HIGH ACHIEVERS: Injured West Carleton sprinter Will Batley turns team supporter for OFSAA east regional track and field championships

By Martin Cleary

Sprinter Will Batley will attend the OFSAA east regional track and field championships at the Terry Fox Athletic Facility on Thursday and Friday.

That would normally be a given, since he has been one of the premiere high school sprinters in Ottawa and Ontario over the past three years. And it’s his senior year, a time for him to speak out with faster times.

But, unfortunately, such is not the case for the West Carleton Secondary School student-athlete in Dunrobin, who was No. 1 in the 2024 Athletics Canada U20 division rankings over 200 metres (20.95 seconds) and No. 5 over 100 metres (10.54 seconds).

After competing in the National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association west conference championships earlier this month with a certain degree of caution, Batley decided to shut down his high school season because of a nagging left hamstring injury.

He felt the five- to six-week break before the start of his club season with C.A.N.I. Athletics near the end of June would be enough time to be ready for meets at the provincial, national and possibly international levels. He injured his hamstring at a pre-season high school meet.

But his injury doesn’t mean Batley won’t be trackside for the east region championships, where the top four athletes in each event will advance to the OFSAA championships June 5-7 in Toronto.

The West Carleton Wolves will send a team of about 11 student-athletes to the regionals and Batley will be part of the support team to guide them through the process.

“I’ll be there,” he said enthusiastically in a phone interview earlier this week. “I want to support the team. For the Grade 9s, it’s a whole different feeling. I want to make sure it goes well.”

West Carleton has qualified student-athletes in the novice, junior and ambulatory categories, including Calista Metternich, who was third in the novice girls’ 100 metres at the NCSSAA championships, and the silver-medal winning novice girls’ relay team of Madelyn McGale, Charlotte McNaughton, Cecilia Hubbard and Saige Christian.

While his teammates will be sprinting or jumping, in the case of junior girls’ horizontal jumper Sloane Southcombe, or hurdling, in the case of junior boys’ hurdler Ethan Faller, Batley will be surveying the championships from a different perspective.

“This year my coach (C.A.N.I.’s Lyndon George) and I decided not to risk it because of the bigger (upcoming) meets. We wanted to focus on strengthening the hamstring for the club season,” Batley explained.

The same nagging hamstring injury forced Batley to scratch from his races at the world U20 track and field championships last year in Lima, Peru. On the first day of training in Lima, he tweaked his hamstring and was unable to recover in time for any of his events.

Batley did settle into the starting blocks for the NCSSAA west conference championships two weeks ago. His times were near championship record breaking – 10.94 seconds in the preliminaries and 10.89 seconds in the final of the 100 metres, and 22.93 seconds in the heats and 22.09 seconds in the final of the 200 metres.

He said the 100 metres felt fine to run, but the 200 metres “took too much energy out of me.”

“At first (after the conference championships), I thought I might go to the city (NCSSAA) championships. After the races, my body felt fine. But the next day, it didn’t and we decided not to go,” Batley said.

“I was sad and devastated (about missing the NCSSAA city championships). I wanted to run. There was good competition. But overall, it was the best decision. Now, I’m happy with it.”

Three years ago, when Batley was in Grade 9, he had some epic sprint battles with multi-sport athlete Preston Schwarz from Ashbury College. It was easy to let your mind drift ahead to wonder what their races would be like three years down the road in their Grade 12 senior season.

That scenario will have to be played out in the observer’s mind as both sprinters couldn’t realize that moment.

After Schwarz proved to be the strong sprinter in their high school debut novice season in 2022, Batley swung the pendulum his way the following year as a junior.

In their combined 12 novice meetings (preliminaries and heats) at the NCSSAA, regional and OFSAA championships in the 100 and 200 metres, Schwarz finished ahead of Batley eight times. At the OFSAA championships, Schwarz placed second in the 200-metre final (22.74 seconds) and sixth over 100 metres (11.43 seconds), while Batley was seventh in the 200-metre final (23.57 seconds) and third over 100 metres (11.35 seconds).

