XC | Wallingford 15th individual, Men's team 10th at OUA Cross Country Championships
Laurentian's cross country running teams competed this weekend at the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Championships hosted by Queen's University. Teams from seventeen OUA universities competed at the championships in both the women and men's eight-kilometre races at the historic Old Fort Henry course in Kingston.
In the final OUA Cross Country race of his career, fifth year social work student Keon Wallingford (North Bay) led the Voyageurs with a fifteenth place individual finish in the men's race in a time of 24 minutes and 31 seconds. This performance qualified Wallingford for the U SPORTS Championships in November and also assisted the Laurentian men in returning to a top ten placing in the team standings. The Vees score of 266 points was just two points back of ninth place Waterloo and eight points back from eighth place Brock. Following Wallingford to the line and contributing to the team score were first year sports administration student Braeden Estabrooks (Timmins) in 52nd place in 26:06, first year biomedical biology student Luke Ford (Brooklin) in 62nd place in 26:41, fourth year nursing student Brandon Radey (Sudbury), 63rd in 26:47 and fifth year education student Patrick Leroux (Wingham), 74th in 27:15. Displacers for the men's team were Alan Wilkin, 79th in 27:36 and Shiloh Sauve, 81st in 27:49.
"This was our best performance of the season for both squads" noted Vees head coach, Darren Jermyn. "Keon was solid as always and definitely earned his qualifying spot to represent Laurentian at the U Sports national championship. Our first year runners really stepped up their game on both squads today with Valerie, Charli, Braeden and Luke demonstrating we will have a strong core to build around over the next several years" Jermyn also commented.
Keon Wallingford moves on to represent Laurentian at the U Sports Championships hosted by the University of Sherbrooke on November 8th.