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.
By Dan Plouffe
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.
“That’s pretty crazy,” Pender reacted when informed of the streak her team had broken. “But I mean, we have such a good team. Everyone just loves it and always has a good time for the most part. I think that’s it – we just have fun. We try not to stress too much.”
Pender led the way for Nepean in sixth place, while Edie Petrescue-Commene (eighth), Gabrielle Forestier (22nd) and Molly Barber (35th) combined to post a winning team score of 71 placements points, with Olivia Voros providing solid support in 44th. The Knights outpaced Ashbury by 22 points to win the city crown, while Glebe finished fifth.
Pender made a big personal leap up the standings compared to last season, and throughout the 6 km course as well.
There were “elbows everywhere” at the start as 192 runners took off simultaneously, but Pender “started picking people off one by one” as racers spread out, stayed strong on the hills (her weakness) and finished hard once she saw the clock and knew her sub-24 minute goal was within reach.
She stopped the watch in 23:45.3 and improved her placing by eight spots compared to last year’s junior girls’ event, despite competing as a Grade 11 in a larger senior division.
A stress fracture in her back had sidelined Pender from sports for four months and still lingered last season, but she’s now healthy again.
The past Parmar Futuro Academy player also dropped competitive soccer this season, so she’s been able to spend more time running. And she’s picked up rugby too.
Pender’s winding path in sport is a commonality among many of the Knights.
“We all come from different sports backgrounds. Everyone has their different strengths,” highlighted the teammate of swimmers, rock climbers, soccer and tennis players.
Together, they’re eager to test themselves against the province’s best come the Nov. 4 OFSAA championships in Ottawa at Mooney’s Bay.
“We’re really excited,” Pender underlined. “We qualified the last two years, but it’s nice that it’ll be in Ottawa. No travelling, and we’ve raced at Mooney’s Bay so many times. I like that course too.”
The second-place squad in the team competition was a gigantic group of galloping Ashbury Colts girls.
Ashbury fielded an enormous 17-runner lineup at the city finals, which was in fact five lower than the 22 Colts senior girls who raced at the east conference meet.
Maasa Izumikawa led the way in 16th place, Kate Johnston-Zemek was 20th, Ella Turner and Lauren Hewison finished back-to-back in 28th and 29th, and Natalie Shen grabbed her team’s final place on the OFSAA start line with her 67th-place performance.
Izumikawa felt she didn’t have her best race at cities, but said that academics were her priority at present in her last year of high school.
The international student from Japan started studying at Ashbury three years ago.
“In Japan, I mostly just studied, but here, I also get to enjoy running. I started just for fun, but it’s turned into something bigger,” highlighted Izumikawa, who feels “really glad” that her team will get to compete at OFSAA.
“We are very strong,” she added.
Turner and Hewison found the perfect running partners when they both happened to arrive at the Rockcliffe Park private school together last year.
“It’s nice to run with a buddy,” Turner smiled.
“We usually run with each other outside of school too,” added Hewison, noting they did a half-marathon together in the spring. “It’s easier to run with someone else for these races too.”
The Colts pair were impressed to see this season’s turnout for the cross-country running team, which added a new coach this fall in Natalie Côté (who was kept busy cheering on her former Colonel By Cougars athletes at the meet as well).
“Last year we were really looking for people. We barely had enough to go to OFSAA,” Turner recalled. “I think going to OFSAA maybe helped recruit a lot of people.”
Hewison said she’s also observed a rise in running popularity among young people.
“I think social media has a lot to do with that,” she indicated. “There’s a big running movement, I’d say. I think a lot of people are just like, I might as well try it, and then they decide to stick with it.”
The “really great” coaches at Ashbury have also played a role in building enthusiasm, Turner signalled.
“They make it a lot of fun,” Hewison concurred. “They’re very harsh when they need to be, but super nice no matter what. They have hard workouts, but they’re always very encouraging, and I think that helps a lot. It really builds you up during races and practice.”
Bridget Jeffrey’s first NCXC medal is gold
At the head of the race, Bridget Jeffrey’s first career national capital medal came as individual champion in her senior year.
The St. Francis-Xavier athlete won gold in a time of 22:40.6, while Peak Centre’s Grace Streek took silver in 23:00.4 and Franco-Cité’s Tessa Knight earned bronze in 23:06.6.
Jeffrey said she wanted to get off the line hard and lead as much as she could, and then after her second time up the hill, really tried hard to push the pace. She established a solid gap over her competitors come the final kilometre and grew it come the finish.
Similar to the twin brothers who topped the novice boys’ race, Jeffrey got into running in an effort to improve her fitness for basketball, when she was in Grade 10.
“I started running during COVID for conditioning,” recounted Jeffrey, who still plays basketball for her school team, but no longer with a community club. “I just wanted to try it out, and then I made OFSAA that year, which I think is what kept me going.”
Her basketball experience, and a general competitive streak inherited from her father, helped fuel Jeffrey’s drive in her new sporting passion.
“I like the pain. I like pushing myself and just the feeling after,” explained Jeffrey, who joined the Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club this year. “That’s definitely helped. Running with Tessa and Grace has been super good.”
She’s also become familiar with the OFSAA cross-country course around Terry Fox Athletic Facility.
“I know Mooney’s Bay is really hard with the sand. That’s not gonna be fun,” Jeffrey pinpointed. “But I feel good.”
As OFSAA hosts, the national capital association receives twice as many entries as it would for an away championships. The four schools with the lowest team score in each division (calculated by adding their top 4 runners’ placings) at the city finals qualified five runners each, while the 10 best individuals who didn’t qualify with their teams secured their spot on the provincial start line as well.
All three medallists claimed individual OFSAA berths, as did Franco-Ouest’s Kyra Lauter (who finished fifth), Glebe’s Julia Van Wesenbeeck (seventh), De La Salle’s Elissandre Hutt (ninth), Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s Gwen Hatfield (10th), Immaculata’s Evelyn Davies (12th), Glebe’s Waverley Lyons (13th) and Franco-Cité’s Adrienne Fraserwalls, who edged Béatrice-Desloges’ Camille Bolduc for the final OFSAA spot 14th by .5 of a second.
The Paul-Desmarais team of Ciara Villeneuve (fourth), Bronwyn O’Ray (11th), Anna Lee (41st), Caley Heffern (69th) and Eva Doucette (82nd) qualified as the third-place team, while John McCrae’s Maya Allibon (19th), Paige Jennings (30th), Abby Thompson (54th), Isabelle Anderson (55th) and Katie Pearson (84th) took the final available team berth.
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. Find them all on our XC Week webpage, presented by Ottawa Orienteering.
NCXC24 Senior Girls’ Photo Gallery
Photos by Zach Sikka, sikkasnapshots.com