As juniors in Grade 10, Batley held the upper hand, placing ahead of Schwarz in 11 of 12 races. Batley was a double gold medallist at OFSAA, winning the 100- and 200-metre finals in 11.02 seconds and 21.80 seconds respectively, while Schwarz was a two-time bronze-medal winner in 11.16 seconds and 22.28 seconds.

But during their first senior year in 2024, Batley lost one of his driving forces as a football injury in the fall of 2023 left Schwarz on the sidelines. Schwarz suffered an ACL knee injury.

Batley again executed well at the OFSAA provincial high school championships, winning the 200 metres in 20.95 seconds and placing second in the 100 metres in a wind-aided 10.35 seconds. His 200-metre time broke the OFSAA record of 20.99 seconds set by Ottawa’s Segun Makinde of Colonel By and equalled the Canadian interscholastic record set by Atlee Mahorn in 1984.

As Grade 12 student-athletes, Batley had to abandon his track season because of injury and Schwarz continues to recover and hopes to compete later this year.

“It was great,” Batley said about his uplifting races with Schwarz. “We pushed each other.

“It was different (without him). It was a different feeling. At first, I thought of it a little, but overall it didn’t affect my performance. I got through it.”

Batley may yet have a final senior year of NCSSAA track. He’s considering returning to West Carleton for one more year.

He wants to take a proper run at earning an athletic scholarship to an American university.

“I might come back and do one more year of high school. I was late contacting schools in the U.S. I didn’t know the process. We figured they would come to us. But we had to reach out to them. We were late,” explained Batley, who has already made visits to Florida State University and the University of Texas-Austin.

Here’s a list of some athletes who could perform well at the East OFSAA track and field championships:

BOYS’ SENIOR

Zachary Jeggo, Louis-Riel, NCSSAA champion 400 metres, 400-metre hurdles, 4×400-metre relay; Daniel Cova, Louis-Riel, NCSSAA champion 1,500 and 3,000 metres, 4×400-metre relay.

GIRLS’ SENIOR

Fega Eruotor, Merivale, NCSSAA champion 100 and 200 metres; Grace Streek, Peak Centre, NCSSAA champion 3,000 metres and open 2,000-metre steeplechase; Shannon Dewar, NCSSAA champion 400 and 800 metres; Deborah Adeleye, Ashbury, NCSSAA champion 100-metre hurdles and high jump.

BOYS’ JUNIOR

Alex Forzley, Sir Robert Borden, NCSSAA champion 100 and 200 metres; Luke Van Brabant, Earl of March, NCSSAA champion 800 and 1,500 metres; Zachary Benfaida, Merivale, NCSSAA champion 100- and 300-metre hurdles.

GIRLS’ JUNIOR

Ellie McGregor, Immaculata, NCSSAA 400- and 800-metre champion plus 800-metre record; Tahlia Aird, Gisèle-Lalonde, NCSSAA champion 80-metre hurdles and long jump; Mallea McMullen, Louis-Riel, NCSSAA champion discus and javelin; Roxy Gardiner, Sir Robert Borden, NCSSAA champion high jump and triple jump.

BOYS’ NOVICE

Onyx Sineus, Canterbury, NCSSAA champion 400 and 800 metres; Bradley Purves, St. Patrick’s, NCSSAA champion discus and javelin.

GIRLS’ NOVICE

Alexandra Harris, John McCrae, NCSSAA champion 800, 1,500 and 3,000 metres; Rital Alsharif, Merivale, NCSSAA west conference triple jump champion.

VISUALLY IMPAIRED

Jacob Gauthier, Jules-Léger, NCSSAA champion 100 and 800 metres and shot put, broke the shot put record.

AMBULATORY

Kevin Yuan, West Carleton, NCSSAA champion 100 metres and shot put.