XC | Women 11th at OUA 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 women's race, the Voyageurs were in tough after their top performer during the regular season, Abby Lanteigne, had to abandon the race at the four kilometre mark due to illness.  Stepping up to lead the Vees to an 11^th place team finish was first year kinesiology student Valerie Vaillancourt (Sudbury) who placed 48^th in a time of 30 minutes and 57 seconds. Other scorers for the Vees were first year kinesiology student Charli Borak (Georgetown), 58^th in 31:46, third year English literature student Charlotte Grenier (Sudbury), 67^th in 32:18, second year kinesiology student Georgia Lepage, 69^th in 32:29 and fourth year nursing student Claire Scholl (Newmarket), 77^th in 33:36.  Ariel Gibbons (Renfrew) was the Vees lone displacer in 85^th place with a time of 35:17.

"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.