A recent cross country meet in the Ottawa Valley saw Valour win their 8th straight team title, keeping them undefeated since 2012.
The races took place on Wednesday, October 20th, 2021 at Huglis Blueberry Ranch in Laurentian Valley.
Valour Cross Country and Track Coach Rick Schroeder says Valour’s novice boys finished 2nd, the junior boys and girls finished 2nd and the senior boys and girls both won their races.
The novice boys 4km run saw Malahi Kenny of Bishop Smith win with a time of 15 minutes, seven seconds and eight milliseconds (15:07.08), roughly a minute and 13 seconds ahead of second place. Bishop won the team event for novice boys with an average time of 17:15.33.
The novice girls 4km run saw Quinn Couglin of Opeongo High School take first place with a time of 16:53.43, about a minute 53 seconds ahead of second place. Jeanne Lajoie won the Novice Girls team event averaging a run time of 20:37.03.
The junior boys 5km race had a close finish. Liam Copeland of Opeongo ran a 20:35.94, less than two seconds ahead of second place. Opeongo also took the best team time in the junior boys run at 23:02.30.
In the junior girls 5km run, Koree Yazh of Arnprior District High School (ADHS) won with a time of 21:04.01, two minutes and 37 seconds faster than second place. Equinoxe had the best team time in the junior girls category averaging 27:18.89.
The senior boys race had Valour at the top of the podium. Ben Arsenault of Valour finished the 6km under 20-minutes, running a 19:58.59, about 24 seconds ahead of second place. Valour also took the best team time in the senior boys race with an average of 23:36.58.
In the senior girls 6km race, Heidi Hugli of Fellowes put up an impressive time of 24:18.48, roughly a minute and 15 seconds faster than second place. The senior girls team from Valour averaged the best time of 31:54.13 for the 6km run.