KING CITY, Ont. - It was a near perfect day at Seneca College's King Campus for the Second Annual Sting Invitational. The only thing better than the weather were the performances by the Humber Hawks women's and men's cross country running teams as they took home both team titles, while also adding three individual medals on the morning.
With the temperature reaching 17 degrees at race time, the women kicked off the morning with a 5 km, two-lap race around the scenic King Campus. Seneca's Steph Braithwaite led narrowly after the first lap over Humber's Cara Coutts. Coutts would take over the lead before a push by Braithwaite regained the lead. With just over a kilometre to go, the runners faced the toughest uphill climb of the course. It was there that Coutts passed Braithwaite for the final time, winning in a time of 21:23. Braithwaite finished in 21:39 while George Brown's Joanita Louw finished third in 21:40.
The Hawks won the team race with a time of 1:28:36. The Algonquin Thunder finished 10 minutes behind for the silver while the host Sting were 16 minutes off the pace. Humber's winning team included Coutts, Coby Phillips, Claire Brown and Richelle Ramirez. Other team members were Katharine White and Megan VanKeolen.
The men's race had little drama as Fleming's Riley Hubbard-Olesky completed the course in 26:17, more than a minute faster than Humber's Nathaniel Green (27:19). Hubbard-Olesky took a lead early in the three-lap, 8.5 km race, and never looked back as he helped his team to a second place finish. Humber's Eric Bang (27:48) rounded out the top three finishers.
In the team competition, Humber's top four runners finished second, third, fourth and fifth overall, so win the team title by just over a minute and a half as the team continues to prepare for the CCAA championship, being hosted by Humber College. The Fleming Knights finished second followed by the Georgian Grizzlies, the only school that finished with a sub-two hour team time.
The 2013 OCAA championship will take place on Saturday, Oct. 26 at Redeemer University College. The 2013 CCAA championship will be contested Nov. 9 at Humber College.
Source: Seneca College
Photo Credit: Martin Bazyl