Alexandra Siemens Posts Cross Country Win at Ocean Athletics Meet

Sat., September 29, 2012: Alex Siemens was first in the senior high school girls’ division of the Ocean Athletics meet held Saturday at Crescent Beach Park. Siemens covered the 4-k course in a time of 12:48 to place seven seconds in front of Miryan Bassett (Naniamo) and nine seconds ahead of the third place finisher Rebecca Basset.

It was a good test for Siemens as next week she will travel with her teammates to Yakima, WA for the Sunfair meet. The trip was originally scheduled for this past Saturday but brush fires in the area caused a severe smoke hazard and the organizers had to postpone the meet for health reasons. Cooler temperatures have now remedied the situation and all is set for this coming Saturday.

Placing 7th in the high school girl’s division was Sarya Ross (13:39) while Ashley Heisler came up with a good performance to place 11th (14:20). Oliver Jorgensen got his season off to a good start by placing fifth the senior boys 5-k race posting a time of 17:34. Teammates Peter Mitchelle, a grade 10 runner, was 14th (18:36) and Arsh Ganda finished in 32nd position.

Jennifer Kell had a strong effort in the 13-year old girl’s race placing second (12:26) with teammate Delaney Chapman, a much improved cross country runner, coming fourth (13:14).

Aidan Bingert, who has had limited practice time this season because of injury, placed 5th in the 15-year old boys’ division covering the 3-k course in 11:43.

A number of junior development runners took part in the meet. In the nine year old girls’ run Amy Brandt was sixth ((5:48) and Olivia McAuley 7th (5:18) while in the 10-year old boy’s 2-k run, Kai MacKenzie placed 8th followed by Parker Janzen in 11th (9:59) and Aaron Boschman 16th (11:07).

Nikki Janzen placed 20th in the 12-year old girl’s run while Katia Heppell came fifth in the 13-year old girl’s division 3-k race followed by Gabe McGregor was ninth (13:20) and Jensen Barker tenth (13:21).

New JD Athletes Run Well at South Fraser Meet

On a day that finally looked like Cross Country Season had arrived, a pair of Rookie Royals acquitted themselves well on the course at Bear Creek Park. Amy Brandt, and Katia Heppell both made their Royal debuts, and performed wonderfully well against the tougher competition of a B.C. Athletics meet. Amy secured a Bronze medal in her 1000m race, while Katia placed fifth in her 3000m race.  Amy ran all alone in her round, and was a bit surprised by the pace of the more experienced racers, while Katia benefited in her outing from some wisdom and advice from the more seasoned Gabe MacGregor who also ran the same contest. Illness kept Gabe from her best outcome, but she still ran as strong as circumstances would allow. All in all, it was a good showing for the first event of our Cross Country endeavors.

CROSS COUNTRY SEASON IS UNDERWAY

Cross country season for Valley Royal athletes has begun in earnest and most club runners have either taken part in a meet or are about to do so. The Grand Prix Cross Country series staged its first of the four meets last Wednesday and in excess of nine hundred runners took part in the event. By Monday results of Wednesday’s meet will be available and posted to this web page and we will be able to see how our young Royals
 faired.

This Saturday Sarya Ross, Alex Siemens and Callum Pilgrim will form the nucleus of
the W.J. Mouat team that will run 4km legs of a team distance at the Whistler Spirit Run, in an event that will be a nice warm-up for the trip to Yakima the following weekend for
the Sunfair meet.

Last Saturday at the University of Washington Sundodger meet held in Seattle,
Travis Vugteveen placed 44th (26:08) to lead Simon Fraser University to a fifth place
team finish in the Varsity Division.