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Michael
Assivero looks on as his teammate St. Matthew High
School teammate Jeremy Eneyka wins the midget boys
100-metres at the NCSSAA championships on May 23.
FRED SHERWIN PHOTO
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High school
athletes from across the region gathered at the Terry Fox
Athletic Facility at Mooney's Bay last week for the National
Capital Secondary School Athletic Association championships
and several competitors from the east end managed to rise
above the pack.
Top among
them was Kayla Vieux from �cole secondaire Louis-Riel who
placed first in the senior girls 200 metres; second in the
100 metres by just five one-hundredths of a second; and
then led her team to a big win in the senior girls 4x100
relay along with Kadiatou Wann, Megan Roy and Elodie Lavictoire.
Like Vieux,
Wann and Roy were both double event winners. Wann defended
her title in the senior girls long jump and Roy won the
senior girls 800 metres to go along with a third place result
in the 400-metre hurdles.
The top
five athletes in each event will get to compete in the OFSAA
East Region meet being held in Belleville on May 30 and
31. The East Region meet serves as a qualifier for the OFSAA
provincial championships being held in Guelph from June
6-8.
Louis-Riel
will have the largest contingent heading to Belleville this
week with 11 athletes managing to finish in the top five
in their respective events.
�cole
secondaire Gis�le-Lalonde is sending eight athletes to Belleville
including Leewinchel Jean who won the senior boys 400-metre
hurdles and placed second in the 100-metre hurdles in a
race he could have won if not for briefly brushing arms
with the runner in the lane beside him which slowed him
down enough to lose the race by just three-tenths of a second.
"I'm a
little disappointed because I really wanted to win both
races, but those things happen I guess, I'll be ready in
Belleville,� said Jean, whose winning time of 55.20 seconds
in the 400 hurdles qualified him for this summer's Pan-Am
Junior Championships in Costa Rica which was one of his
goals coming into the high school season.
St. Peter
High School will be represented at the East Region championships
by Vienna Courteau, who won the 80-metre hurdles and placed
second in the long jump. She will be joined in Belleville
by Katie Newlove, who placed second in the senior girls
3,000-metres and third in the 1500.
One of
the biggest surprises of the NCSSAA championships was the
performance of the St. Matthew High School team and its
male sprinters in particular. Jeremy Enyeka won the midget
boys 100-metre sprint competing in track for the first time.
The Grade 9 student is one of four members of the school's
football team who decided to try out for the track team.
Fellow
Tiger Michael Assivero placed fourth in the 100 and the
pair combined forces with Gedeon Mbenga and Cameron Hutchinson
to win the midget boys 4x100 relay.
But the
biggest surprise of the meet was delivered by St. Matthew's
senior boys sprint relay team which won the event despite
the fact that none of the four runners finished higher than
fifth in their individual event.
Nathan
Casimir placed fifth in the 100-metre final; Lovely Tshibanda
placed 10th in the 100-metre preliminaries and failed to
make the final; Alex Vilain finished fifth in the junior
boys 100; and Gorky Dumas didn't compete in an individual
event, he only ran in the relay.
Together
they ran a nearly perfect race with a flawless series of
hand-offs. They beat their nearest rivals by 0.17 seconds
in a time of 44.83 seconds.
Other
performances of note by east end athletes include Corey
Abouem from Gloucester High School who won the junior girls
shot put with a record throw of 11.18 metres; Carl Mallet
from Colonel By Secondary School who won the midget boys
javelin and placed second in the long jump; Jeremy Delorme,
also from Colonel By, who won the junior boys triple jump;
and Wariso Dullo from Gloucester H.S. who won the senior
boys javelin.
(This
story was made possible thanks to the generous support of
our local business partners.)