BC High School Championships

Ocean Athletics athletes scored big at the BC High School T&F championships.

June 4th and 5th might have been a mix of weather that required an umbrella, long sleeves, flip-flops and sunscreen, but the performances were pretty darn hot on the track and in the field.

 

Congratulations to our BC HS Champions Justin Kent (3000M), Jake Bruchet (Steeplechase)

and the Semiahmoo Men's 4x400M Relay team with Dylan Weichel, Jack Williams and Adam Paul-Morris (alternate Alex Strachan).  Justin got the momentum started early with a Friday morning win in the 3000M, an event where he was the favourite, he managed the pressure of all those expectations and finally won his Provincial title that eluded him in the cross country season.

In the Steeplechase, Justin again was the favourite, but after some Friday night Grad festivities he

was less than well rested and despite taking the early lead he was caught by a couple of boys who

seemed to be dreaming of Silver, until they realized that Justin was not too far ahead.  The Oak Bay

runner and Jake Bruchet battled hard back and forth for a couple of laps until they finally overtook

Justin in the final lap of this grueling 2000M splash and hurdle struggle, but Justin responded and

the 3 of them were in a fierce finishing kick from 300M out.  The problem was that they were running

hard into oxygen debt and they still had a few barriers to clear.  The Oak Bay runner took the lead

over the last water jump, but he stumbled, then regained his balance, Justin and Jake came over

the barrier nearly equal, but then Jake (who has never beaten Justin before) forged ahead to take

a lead.  The Oak Bay runner went to clear his last barrier, but the barrier won this test and took him

down hard.  Jake hurdled that barrier and then hurdled the fallen former-leader and took off for

the finish line and the last 50M.  Justin was still not done, he also passed the Oak Bay runner and

was charging after Jake, but ended up 2nd with a Silver (Justin has now won a medal of all colours at this meet!).  It was a big PB for Jake, he made the standard for Legion nationals and had dozens of roaring fans high-fiving all over the stadium.

Our final triumph came in the last event of the meet - the Men's 4 x 400M relay has been highly

anticipated since January when the boys ran a quick indoor meet in Seattle.  They may have had

some earlier thoughts about the Meet Record of 3:20, but on this day the focus was on winning,

and they accomplished that in commanding style.  Lucas Ferrence got them off to a great start,

it looked like he split the 200M in about 23s, I was worried maybe a little too quick, but he held strong coming to the 1st exchange and looked to pass it off at about 51s and clearly ahead of

all other teams.  Dylan ran the second leg and held the margin firm for 300M before extending it

a little bit before passing off to Jack Williams when the clock read 1:42, with a lead of 15M+

Jack still had to put in an A+ effort to hold off some excellent trailing teams.  Adam Paul-Morris

got the stick at about 2:32 with that same 15M+ lead and ran a well paced lap that gave nobody

thoughts of catching them.  Their 3:22 was very fast, and very well balanced with a team that

extended about 8 runners deep.  Congratulations are also in order for the other Semi runners who

supported in the heats and Fraser Valley qualifying meet - Alex Strachan and Tyler McMillan.

In additon to our champions we also had 2 more individual medal winners, they were both Grade 10's and they both took Silver medals home.

Deon Clifford won Silver in the 3000M and Bronze in the 1500M, both were PB runs in very close battles to the finish line.

In the Women's 400M, Reid (Kajaks & Earl Marriot) was clearly in control of winning her 2nd consecutive title, but the battle for medals was very tight with 4 contenders coming down the homestretch, Vanessa Sjoberg paced herself just right to lead this group, she ran her first sub-56s 1 lapper to finish 2nd.

 

Oh so close - 4th place finishes;  Adam Paul-Morris in the 400M and Ryan Sommer in Discus.  Adam ran his first sub-50s in the finals to earn the award ceremony spot right beside the podium, he later would stand on top with his 4x4 teammates.  Grade 11 Ryan threw a nice Discus PB of 44.03m which was just 7cm short of a medal, so if he was aiming for a medal, his effort was only 99.8% good enough in an event were the field marking officials are usually only 99% accuate!

More Ocean Athletics Top 8 finishers:

Rachel Cho - stopped near the end of her Steeplechase, turned around and ran backwards to pickup a fallen competitor (Peggy Noel), gave up 5th, and settled for 7th, costing Semi 2 points but winning the hearts of hundreds of witnesses!
Florence Clifford - Discus 5th and Hammer 7th to end her High School career with 5 consecutive years of Top 8 results, but no medal, still she was all smiles.
Max Hanna - 7th place, an outstanding result for a grade 9 boy.
Erin Slade - 5th place in 1500M with a big PB.
Jack Williams - 7th in 400M, going sub 51.
Declan White - Mr. 8th place in both the 800M and 3000M with PB runs.

Gurjot Bal - 7th place in the 800M in sub-2.
Peggy Noel 1500SC 6th (who also lost the battle of the last Steeple barrier, but recovered to score points)
Semiahmoo Mens 4x100M relay team - 6th place. 

 

In total we had 16 club athletes achieve a Top 8 result in the Provincial HS champs, and 9 of them  are underclassmen who will return next year to compete for medals.

 

Stay tuned for news of the Grade 8/9 division.

Jim Clifford

Ocean Athletics

 

 

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