Saturday's Stewart Cup race an important final audition for Griffins runners before nationals
Jefferson Hagen / MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – Entering their final audition before nationals, Griffins cross-country runners will test themselves against top Canada West competition at the Stewart Cup Memorial race at Gold Bar Park on Saturday.
"This is a good contest for us to show where we stack up in the scheme of things," said co-coach Drew Carver. "We'll be looking to have a really strong performance from both the men's and women's teams. From this, we will be deciding whether we'll send full teams to nationals or just taking the competitive athletes to it."
The Griffins would need five men and five women to field teams of each gender at the U Sports championship in Victoria next month, which also double as the Canada West championship.
"If it's a case where the men's team is not in the competitive field, we'll just take the athletes that are running at a competitive time," Carver said. "That goes for the ladies, too. They've got to step up and perform. If I can see that an athlete is not going to be in that competitive field, I won't take them to nationals."
Hannah Leggatt, Roxanne Skoreyko, Chanelle Gagne, Abby Ackerman, Jocelyn Leffers and Maissa Sabourin will represent the Griffins in the women's 8K at the Stewart Cup, while Scott Koihlman, Aaron Boyle, Kyle Dong, Ryan Lawley and Trekk Allan will race in the men's 10K. Racing begins at noon for the women and 1 p.m. for the men.
While the Griffins have been running shorter distances at other events so far this season, this will be a chance to race the same lengths they'll see at nationals. They'll also go against top Prairie competition with Calgary, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Regina and Manitoba expected to send teams.
"This way this gives us a time and helps us see where we stack up nationally," said Carver. "That's why it's going to be competitive for the team to race at their best level."
For the men, Kohlman and Boyle have proven their times stack up with the best in Canada West, but for Dong, Lawley and Allan, the challenge will be proving competitive enough to warrant a spot at nationals.
"On the men's side, at 10,000 metres, if you're not in the race, you get left behind pretty quickly and then you're completely out of it for the whole time," said Carver. "The ladies are running 8K, so it's going to be pretty much the same thing."
Carver noted he and co-coach Linda Miller have been preparing the Griffins for the increase in both distances (up from 6K and 8K previously) with a season-long training plan. Now they're ready to go for it, just two weeks out from the Nov. 11 nationals.
"The whole season's training plan has been building for the ladies to run 8K and putting them in what I consider their most competitive phase," he said. "They're at that point. All the races they've done leading up to this were basically training races, checkmarks along the way to see if we're in the right spot. Most of them, yes, they were in the right places. So, if we've done everything right, we should have a team that will be competitive.
"Our first crack at 8K in Saskatoon was very competitive," he said. "To finish third there wasn't too bad. I'm expecting we shouldn't slide down the scale from Saskatoon's race. We should be competitive again."
