If any runners have any aspirations of taking Lindsay Carson’s CIS title away from her this fall they better be ready for a fight. Carson made an emphatic statement to the CIS in leading the Gryphons to a massive victory at Saturday’s Western International.
The pre-race hype surrounded University of Toronto freshman Tamara Jewett. Jewett, who is coming off an incredible summer that included an 8th place finish at the World Junior Championships, took the race from the gun and looked like she was going to run away with the victory. By the one mile mark, she had built a 10+ meter lead on Carson and many wondered if the race was over. However, over the next kilometer Carson made a concerted push to pull even and eventually pass Jewett. As they past the halfway mark Carson continued to pull away eventually winning by 29 seconds, in the third fastest time ever run on the historic Thames Valley Course.
Carson’s teammates put on an incredible show of depth led by third year women Courtney Laurie’s breakthrough race. Laurie placed an outstanding fourth ahead of returning first team All-Canadians Leslie Sexton (Queen’s) and teammate Rachel Cliff. Laurie and Carson were joined in the top seven by teammates Cliff in sixth and Lindsay Furtado in seventh. Rounding out the Gryphon scores was Shantelle Novak who was 13th. Overall the Gryphons had an incredible nine of the top 24 finishers. The team easily won with an outstanding score of 31 points, narrowly missing the meet record total of 28 held by Osaka University.
“Our women’s team is the deepest we have ever been and they showed it today. Lindsay is fitter than last year and Courtney has made huge progress. With returning All-Canadian Jess Vanhie not finishing today (heat exhaustion), we feel our team is in a great position to repeat and may be the deepest team in Gryphon history.” Head Coach Dave Scott-Thomas commented after the race.
Motivated by the strong showing by the Gryphon women, the men set off at breakneck pace, with six of the Gryphons among the top 12 runners through the first five kilometers. Teammates Josh Roundell, Derek Snider and Allan Brett took turns pushing the pace as the Gryphons tried to run away from the field. With the field hitting the 5 kilometer mark in 16 minutes, the race began to break as athletes started to fall from the lead pack. First off was Gryphon John Parrott who was followed out by John Bodirlau of Windsor and Gryphon Rob Koziarski, both of whom were forced to abandon the race due to the hot conditions. As the field moved through the final lap, the pack was eventually whittled down to six including Dave Weston (Windsor), Matt Hulse (Queens), Kyle O’Neil (Western), Ryan Armstong (Western) and Gryphons Josh Roundell and Derek Snider.
Weston then put in a surge and went on to a comfortable win, the surge dropped Snider and Armstrong leaving O’Neil, Hulse and Roundell to battle out for the final spots on the podium. Eventually Hulse proved to be the strongest as he captured the silver over O’Neil, with Roundell winding up fourth. For Roundell, like Laurie for the women, the race marked a huge breakthrough as he was nearly a minute faster than last year. Teammates Derek Snider finished sixth with Matt Brunsting seventh. Parrott valiantly held on to finish 13th with teammate Allan Brett right behind in 14th in his debut for the Gryphons. Overall the Gryphons narrowly won the team title by 3 points over the hometown Mustangs.
Head Coach Dave Scott-Thomas commented after the race, “Josh and Derek ran in new territory today, overall our guys went out a little to hard and they need to respect the distance. We need to get them running smart Gryphon running. We didn’t run tactically smart and we have four weeks to figure out how to fix that. Overall we ran okay today, but we will need to be better if we want to win a National Title.”
The Gryphons will next be in action in two weeks at the Paul Short Run at Lehigh University. Expected to make their debuts for the Gryphons will be last year’s OUA MVP Kyle Boorsma and returning All-Canadian Joe Brunsting both of whom have rested during the first two meets of the season. Also, expected to return will be the Gryphons’ top finisher at last weekend’s New Balance Gryphon Open freshman Rob Jackson. Jackson was unable to compete this weekend due to illness.
Lindsay Carson
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