Cross Country 2014
The Cross Country Team has had an excellent fall of running, with a good mix of new and veteran runners participating. Our training took us on routes along the pathways and parkland near school. Many runners also participated in our local D8/WCSSA race series. These races were held at a variety of great locations including: Preston High School, Bechtel Park, Laurel Creek Conservation Area and University of Waterloo-Columbia Lake.
One highlight was participating in the HUGE pre-OFSAA invitational meet held this year at The University of Waterloo. The senior boys race included over 800 participants, and when the gun went off the ground shook as the herd stampeded away…very exciting! Another highlight was running through the crazy mud at Bechtel Park after a few days of rain. A lot of fun was had trying to stay dry and warm in our shaky tent between races.
Our most competitive group was the very strong midget boys team (grade 9), who very narrowly missed qualifying for OFSAA. The team was comprised of Dan Popescu, Cameron Beetham, James Carr-Pries, Ben Neufeldt and Nathan Diller-Harder. They placed fifth at our regional CWOSSA finals, just five points out of the fourth and final qualifying spot for the “big show”. This is quite an accomplishment for a groups of talented runners coming from a small school such as ours. There’s always next year!!
Rockway’s Cross Country Team is unique among our teams in that it offers students from across the grades (7-12) a chance to participate in athletics together. Relationships that grow across the grades because of opportunities like this is one of the great things that happen here.
Thanks for great season of running,
Steffen Pauls, Coach
