The St. Timothy's Junior High Cross Country team went into the Calgary Catholic School Division Meet of Champions on October 5th with high expectations and the young runners did not disappoint.

The team came away from the meet at Ascension of Our Lord School with a total of four medals and multiple top 10 and top 20 placings which, according to Head Coach Travis Cummings, was likely their best showing in the nine years he's coached at the school.

"I was pretty happy with the results and the kids were pretty happy.  Some of them wanted a bit more but you always do when you're an athlete.  I was very proud of how they did."

Darci Petersen ended her Junior High cross country career by winning the Meet of Champions for the third consecutive year, becoming the first runner in St. Tim's history to accomplish the feat.  Cummings says the grade nine runner won the race convincingly. 

Her teammates Grace Boston finished in sixth place among grade nine girls while Emily Carvalho narrowly missed a top ten finish with a 12th place finish.  It was Carvalho's best race of her young, and promising, running career.

St. Tim's second city championship came in the grade eight girls where Holly Moores followed up her grade seven gold medal performance in 2016 with another convincing win.  

Sofia Preece captured the bronze medal while Makenna Myatt placed 10th.

Cummings says while he's proud of all the runners, the two results he's happiest with were Carvalho's and Myatt's.  "The two girls have just made huge, huge progress.  They've just been grinding away and the other kids see that and it's inspiring for them."

Even though he didn't win the grade seven boy's race, Ethan Horb likely turned in the gutsiest peformance of the day in winning the bronze medal.  Cummings compared Horb's performance to that of American runner Steve Prefontaine in the 5000 metres at the 1972 Munich Olympics.  

Prefontaine finished the race in fourth spot but his brave performance prompted one commentator to say, "One man won the race, but another man made the race."

"He went out like he wanted to win and he looked like he was a kid who had something to prove.  At the start of the race he just tried to punish everyone else in the field.  There were two kids that hung off him for the first half of the race.  He ended up being in a dog fight with them for the last 200 metres.  He kicked a bit early and just didn't want to give up the lead which I definitely respect.  I'd rather have an athlete lay it out there and come up short rather than just race to try and win."

Rounding out the St. Tim's top ten finishers was Allyson Bentley who placed fifth, narrowly missing a medal, in the grade seven girls race.

Other top performances were turned in by Trenton Spademan, Liam McCullough, Alex Aguilar, Lucas Rott and Miranda Hobbs,

Next on the horizon for the junior high squad is the Athletics Alberta Provincial Championships, November 4th in Wetaskiwin.

This coming Wednesday, October 11th, St. Timothy's will host the High School City Championships and the Zone Championships for the right to go on to provincials, at the Ag Grounds in Cochrane.  Cummings is hoping that four or five St. Tims athletes qualify for the provincial meet.  Racing gets underway at 1:30 pm.

The Provincial Championships go at Rundle Park in Edmonton on October 21st.  Cummings is hoping that four or five St. Tims athletes qualify for provincials.   

PICTURED BELOW:  (Left: Holly Moores runs in the grade eight girls race.  Right: The St. Timothy's Junior High Cross Country team)