Leggatt finishes third among Canada West runners to pace Griffins at Stewart Cup
Jefferson Hagen / MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – MacEwan's Hannah Leggatt conquered a tough Gold Bar Park course to finish third among university runners at the Stewart Cup Memorial race on Saturday afternoon.
Leggatt led the Griffins women's cross-country team to a solid third place finish amongst Canada West squads competing at the event, which is the final audition race before the USPORTS national championship in Victoria on Nov. 12.
"Her performance today was quite good," said MacEwan co-coach Drew Carver. "It was a very tough course with a lot of hills and the athletes found out that if they went out early hard, it set them up for an extremely high heart rate. A lot of athletes that were leading fell to the wayside. The athletes that had a better race, like Hannah, just kept picking them off one at a time."
Leggatt finished the 8K in ninth among 73 runners in the field, but the only Canada West athletes to beat her were winner Melissa Jones of Calgary and fourth-place competitor Courtney Hufsmith of Saskatchewan. Carver said Leggatt feels like she could have gone faster, though.
"I think this week's training was catching up to her," he said. "We're now getting into our taper, so when we get to nationals, she should be a little bit more well rested and feeling strong."
Roxanne Skoreyko finished 21st and 10th among Canada West runners, while Abby Ackerman was 24th (12th CW) and Chanelle Gagne was 27th (15th CW). Jocelyn Leffers (58th and 31st CW) and Maissa Sabourin (72nd and 32nd CW) rounded out MacEwan's women's results.
"Roxanne, she had a good race," said Carver. "She performed right in there, same with Abby Ackerman. Those two girls stepped it up today. Chanelle had a bit of a tough day. She was feeling a little sick and under the weather, but I think Chanelle will be performing (better at nationals).
"Jocelyn, our fifth runner, had a PB today and I think on an easier course she'll even run faster."
MacEwan's women's team finished third behind Calgary and Alberta and just ahead of Manitoba. Saskatchewan finished last of the competing conference squads.
"University of Manitoba looked like they were ahead of us at the halfway point with more runners out front, but the girls steadily stuck around and picked them off as they went and got themselves into third position," said Carver. "It was a great day out there, beautiful weather. The course was probably one of the tougher cross-country courses to run on with all the hills and terrain."
On the men's side, things didn't go as well for the Griffins. Carver was using the race as an audition to see if some of the team's depth runners would be fast enough to prove competitive at nationals, but unfortunately that wasn't the case, so he won't be fielding a men's squad in Victoria next month.
Scott Kohlman and Aaron Boyle will race individually at nationals, even though Saturday's Stewart Cup performance wasn't their best. Kohlman finished the 10K in 37th out of the field of 77 (25th best Canada West time), while Boyle was 58th (28th in CW).
"They had a tough day," said Carver. "Both Scott and Aaron, I felt, were at the right point in the race at the beginning of it, but they both looked like their legs were done.
"I talked to them after the race and they both said they felt really flat. I know at this final phase of training we've been in, we've picked up the pace and have been going to a little bit shorter intervals. It's definitely had a bit of an effect on them.
"Going into this taper, I'm hoping they rebound because they were looking really good in Victoria earlier. This race was not their 'A' performance."
Kyle Dong placed 69th (29th CW), Ryan Lawley 76th (30th CW) and Trekk Allan 77th (31st CW) as the Griffins placed a distance fifth of five conference teams in attendance.
"They're still working hard and the fact that the pace of the race is going to be a lot faster … I don't see it being a good race for them to be at nationals," said Carver.
"It's one of those things that we are basically still trying to build that men's team. The jump to 10K is still the thing that we're working on. It's probably going to be if we can get a group of guys that are willing to train and stick it out we will have a team."
