Mouat Senior Girls XC Team Dominates Fraser Valley Championships

W.J. Mouat’s senior girls cross country team took the top three places at the Fraser Valley Cross Country Championships held Wednesday on a hilly course at Aldergrove Park.

Hawk runners dominated the 4.5-k race with Callum Pilgrim finishing first (16:48), Alicia Unruh second (16:55) and Alex Siemens in third (17:03). The two other scoring members of the Mouat team were Sarya Ross in eighteenth and Amanda Thompson who finished in 39th.

Mouat accumulated a low score of 43 pts and easily won the team title placing ahead of last year’s champion Walnut Grove (74 pts.), Charles Best (78 pts.) and a surprisingly strong Abbotsford Christian team (88 pts.). Nineteen teams and 177 runners took park in the senior girl’s event.

The three Mouat medalists were in a race of their own for most of course. Siemens’ led for a majority of the first 3-k but then Pilgrim took over and opened up a gap of 50-meters to win the race by eight seconds.

Mouat will now be one of the favored teams when the provincial championships take place in Prince George on November 3.

Other performances by Abbotsford runners at yesterday’s meet included:
Junior Girls:
3rd Hannah Konrad (Yale)—qualifies for Provincials
14th Delaney Chapman—(Abbotsford Traditional)

Senior Boys:
20th Peter Mitchell (Mouat)—qualifies for Provincials

Callum Pilgrim Leads Royals at Sunfair Meet

Yakima, WA, Oct. 7—Valley Royal and WJ Mouat cross country runner
Callum Pilgrim had had an outstanding performance at the Sunfair High School Invitational cross country meet held Saturday in Yakima, Washington.

Pilgrim, an all round athlete who is pursuing cross country running for the first time, placed second in her flight 5-race held over a very hilly three mile course at Lincoln Park. The grade 10 athlete held the lead until the last 400-meters of her race but was eventually passed by Idaho’s Emily Callahan.

Pilgrim’s time of 18:26 was the third best performance of the day amongst the girl’s competitions and the second fastest time ever in the flight five race. Pilgrim stated to her coach that she knew exactly where and why she lost the race but felt that the experience would be valuable to her development as a quality runner.

Alexandra Siemens, who also attends Mouat, ran a strategic race in the flight 7 race and kept pace with the leaders over the first half of the course but during the final kilometer she had some trouble and had to settle for a third place finish.

Peter Mitchell, yet another Mouat runner, had a good performance and
placed third in flight 1 of the boy’s competition. Mitchell, a grade 11 athlete from Mouat and in his first season of cross country running, had a competitive run and finished with a time of 17:49.

Other solid performances for the Royals saw 13-year old Gabrielle MacGregor place ninth in the girls’ junior varsity run, Jennifer Kell (grade 10) came second in flight 2, Ashley Heisler was fifth in flight 1, Erica Johnson was eighth in the girl’s junior varsity run and Delaney Chapman was second in the grade 10 girl’s competition.