Across the country, cross-country results week four

Over the weekend lots of collegiate runners took to the golf course or regional park to see who was the fastest over 6 to 10K. Because it’s early in the season, lots of runners are still racing under-distance, with many women running 6K and men running 8K (they will run 8K and 10K at November’s U Sports Championship). Canadian Running will be publishing a weekly round up of cross-country results that can also be found through our latest newsletter, The Watchlist. Here’s a look at this week’s national results.

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East

In eastern Canada, almost all Canadian schools from east of Toronto met in Montreal. Queen’s, Dalhousie, Laval, St. FX, St. Mary’s, Sherbrooke and Ottawa all met in Montreal at the Interlock XC Invitational.

There, Jean Simon Desgagnes led the Laval Rouge et Or to the men’s team title, Queen’s was second and the St. FX X Men were third. Laval’s top five men cracked the top 15, making them a serious contender for the national title this November.

In the women’s race, the Queen’s Gaels sat out their two strongest runners and still won the race. Neither MacDougall sister was on the start line, but Kara Blair won the race and led her Kingston squad to victory. Second place went to Elizabeth Hirsch of McGill and third place to Makenna Fitzgerald, also of Queen’s.

Full results can be found here.

Central

In Ontario, the big meet of the week was the McMaster Marauders Bayfront Open in Hamilton. In the men’s race, the home team came out on top with a score of 24 points. The team was led by third-year student Alex Drover, who also won the race.

Second place went to the Western Mustangs, who were led by Marcel Sheele. Third place went to the Windsor Lancers, led by Joshua Martin.

In the women’s race the Western women took the title, coming out with only 54 points. But the individual title went to Laurier’s Lizzy Laurie, who’s been having a great season. Second place went to Waterloo’s Isabella Thorton-Bott (an exchange student from Australia) and third place to Sydney Pattison of Laurier.

The Laurier women’s team has two very strong runners but are lacking depth in the rest of their team. If they can bring some women up from the back of the field, this school could have a historically strong team.

West

On the west coast, UVic and UBC headed south of the border to race the WWU Cross-Country Classic in Washington State.

Both the UVic men and women finished sixth. Caitlin Vail led the women to sixth place, finishing in 11th. On the men’s side, Josh Kozelj was the first Vike across the line, in 17th.

The University of Calgary also headed down to Idaho, where the men came out victorious, sweeping the podium. Fourth-year Alex James was the winner in 23:29, Matthew Travaglini, Stephan Daniel and Russell Pennock held on for second, third and fourth, respectively. The three finished just behind James in 23:30.

On the women’s side, Emily Simpson was the Dinos top performer, finishing fourth, five seconds behind the leader. She led her team to a third-place finish.