St. Timothy Junior and Senior High cross country coach Travis Cummings called it.

Heading into Wednesday's (October 11) Calgary City and Zone Cross Country Championships that were hosted by St. Tim's at the Cochrane Ag Grounds, Cummings had predicted that five of his athlete's would qualify for the Provincial Championships and that's precisely what happened.

A smaller contingent of runners than usual were on hand for the races.  Cummings says that's likely because the races were held on a cold and snowy day.  "The weather wasn't the greatest but it wasn't the worst I've ever hosted a cross country meet in.  Usually there's about 750 finishers but this year there were about 700."

The meet consisted of runners from 42 schools in the Calgary Senior High School Athletic Association and independent schools in the city.  Cochrane, Airdrie and Chestermere schools in the Calgary Seperate School Divsion also took part.  

Josh Novak from St. Tim's finished fourth overall in a field of 135 athletes in the Senior Boy's division.  After the provincial meet, Novak will be heading to Kingston, Ontario for the National Cross Country Championships, running with the University of Calgary Athletic Club.

In the Junior Girl's race, Maggie Brolsma took seventh place for St. Tim's.  Cummings was extremely happy with her race.   "That was probably the best race I've ever seen Maggie run.  She raced with a ton of confidence and wouldn't take no for an answser."

Brenek Spademan qualified for Provincials in Junior Boy's.  The top 18 in each division qualify and Spademan finished 16th.  Cummings thinks Spademan did an awesome job.

"It was borderline for him to make it 'cause Junior Boys is pretty competitive.  Brenek's actually a year younger than everyone else in grade ten 'cause he skipped a grade, so he's actually grade nine age.  His margin for error was pretty small but he executed his race plan perfectly.  He stayed in position around top 20 at the start of the race and then really had a good second lap.  He had an awesome run."

Scott Delsing and Eric Swedlo qualified 10th and 11th in Intermediate Boys.  Cummings remarked, "Scott and Eric ran a good team race.   They worked with each other and executed the race plan really well." 

Overall, Cummings was extremely pleased with the results posted by St. Timothy runners. 

"All my athletes that made Provincials all ran up to their potential on Wednesday.  I was happy with that,  It's tough to make it out of Calgary zone.  Edmonton and Calgary are the two toughest zones to qualify for track and cross country in the province.  Generally the kids that are top ten in the cities in Calgary are top ten at Provincials."

The Provincial Championships are next Saturday (October 21) at Rundle Park in Edmonton.   St. Timothy is in the 2A school level, based on school population.  Cummings says the school has captured the silver medal at Provincials in that level for three straight years and they're hoping to match that accomplishment, or improve on it, in 2017. 

 "To improve on that we've got to beat Strathcona - Tweedsmuir and they're usually pretty tough, but we've been close the last couple of years so we'll see."

Pictued below:  Maggie Brolsma