St. Clair Men’s Cross Country and Currie Race to Provincial Silver
The St. Clair College Men’s Cross-Country team were led by rookie runner Brendan Currie (LaSalle, ON/St. Thomas of Villanova) at the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association Provincial Championships which were hosted by Mohawk College (Hamilton) on Saturday at Marydale Park in Mount Hope, ON. The Men’s team were back on the podium with a Silver Medal result while Currie achieved the same individual honour after finishing only 23 seconds from the top spot.
In a field of 57 runners Currie covered the 8km trail in time of 25:12 becoming the 8th St. Clair Men’s runner to win an individual medal and was a First-Team All-Ontario member. The team silver is the 13th medal in Men’s program history against the seven other schools in the field. Noah Nicoletti (Windsor, ON/Holy Names) clocked a time of 26:59 in 11th Place and teammate Luke Nelson (Windsor, ON/St. Thomas of Villanova) crossed the line in 27:09 for 13th position as both were named to the Second-Team All-Ontario. Daniel Barnes (Iona Station, ON/West Elgin) was the final counting runner for St. Clair with a time of 28:13 in 20th Place. Other finishers for the Saints included Chase Canty (Windsor, ON/Vincent Masey) in 22nd Place (28:17) and Quinten Wentoniuk (Belle River, ON/Belle River) in 47th Place (32:07).
The St. Clair Women turned in a 5th Place team result out of the eight schools entered led by Second-Team All-Ontario performer Ana-Maria Fodor (Windsor, ON/Vincent Masey) who completed the 6km course in a time of 25:07. Melody Knight (Tecumseh, ON/Tecumseh Vista) was 17th for the Saints with a time of 25:45 but was honoured with the Fair Play Award amongst the 52 competitors. Justine Abbott (Wyoming, ON) was 24th in 27:16 followed by teammate Jillian Stratichuk (Belle River, ON/St. Anne) in 28th Place and timed at 28:42 which rounded out the St. Clair counting runners. Emersyn Grondin (Tecumseh, ON/Tecumseh Vista) was 33rd (29:23) and Kendra Bell (Windsor, ON/Holy Names) was 35th (29:43) as the final participants for the Saints.
There were nine Mixed Teams entered in the meet and St. Clair placed 4th in that combined category.
As a result of Saturday’s results, the St. Clair Men’s team as well as Fodor have qualified for the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association National Championships on November 8th which will be held at the Mark Arendz Provincial Nordic Ski Park in Brookvale, Prince Edward Island which is 25 minutes east of Charlottetown.