XC round up! MTA and School

It's been a busy season of XC. Coach Semes has been working with a great group of kids both at Williamson Rd. (where he teaches Phys. Ed.) and with Boardwalk RC on the oval of Pantry Park and other places in the Beaches.

Some of the runners are fortunate enough to represent both the school and the club.

Lets tell you about a few of the races our runners ran this season.

The first meet took place on a dreary Saturday, September 13th and the last meet was October 27th. Often races were days apart, such as the MTA Provincial Championship and the TDESAA City Championship (Which were the 25th of October and the 27th respectively).

In an early season prep meet (Sep 27th) Boardwalk RC had 4 runners take on the soon to be City Finals course at Centennial Park in Etobicoke. It was a great experience race for Charlie Mills, Charlie Pilz, Rhea Kohl, Thomas Gregory and Sebastian McIsaac. Mills and Pilz ran excellent races and finished 2nd (later reversed to 1st) and 4th. And Rhea also had a top 10 finish. The controversy in that race was that Charlie Mills was leading the entire way, but was led off course by an experienced bunny right at the finish line. The officials later deemed he would have won the race if not for that bunny's mistake.

In the 1st of the school meets, Mills was able to capture the win against a strong field. He distanced himself from all competitors and won by at least 10 seconds over a boy from Withrow. He was followed by teammates and fellow boardwalkers Charlie Pilz (5th) and Calvin Warrillow (6th). 

Rhea Kohl also had a strong race, as she fought for 3rd place most of the way. She too finished an excellent 5th place.

And in the grade 8 race Breanna Pugh pushed herself around the course and into 10th place.

Others who qualified for the next round included Domenic Temple and Thomas Gregory.

In the South Conference qualifier, the grade 4 boys team from Williamson Road that includes Boardwalkers Charlie Mills, Calvin Warrillow and Charlie Pilz, just narrowly missed a trip to the City finals. They will look to next year as their chance to put together an even better team as they took great strides to improvement this year. Charlie Mills who had won the 1st meet now finished 2nd behind the same runner he beat the week before. Calvin would run for 13th place. Sadly Charlie Pilz had battled a strep throat infection over the weekend and finished in 30th, which just happened to be one spot out of qualification. Rhea again had a solid race and was able to qualify in 12th place. And Breanna also punched her ticket to the final in 21st place. Thomas Gregory also joins his team of Grade 5 runners.

At the TDESAA City Championship Mills, Warrillow, Gregory, Kohl and Pugh all had another set of excellent results.

Mills had a tough start on the course he won on back in September and had to battle back from the back of the lead group. He crested the hill in 10th place and then sprinted the home stretch eventually finishing 7th. The race winner was the athlete from Withrow he had battled in the previous two races. Despite his high expectations, (Charlie Mills had set winning as his goal) he can still be proud of a solid year. Last year he did not even qualify for the cities, and was 44th at the conference level. Calvin Warrillow had an excellent race, he improved on his previous result a year ago at this race, and barely dropped any places from meet to meet even though the competition improved. He finished 15th. And Rhea Kohl, a champion in the catholic school system last year, was able to race her way to a 12th place finish in the grade 6 girls race. Breanna Pugh was a respectable 63rd and Thomas Gregory was excited to make his first finals and was happy with his finish in 99th.

In high school action Cameron Woo was representing Malvern C.I. as their top midget runner. Unfortunately for Malvern they could not muster enough bodies to form a team of four. That made it a tough go for Cameron as he would now have only one avenue for qualification to OFSAA. Cameron accepted the challenge, and from the start of the season he started putting together results. He finished 5th twice and 15th in some of the first meets of the season. When it came time to qualify for the cities the first disaster struck. While running in about 4th or 5th, Cameron and a group of runners were led of course as it was poorly marked and officiated. A coaches appeal later resulted in Cameron's inclusion in the City Finals; the qualifier for OFSAA. As Cameron was an individual, he would need a great result. Cameron ran as hard as he could and was in qualifying spots down the homestretch. However, a kick by two other runners to the finish left Cameron on the outside. He missed qualifying by 2 spots, he was 17th instead of 15th.

The MTA Provincial Championship was hosted in Guelph this year. Seven Boardwalkers made the trip out to the Arboretum, a great place to host a race. In the Atom races there was an entrant from Boardwalk RC in both the boys and girls races. Dominic Temple had a solid debut in club colours finishing in 29th, and Rhea Kohl was 24th in her third race for the club. MTA Sr Cameron Woo also challenged in the 3k race days after his OFSAA qualification disappointment. He improved on his 30th place from a year ago, this time crossing the line in 23rd. The Tyke boys team were the big story of the day; Charlie Mills, Calvin Warrilow, Charlie Pilz and Sebastian McIsaac ran in a tight pack (look at the picture below) and finished in 11th, 15th, 17th and 31st. Those results were good enough to finish 3rd on the podium and be awarded bronze medals.

Congrats to all runners on making it to the end of a very long season. Time to turn our focus to base training for indoor track.