldn’t guess it’s the one who came in 46th place. But therein lies the beauty of the team event in cross-country running, and there was no battle more fierce for the top spot on the team podium than the junior girls’ race at the national capital high school championships. READ MORE…
Novice Boys: Canterbury twins fast-break to front of pack, Garneau wins team title by 1 point
Onyx and Zain Sineus can now officially say those speed training sessions they took to boost their quickness on the basketball court have paid off, although not quite the way the Canterbury Chargers twin brothers initially expected. READ MORE…
Novice Girls: John McCrae’s Alexandra Harris runs away from field, 4-runner Colonel By takes team crown
Despite being on the shortest course in the novice girls’ 4 km event, John McCrae’s Alexandra Harris posted the largest winning margin across the six novice, junior and senior girls’ and boys’ races at the national capital high school cross-country running championships on Oct. 24. READ MORE…