THUNDER BAY – Sports – The Lakehead Track Team competed at the OUA Finals, hosted by York university over the weekend. The Windsor Lancers repeated as men’s and women’s champions, with Western finishing in second place in both men’s and women’s standings. Both the Lakehead women and men’s teams finished in 9th place. Day summaries for the Thunderwolves follow.
Day 1: Overall, Lakehead’s athletes ran very well on Friday. Highlights included Tess Naroski finishing 11th in the women’s 1000m in a personal best time of 2:56.00 and Hilary Quirion finishing 9th in the women’s 3000m in a personal best time of 10:23.68.
The men’s 1000m ended with its share of controversy, as LU’s Alastair Brown ran a tactically perfect race pulling away coming off the last curve to win the men’s 1000m. Unbelievably he was later disqualified for a very minor bump with the eventual second place finisher, Western’s Ryan Armstrong. Despite protest from coach Kip Sigsworth, and Armstrong as well to the officials, the disqualification stood. When accepting his medal on the podium, Ryan Armstrong pointed to Brown saying “That’s the real winner.”
In another bizarre twist, Lakehead’s Heather Maxfield had the fourth fastest time in the women’s 300m but was disqualified for a lane violation.
Coach Kip Sigsworth shared, “I was very proud of how the athletes competed today despite some adversity. Hilary Quirion spent a large portion of Thursday in the emergency room with a nasty migraine but managed to come out and PB today and win her section of the 3000m. Tess also ran great and won her section of the 1000m. Alastair looked absolutely awesome in the men’s 1000m, he was strong, ran tactically smart and won convincingly. I am not the only coach left confused by the DQ but that was the decision and we have to accept it. Tomorrow is a new day and we need to refocus and end the season on a high note.”
Day 2: After their controversial first day, the Thunderwolf contingent returned to the Toronto Track and Field Center Saturday morning ready to go.
Alastair Brown finished 3rd in the men’s 1500m. After taking the lead with 3 laps to go, Alastair was out kicked on the last lap by two runners. Dalton Rismay finished 7th in the men’s 1500m. Dalton broke the 4 minute mark for the first time, and won the second section.
Tess Naroski placed 9th in the women’s 1500m. Tess was in the slower section but took the lead early and ran away from the field to win her section by over 3 seconds.The women’s 4 X 400m relay team of Heather Maxfield, Vanessa Ivec, Jess Baraskewich, and Tess Naroski placed 7th overall running a new school record by over 4 seconds.
Coach Kip Sigsworth said, “Great meet for Lakehead. I am really proud of the way our athletes competed today. It has been a long season and by day two of the OUA meet athletes are feeling pretty banged up but the group didn’t use that as an excuse and went out and got the job done. Tess Naroski ran gutsy today – setting out all alone in the 1500m and trying to run CIS standard takes a lot of courage. The 4 X 400m relays were a highlight for me – the last event of the meet and every one is tired and both the men’s and women’s teams ran tough. Now we will have to wait to see the results of the other conferences and see if we have any athletes qualify for the National meet other than Alastair who is in in the 1000m and 1500m for sure.”
A full list of results is available on the ‘Track and Field’ page on thunderwolves.ca.
Final Team Standings
Women
1. Windsor
2. Western
3. Guelph
4. Toronto
5. Ottawa
6. York
7. McMaster
8. Laurentian
9. Lakehead *
9. Laurier *
9. Waterloo *
12. Brock
*three-way tie
Men
1. Windsor
2. Western
3. York
4. Guelph
5. Ottawa
6. Toronto
7. Waterloo
8. McMaster
9. Lakehead
10. Queen’s
11. RMC
12. Brock