Spartans places fourth in provincials

Justin Seward

Times Reporter

 

The Spartans cross country team had a very accomplished year with a fourth place finish at the provincials in Okotoks on Oct.18

Coach Paul Sonsteby could not be happier with his team finishing higher than last year and the individual achievements by some of the runners.
“I’d say we had a better overall championship than last year. We finished fourth in the province for 3A schools and highest in South Central Zones,” said Sonsteby
The Spartans ran the race with nine runners and that was low numbers compared to the banner winning Eagle Butte.
“Eagle Butte took the banner this year for 3a schools but we were really happy of coming in fourth with only nine runners is a good result considering Eagle Butte had 23,” said Sonsteby.
One of the reasons that the Spartans only had nine runners were some injuries to the seniors prior to provincials.
“We had a couple of injuries to senior boys in the week leading up. Liam Schoepp wasn’t able to run due to a leg injury and Kyle Foster ran despite a leg injury, so they did okay but not as good as they could have,” said Sonsteby.
“The best finish of the day was Karly Larson who came in 37th out of 110. I like to see anything above that 50 range. Karly ran a time of 19:30 and she did not have her bib on and got a little bit concerned with that and was trying talk to me and the other coach, I think that maybe interfered with the flow of her run a little bit.”
Despite the distractions, she was able to leave it all out on the course.
“She left a really good sprint in there and she gained about five spots, getting from the 40s to the 30s just on her sprint at the end of the race, really strong finish,” said Sonsteby.
“Karly is one of those all around athletes but she’s really this year been running at the best I have ever seen, just her sheer athleticism pushed her into those extra spots. She strategized well in her race like there were a couple of narrow spots and she tried to run parallel with another runner so that it would make it more difficult for runners behind to pass on a hill.”
Mackenzie Bain and Martina Vergouwan both had strong showings in the junior categories as they both put strong efforts on the track.
“Mackenzie ran an extremely smart race, Martina is all around gifted runner. There was a bottle neck in one point of their race and Mackenzie was picking his spots, he passed underneath me while I was on this bridge and I saw him weaving in and out to gain three or four sports here and there,” said Sonsteby.
“Martina Vergouwan, same thing a very strong runner and good pace in the end.”
Another notable was Maria Fanning, who was more of hill runner and was faced with a lot of larger flat spots that she worked through to by taking advantage of those hills so no one would pass her.
Sonsteby really likes to see sportsmanship on his team and one of those athletes was Brendan Roberts who would go to other races to cheer on other teams.
As a result of his dedication, Roberts received one of eight sportsmanship ribbons.
“I get a comment about every single race we’re at about the fact that he’s cheering on any jersey he sees. That was a nice testament that he’s one of the few people to get a sportsmanship pins,” said Sonsteby.
He also added that the team had some personal bests and got stronger as the year went along.
Many of the runners that had progressive runs this year are only going to get better.