On Thursday, October 24, the Athletic Association of Brant, Haldimand & Norfolk (AABHN) hosted the annual Central Western Ontario Secondary School Athletics (CWOSSA) Cross Country Championships at the Greens at Renton Golf course, near Port Dover.
CWOSSA is one of 19 school districts across Ontario in which high schoolers must compete in order to qualify to race at the Ontario High School championships (OFSAA). CWOSSA is considered to be one of the hardest districts to advance through due to the size and number of schools in the district, which includes all Bluewater schools and stretches from Meaford to Simcoe and includes large centres such as Orangeville, Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph, Cambridge, and Brantford.
This year there was a great deal of promise for Georgian Bay Community School, with 32 athletes beginning their fall Cross Country training with the school, but due to other commitments and the time and effort required for competitive running, only 13 athletes made the trip to Renton to compete at CWOSSA to represent GBCS.
The racing conditions were ideal, being mostly sunny with temperatures around 13 degrees by mid-afternoon. The highlight of the day for GBCS came in the Junior Boys (Grade 10) 5km race with veteran Meaford runner Emmett Leary starting at the front of the pack for GBCS along with teammates Ethan Milne Pearson and Seamus Hamill. When the gun fired to start the race, Emmett quickly took control of the race from the other 140 competitors and made his way to the front of the lead pack within the first kilometre and set a blistering pace for the other runners to try to keep up.
By the mid-point of the race Emmett managed to separate himself from the lead pack to eliminate any draft the other competitors may gain from being behind him and was able to settle into a slightly more relaxed, but still quick, pace. By the end of the 5km race the fast start was becoming evident as the athletes had to climb one last hill to the finish line, but Emmett was able to hold his composure as he crossed the line in first place in a time of 15:32. Friends and fellow competitors Perry Smith of Saugeen District Secondary School was 2nd in 15:43 and Nathan Mesquita from Resurrection Catholic Secondary School in Kitchener was 3rd in 15:48.
On the day, two athletes from GBCS qualified to compete at this year’s 76th annual edition of OFSAA’s Cross Country championships, as Calvin Curtis from Thornbury qualified as the 5th and final individual athlete in the Novice boys (Grade 9) 4km race. The two athletes will travel to Ottawa to compete at what is considered to be Ontario’s single largest and most competitive high school athletic event on November 4, against 1,600 of the province’s best high school runners.
