The Yorkton Regional High School (YRHS) appears to have accomplished another athletic first for the school. Over the weekend the cross country team claimed the provincial cross country team championship. Co-coach Mike Haczkewicz, YRHS vice-principal, reported that the entire team of 10 runners qualified for the provincial meet at the recent district competition. How-ever, due to other commitments only eight of the 10 traveled to the provincial cross country meet at Douglas Park in Regina.
The YRHS team faced and defeated two powerhouse cross country teams, Regina Leboldus and Saskatoon Holy Cross, to claim the provincial team title.
Athletes ran various distances depending on their age. Bronze medal winner Brandey Blahut raced four kilometers in the junior girls class.
Matthijs Wenning who ran in the junior boys class ran five kilometers to win a silver medal and provincial senior girls champion Avery West-berg ran four kilometers. Brandon Campbell who ran six kilometers finished ninth overall in his senior boys class.
The provincial race featured the top 100 runners in each age class, notes Haczkewicz.
Westberg, Wenning and Blahut qualified to run in the age class provincials next weekend in Saskatoon. Competitors at the event no longer represent their school. They run for their club. Therefore Westberg will run for the Yorkton Legion Track Club, Haczkewicz explains.
There's a strong possibility Westberg will advance to nationals in Guelph, Ontario in November, Haczkewicz predicts.
Cross country racing is essentially a European sport that evolved to Canada and North America. In Europe the race has a more steeplechase flavor with barriers to leap or climb, Haczkewicz notes.
Describing Westberg's performance, Haczkewicz says, "Avery always shows up on race day." Her main opponent was from Saskatoon, Gabrielle Edwards whose mother coaches the University of Saskatchewan cross country team. Edwards was favored to win, having beaten Westberg in previous races during the year.
Edwards led the race for the first two kilometers, says Haczkewicz. Westberg closed the gap at the hill. The girls came down the hill side by side to run one kilometre together. With one kilometre remaining, West-berg pulled ahead by about five metres. She kicked for the last 50 metres to win by a 10 metre margin. "It was the most exciting race I've seen as a coach and probably one most exciting ones at provincials in years," Haczkewicz declares.
In the junior boys race a youngster from Regina led the race from start to finish. Silver medalist Wenning was in chase mode, finishing about 100 metres behind the winner. "The two boys ran away with the show," says Haczkewicz.
The historic team win as provincial 4A cross country champions has never been done before, Haczkewicz asserts. This is for the biggest schools in the province. The win is huge for the YRHS which has produced many great distance runners, he points out. He lists the Chereduk brothers from Ituna, Conrad Yawney, Sandra Flaman, and former school division director of education Len Bode were all national class distance runners.
Bronze medalist Blahut says her goal was to finish top 10 but preferably to claim a medal at the meet. "I still didn't believe I actually won it after the race," she says.
Blahut, who says she enjoys running, began her cross country racing in Grade 3 and began to train seriously after entering YRHS.
Training involves running repititions of shorter distances to build sprint speed and long runs for endurance, Blahut says.
She advanced to provincials after finishing first in her age class at the district race meet.
She is looking forward to winning some medals in track this year. Long term, Blahut wants to continue running until she completes school. Then she will look at and consider her options.
Silver medalist Wenning says the move from third place to second shows he has improved over the past year. While he is proud of his silver medal, he really had his heart set on a gold medal. He is determined to achieve his goal. He plans to increase his training by including more hills in his training routine.
Wenning says he and the eventual winner ran the first 400 metres around the track in 66 seconds which is a 1,500 metre pace, possibly too fast for a cross country race. He kept pace with his opponent up the hill where the Regina youngster pulled away to win the junior boys race by about 10 seconds.
Provincial gold medalist Westberg admits she was nervous prior to the race because she knew her competition was going to be stiff with Gabrielle Edwards from Saskatoon and Taryan Latimer from Regina as her main opponents. Both girls had outrun her at previous meets, Westberg notes. "I was expecting a bronze or maybe a fourth," she admits.
Westberg planned to keep pace with Latimer who had some difficulty because of an injury. She shifted her focus to Edwards, running neck and neck with her for most of the race.
Knowing that Edwards has a strong finish, Westberg started her finishing kick with about 800 metres to go. Runners have to be mentally fit as well as training physically, says Westberg. "I think in some races the mental game is way better than others. At provincials I was on the ball and I wanted to come out with the win," she suggests.
She's looking forward to competing at the university level where running is more of a team sport Westberg feels. Currently she's considering her options. She has been in contact with the University of Regina and Dalhousie in Halifax. At this point, she says she's leaning to Regina because of the program and coaching. She would however consider any very good offer from a Canadian school, preferring to remain in Canada.
Looking ahead to next weekend, Westberg would like to win the open women's race as the winner gets funding to go to nationals. "It would be nice to have that extra cash going in so that my parents don't have to pay for every thing like they usually do," she says.
She hopes to travel to nationals in Guelph with the University of Regina team. She admits to a little apprehension and hopes she performs better than she did in past years.
