Elmira will be represented by 17 track and field athletes this week at the Central Western Ontario Secondary Schools Association meet, after finishing in the top four in their respective categories at the regional meet, WCSSAA last week in Cambridge.
Held in Kincardine on Wednesday and Thursday, athletes will have to finish in the top six in their categories there in order to move on to the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) West meet. They’ll have to be in the top four there to go onto the provincial competition, OFSAA.
“We’re very pleased with their results,” said EDSS coach Lisa Douglas. “They did a great job. They had a lot of fun. We had 17 kids qualify, so successful start to the season.”
Of the 17, three earned first place finishes. They were Savannah Campbell in the senior girls’ 400-metre dash, Emily Willms in senior girls’ javelin, and Danielle Weber in junior girls’ high jump.
As for any surprise finishes at last week’s meet, Douglas notes Weber’s showing.
“Probably Danielle Weber who got first in high jump because I convinced her to do it. She didn’t want to do it, she didn’t want to compete. I told her to do it and she ended up getting first, so that was pretty exciting,” Douglas said.
Campbell also finished second in the senior girls’ 400-metre hurdles and third in the senior girls’ 200-metre dash.
“Savannah Campbell and Owen Read, they both qualified for all three of their events. John Wang also qualified for all three of his events. So that was pretty amazing. Emily Willms getting first in javelin was awesome. This is her last year, so that’s pretty exciting as well,” Lisa said.
Read came second in the senior boys’ 100 and 200-metre dashes, and third in the 400-metre dash.
Wang came in second in the junior boys’ 1500-metre dash, third in the junior boys’ 800-metre run, and second in the 3000-metre run.
Lizzy Klosa will compete in three events as well. She finished second in the midget girls’ 200-metre dash, and fourth in the midget girls’ 100-metre dash, as well as being part of the fourth-place midget girls’ relay team.
Douglas says a lot of their athletes that qualified in three events are actually first year seniors. This means they’ll be competing against Grade 12s and fifth-year students too, so that makes it a little difficult to predict how they’ll do.
“CWOSSA to OFSAA West, we’ll probably do quite well. I’m not so sure yet about OFSAA West to OFSAA, that’s a really tough one. And because the top six from CWOSSA go to OFSAA West, but then only the top four go to OFSAA, so you can squeak in with a sixth place finish and then the competition gets even stronger,” Douglas said.
Owen Hill-Ring ran to a second place finish in the midget boys’ 3000-metre run.
Chloe Snider placed third in the girls’ 400-metre dash. Gavin Cortes came third in the boys’ 200-metre dash. Morgan Douglas threw for a fourth place finish in senior girls’ shot put, and Sonya Wideman leaped to fourth place in the senior girls’ high jump.
Erik Krepstakies, Griffen Rollins, Brian Alpaugh, and Gavin Cortes will represent Elmira after a third place finish in the midget boys’ 4×100-metre relay.
Maddie Quinn, Sidney Montague, Chloe Snider, and Lizzy Klosa also qualified by finishing fourth in the midget girls’ 4×100-metre relay.
The team hit the field on Monday for their last practice before the meet this week.
“Really we’re just trying to fine tune at this point in time because you can’t make major changes,” Douglas said prior to practice.
