Staff
The Muskie cross-country running team went to the school of hard knocks on Saturday.
Team captain Jenny Hammond was the lone Muskie to finish in the top half of the field, coming in 136th place out of 278 runners in the senior girls’ division at the OFSAA championships near Collingwood.
Hammond’s time of 23:20 over the 4.955-km course was just under five minutes behind winner Madeleine Ghazarian of the Preston Panthers (Cambridge), who clocked in at 18:25.
The Muskie squad, made up entirely of senior girls’ runners in Fort High’s first-ever trip as a team to OFSAA, had to deal with an unfamiliar and challenging course.
As well, the field of runners more than three times the size of any other meet they took part in this season.
Those factors had a hand in pushing the rest of the Muskies—and the team as a whole—to near the bottom of the pack.
Sydney Radigan placed 262nd (26:44) while Erin Tomalty (269th, 27:29) and Gabi Peters (270th, 27:31) almost finished side-by-side.
Tory Beaudry landed in 274th (27:44).
Kennedi Handberg served as the team’s alternate and did not compete.
Beaudry’s time didn’t count towards the team’s overall mark of 1:45.04, which was the slowest among the 39 teams in the division.
But Fort High actually finished 38th in points with 937 (the added total of the placements of the four qualifying runners), which was ahead of the last-place Timmins Blues.
They had nobody finish better than 224th to come in at 995 points.
First place went to the Glebe Gryphons (Ottawa), who landed all four of their qualifying runners in the top 40 to finish with 77 points and a total combined time of 1:21.
